Run/work at a startup? Don't buy links, use PR instead!

At Radioactive PR (http://www.radioactivepr.com), we sell on two main things – great results and measurement.

Whether it’s:

- a strategic launch campaign
- retained ongoing PR and press office work
- creative stunts
- social media management
- crisis management
- or any other issue a client might come to us to help with, across any sector

It’s all about those two things.

One area we particularly specialise in is PR for SEO – or link building through editorially-minded PR.

We decided to take a look at our link building results over the last 12 months, creating what could be the first such report of its kind, bench-marking just what PR for SEO can do for clients.

Transcript

1. Run/work at a startup? Stop buying links and use PR instead It’s cheaper, the links are better and you won’t be penalised Looking at our results over the last 12 months
2. The slides you’ll want to see if you only have 5 minutes! SLIDE 14: HOW MUCH COVERAGE DID WE GET IN A YEAR? ▪ (video commentary on this slide can be watched here) SLIDE 15: AVERAGE AGENCY RESULTS IN A QUARTER ▪ (video commentary on this slide can be watched here) SLIDE 16: AVE. CLIENT RESULTS PER MONTH ▪ (video commentary on this slide can be watched here) SLIDE 4: WHAT A PR AGENCY DOES ▪ (video commentary on this can be watched here – takes you to YouTube video) SLIDES 20-25: WHY BUYING LINKS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE ▪ (video commentary on this can be watched from here) SLIDES 33 & 34: SITE VISIBILITY AND KEYWORD BENEFITS ▪ (video commentary on this can be watched from here) If you have longer, please do read OR WATCH the whole thing!
3. We are a small but perfectly formed team based in GLOUUUUUUCESTE RRRRR* *The unofficial capital of PR, obviously
4. At Radioactive PR, we sell on two main things – great results and measurement Whether it’s: ❑ a strategic launch campaign ❑ retained ongoing PR ❑ stunts ❑ social media management ❑ crisis management ❑ or any other issue a client might come to us to help with, across any sector it’s all about those two things. One area we particularly specialise in is PR for SEO – or link building. We’ve been doing it for 5 years – and founder Rich for 10+ We’re working across ~15 projects and retained clients at any given time, sometimes more, sometimes less!
5. We wanted to look at our link building results over the last year to find: ▪ The number of pieces of coverage per month, quarter and per client ▪ The number of links per month, quarter and per client and ▪ The link to coverage percentage we operate at as an agency and per client
6. We’ve used Coverage Book to track every piece of online coverage for the last few years
7. So we went to its Insights section to break the data down by month
8. And ended up with 12 spreadsheets packed full of data like this. Thousands and thousands of rows to sort!
9. We went through each spreadsheet to tot the monthly data up… ▪ Total estimated coverage views (not a metric we/clients care much about, much like estimated monthly visits) ▪ Average domain authority of the sites we achieved coverage on ▪ Total social shares of coverage for that month
10. And added them all to one main spreadsheet. PR is glam, what can I say?
11. Which we then totalled and averaged, per quarter (Damn you summer holidays )
12. Importantly –we looked at the number of links we got for clients through PR each month
13. And using the total number of links, we worked out the average link to coverage percentages per quarter
14. Which looks like this when graphed –the dark green bar is links as a % of coverage 1714 1555 2756 1293 66.6% 96% 81.1% 81.6% 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 Q1 (Sep-Nov 18) Q2 (Dec 18-Feb 19) Q3 (Mar-May 19) Q4 (Jun-Aug 19) Number of pieces of coverage vs links in last 4 quarters Number of pieces of coverage Total links March to May in 2019 was big coverage and link- wise…! Otherwise, happy with that consistency
15. And here’s an average quarter for us using that data
16. Averaging this out across clients we’ve worked on link building through PR for, we’ve been able to show average client performance. As an average: ❑ 76 pieces of coverage per month ❑ 62 links per month ❑ DA 57 links ❑ ~5,400 social media shares of those stories per month ❑ 81% of coverage has a link There are obviously plenty of caveats here – clients pay differing amounts, for one, which will affect results
17. I know what you’re thinking. What about follow –nofollowratio?
18. Well, 6,000 links is a lot to manually go through and we’ve got work to do! So we took a sample size of 200, checked each and found…
19. 72% were followlinks
20. 1. Buying links that pass PageRank (link equity) are a violation of Google’s Guidelines – but it is still common practice; many companies do budget and pay for links 2. Editorial links –like those we achieve through PR –are welcomed 1. 2. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en
21. Our average link for the year is DA 57 (though we’re getting multiple DA 90+ for clients every single month) This to the right is publicly visible pricing for an SEO service that guarantees follow links. It offers DA40+ links starting from £130 https://nobs.link/pricing/
22. Continuing with link buying research –a tactic widely used by SEO-conscious marketers… Here’s somebody’s review of a year’s worth of link buying, highlighting that the average cost for a link (average DA not mentioned) was $151.45, or £121.64 https://www.skipblast.com/authority-builders-review/
23. And this, from a third public guide to link buying using multiple platforms I’ve not seen many DA69 links up for sale in my research for this report, but averaging these seven ordered links you can see that: - Average DA is 56 (so, as close to our average as I could find prices aligned to) - Average price is $279 – or £224.07 at the time of writing https://hookagency.com/guest-post-outreach/
24. We get clients an average of 62 links per month. 45 of these are follow links. 45 links x £224.07 (approx. cost of DA 56 link) would cost £10,083.15
25. So not only does Google say ‘buying links goes against our guidelines and we’ll penalise you if we find out’ (and encourage editorial links –would you believe it, THAT’S WHAT WE DO), you’d have to spend £10k+ PCM on those links to get anywhere near our AVERAGE. It’s not uncommon to get 100+ links for individual clients some months And that’s before you even consider: ❑ The brand awareness and reputational benefits of PR ❑ The traffic and customers good editorially-earned links can send ❑ The fact you can retarget visitors we’ve got to your site through paid social ❑ That our work isn’t just about links – great PR reaches your target audience and encourages them to act and/or think to achieve your marketing goals
26. Oh hey, it’s you again. Sure, this has all about outputs –not outcomes. So let’s look at a few examples of our approach to PR for SEO and the measurable benefits –(we post plenty of case studies on our agency blog –we’re pretty proud of our work)
27. The Instagram Rich List 2019 for Hopper HQ https://www.radioactivepr.com/pr-results- instagram-rich-list-2019/
28. We devised and have published a report into how much high-profile Instagram influencers charge for Instagram scheduling tool Hopper HQ each year since 2017. Outcomes in 2019: 250+ pieces of coverage, including The Daily Mail,The Mirror, Metro UK and CNBC. 60% linked to Hopper HQ’s onsite content and/or homepage Average DA of websites linking to the site from said coverage: 71 Within 2 days of the story launching, the Rich List on Hopper HQ’s site had 32,000+ views, compared to 20k views in the first 2 days of the Rich List 2018, gaining new service users in the process
29. Game of Thrones Finale Counselling Service for Bark.com
30. Delivering results fit for a King (of Westeros) ▪ The story achieved 350+ pieces of UK and international coverage with the majority linking, including The Metro, Yahoo and the Mail Online ▪ 18,000+ visitors – with 371 going on to become customers! ▪ Average DA of websites linking to the site from said coverage: 75
31. Childcare.co.uk’s Anti-Bullying Self- Defence Classes For Kids https://www.radioactivepr.com/pr-campaign- results-bullying-self-defence-kids/
32. A research story we did for the UK’s most popular childcare website found that more than half of parents (52%) are worried about their child being bullied. Using that as a story hook, we arranged a partnership between Childcare.co.uk and The Jiu Jitsu Foundation to offer free self-defence classes to children, scheduled to go live in time for Anti-Bullying Week With an opt-in mechanic, we targeted parents of young children. The first 500 Childcare.co.uk members to register interest would receive a free month’s worth of classes for their child 100+ pieces of coverage across national and high DA regional titles, with 95% linking Average DA of websites linking to the site from said coverage: 72 6,000 parents opted in for more information, with a boost of thousands of new members to Childcare.co.uk
33. Here’s the site visibility of a client of ours. Can you see where we started working with them? https://www.radioactivepr.com/lets-kill-the-idea-that-were-only-as-good-as-our-last-pr-results/ Read a wordy blog we wrote about measurement that includes this graph and more here:
34. Search engine performance can be hugely impacted too Using tools such as SEMrush and SanityCheck.io we can see which keywords competitors rank for and even come up with story ideas as a result. Good PR teamed up with smart SEO analytics (sometimes we work directly with technical SEO team members and agencies) is unquestionably powerful
35. Again, plenty more case studies on our homepage and blog - some weird and wonderful, some with a serious message and some simply using client data to create useful and sticky tools that rank well and drive regular traffic
36. We also recently started Radioactive Talent –a performance-led arm of the Radioactive Group, partnering brands with content creators, influencers and streamers, working on cost per lead, quote and acquisition marketing
37. Right, that’s all, folks. Hopefully this furthers the conversation about what good PR is capable of – it’s not about column inches anymore and we’ll be damned if we lose client budget simply because we were too worried to speak up. And who knows the impact of the UGC/sponsored/no-follow as a hint towards SERPs!? So, uh, yeah, give us a shout if you want to chat. rich@radioactivepr.com @RichLeighPR