Trying to figure out what those links you’ve gained are worth? Our unique formulae will let you know.
By William Furney, PR & content strategist, Reachology
Figuring out the value of your online PR and marketing efforts is no easy task. With all kinds of metrics telling you what a link to your website is worth and how you stand to gain higher rankings, traffic and customers, it’s no wonder not only digital PR agencies are confused, but also their clients.
Some agencies rely on Moz Domain Authority (DA) to gauge their links’ value while others use Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) and still other digital PR and marketing agencies make use of any number of online tools to discover site metrics — all of them giving different scores, facts and figures. So it’s hardly a surprise that so many digital marketers and PRs, as well as their clients, are often left scratching their heads.
Thankfully, there’s a way out of the puzzling metrics dilemma. To give clients peace of mind that our digital PR services and efforts won’t be in vain, and their investment wasted, we developed our own measurement system to assess the potential of links and mentions: Q-Flux and ReachScore.
How Q-Flux works in digital PR
As the global leader in search, with over 91% market share, every company wants to rank high on Google, and to do that, you need to comply with its requirements. The search giant is continually updating its algorithms so websites that meet its terms are rewarded and those that don’t are pushed further down the results pages. Google doesn’t do this to necessarily punish firms but to make the internet a better place, for everyone.
Our Q-Flux measuring system takes ranking factors into account by examining relevance, backlink profiles of webpages and important search engine optimisation (SEO) elements like responsive design, for mobile devices; page speed; and Google’s Core Web Vitals requirements.
Relevance is a key component of Q-Flux because it lies at the heart of what Google does and what has made it one of the world’s most valuable companies. After all, if you type a query into Google and don’t get what you’re looking for, but irrelevant results, you’re not likely to stick around and use the search engine all that much.
As we’ve mentioned, when calculating Q-Flux, we also look at the quality of pages as defined by Google: do they measure up and are quick to load so that they don’t frustrate people by taking ages? Are they easily accessible and fully functional on mobile devices, because that’s where most people are now using the internet, instead of desktop computers?
If pages and overall websites are not up to scratch, meeting these and other requirements, including backlinks and solid content, it’s highly likely that companies’ digital PR campaigns won’t deliver the results they want because their online presence is letting them down, with a big bang. Q-Flux scores give marketers a clear understanding of which links are likely to be affecting their SEO efforts.
ReachScore: measuring your digital PR success (or failure)
When digital campaigns conclude and it’s time to tot up all that coverage you’ve gained, you need to know what the value of all those mentions and links are, so that you can work out your return on spend. Our unique ReachScore system makes it simple, by using a scoring method so you can measure the worth of individual aspects of a campaign.
ReachScore is based on a points system that assigns a value to different types of coverage. So, for instance, a mention in The Times would score highest (10) while a lower-tier blog covering a story would be lower — perhaps around 3, depending on their domain authority, traffic and other metrics — and a mention on social media might be lower still, but also higher, if it’s an influencer with a lot of followers. With ReachScore, marketers are able to see at a glance how their campaigns perform and what their relative value is.
In an online world where digital PR coverage is often uncertain and companies don’t always know if they’re getting the returns they want, Q-Flux and ReachScore provide the kind of surety we all need. Reachology uses both scores as a way to guarantee ROI. Depending on the package you choose, we will set a minimum score for both and work until we meet them, something that – as far as we know – no other digital PR agency offers.
Want to know more about our unique digital PR measuring methods and how they can help your digital PR campaigns? Book a free initial call with Reachology now.
