Quality Over Quantity in Digital PR: Using Reporting to Shift Your Client’s Focus from Volume to Impact

The digital PR landscape is ever-evolving, which means the ways in which we work (alongside the goalposts for meeting Google’s guidelines for creating valuable content) are regularly changing. 

However, despite this constant change within the industry, the metric many view as a key indicator of what ‘success’ or ‘strong results’ look like has largely remained the same. 

For years now, the singular most commonly used metric for measuring success in DPR, and a key indicator of how effective a DPR strategy has performed, has been down to the number of links achieved. 

Historically, agencies would (and some still do 👀) place link KPIs against individual campaigns, leading clients to assume that the volume of links secured is the metric they should care about most when deciding how successfully their DPR strategy is performing.

The problem with this is that, although link KPIs are a metric used to measure success (to a certain extent), looking only at the volume of links achieved isn’t an effective way to determine how well our strategies have performed for clients anymore.

Now, we need to embrace more holistic approaches for measuring success, moving away from quantitative reporting to more well-rounded, qualitative analyses. 

So, how can we use reporting to shift a client’s focus to the quality of coverage, as opposed to the volume of links?

Within this blog, I’ll touch on all the must-have metrics you should include within your DPR reporting, how to incorporate each metric to demonstrate value, and why!

As an industry, we know that our focus should always be on the impact of our work, however, we’ve seen a shift in what we should really be considering as ‘impactful’.

Now more than ever, relevancy is the most important metric for measuring the quality of our digital PR success, as opposed to the quantity of coverage and links earned.

Thanks to Google’s ever-evolving updates, the ways in which search engines rank a site’s trustworthiness are largely reliant upon high-quality backlinks from reputable and relevant sites. So when we’re measuring the success of a campaign’s performance, we should be considering those two key factors first, and how they help to support our wider SEO goals. 

Sure, you might have ended a quarter on 50 links for a client, but what does this actually mean for that brand? Are all 50 links from high-authority, hyper-relevant publications? 

If the answer is no, then the success of the results achieved should not be solely measured against the number of links.

We should be looking at all coverage landed for a client and really be breaking down what that means for the brand, rather than just reporting on a successful month or quarter of hitting KPI.

Firstly, take look at your current reporting metrics and dig into how you can diversify the factors you report on to really break down the quality of the coverage. 

At Digitaloft, we’re constantly revising our reporting metrics to ensure we’re highlighting our successes beyond the standard link KPI and average DR, and what those successes really mean for our clients. 

Here are some of the key metrics you should be utilising in your day-to-day reporting to help demonstrate quality in your results. And, if you don’t already report on all of the metrics listed below, then you’re missing out on getting the deserved credit for your efforts!

For all coverage, these include:

• Does the article include a link, or brand mention?
• Does the article include company positioning – eg if it’s a travel brand, is this clear in the article?
• DR of the site
• Publication type (national, lifestyle, hyper-relevant, regional etc.)
• Publication traffic (ranges are fine here!)
• Does the publication have location relevance – eg for a brand in the US, is the publication US?
• Is a spokesperson from the brand mentioned in the publication? Report on it!
• Is it a dream publication? Tick it off!

And when it comes to breaking down coverage, including a backlink, you should couple the above with the following metrics:

• Follow, or no follow?
• Anchor text (brand, generic, keyword, brand & keyword, etc.) 
• Target page (home page, campaign page, product or commercial page)
• Syndicated or non-syndicated?
• Is it an affiliate link?
• Is it a link from a new referring domain?

We also carry out in-depth QBRs (quarterly business reviews) at Digitaloft for all of our clients that go into the finer details of our DPR activity to really showcase the quality and impact of our results.

Here’s how you should be breaking down some of these key metrics to demonstrate quality in your results: 

Understanding what a quality link looks like for each of your clients will vastly vary depending on their industry and niche, so getting to know your client and their audience is really important in the initial stages. 

Ask questions, and understand what they want out of your partnership. Maybe they have a dream publications list – ask them for it! 

It’s important to note that what relevancy looks like for one brand will be significantly different for another. So, before you begin to attempt any outreach, it’s crucial to do your research:

• Identify which topics your clients specialise in
• Honour the topics they’d wish to avoid
• Dig into the brand to understand what their target audiences engage with
• Identify where target audiences are engaging with the brand (and determine your location relevance: can you go global with coverage, or would your client prefer to prioritise landing UK press?)

Ask yourself if it makes sense for your client to be seen in this publication you’re about to target.

Not only will this result in quality coverage over time, but you’ll also demonstrate to the client that you understand the value of landing in authoritative and relevant publications from the start.

In most cases, a quality link is one that lands on a domain of high authority and has hyper-relevance to that brand or niche. 

If you’ve ticked both of those boxes, then create a dedicated section that shouts about these results specifically in your reports, and give an explanation into how this stand-out coverage will have a positive impact for the brand! 

Landed an expert comment within this coverage too? Identify how many times you have achieved this, and explain the impact of how this is working harder to build authority for the brand in line with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines! 

Your clients should be providing you with key category pages, keywords, or areas of the site they’re looking to build links to as a priority, and so you should be measuring results here specifically to cement the trust in quality coverage with your client! 

Where you’ve been provided with key category page focuses, being able to demonstrate that you have built [x amount of] links to 3 of their key category pages (for e.g.) within a 3-month period, as opposed to a large volume of links to a homepage, will really showcase the quality of the coverage. 

It will also demonstrate how you’ve listened to the client’s goals and been successful in crafting your strategies to achieve those targeted results too. 

However, it’s important to caveat here that where you aim to earn links to on a client’s site is also dependent on a few factors, so here are a couple of things to consider:

• How new is the site? – If your client’s site is brand new and ranking outside of the top 100 results on Google for its top keywords, then the goal would be to earn editorial links at scale (links that make sense for the brand and in publications that make sense to position the site as experts, while keeping the opportunity to build links in a larger volume a little open) to start to close the gap with competitors before switching the strategy focus to hyper-relevance.

• Does the site have a healthy backlink profile? – If so, then your strategy will be very different here as you look to dive into competitor activity and close the link gap with a focus on building links to specific category or product pages.

So, how can you amplify the value of backlinks secured to key category or product pages? 

At Digitaloft, we become an extension of our client’s team, so requesting access to all the important tools that can support our reporting efforts is really key. 

Ensure you have access to your client’s GA4 to accurately report on traffic and engagement metrics alongside their Google Search Console to ensure you’re always keeping up to date with any opportunities to enhance site performance.

You can use GA4 stats and data to pinpoint organic traffic increasing to key category pages within your reported time frame, so ensure you couple these results with your DPR activity. GSC reporting also allows the opportunity to make well-informed suggestions to enhance site presence in the SERPs too, something your clients will definitely thank you for!

Take a look at conversion rates. Has there been an uplift here? Or have you seen an increase in revenue? Can you compare this to YoY stats? 

Perhaps your DPR strategy has supported these increases, so ensure you are utilising a range of tools and evidencing all of these successes relating to the quality coverage achieved within your reporting.

When onboarding your clients, it’s important to demonstrate your pro-activeness in supporting a wider SEO strategy, and ensure you’re making a note of the keywords they want to rank for; and then regularly checking in on these priority areas throughout your partnership (as they can change!). 

While we know it can take up to 12 weeks to see a shift in keyword positions following the initial stages of DPR activity, reflecting on where you started vs. where you are in 3-6 months’ time will really help to support the cause in demonstrating the value of quality coverage where an increase in positionings for their key terms has occurred and can be associated with a successful DPR strategy. 

Demonstrating the importance of brand mentions to clients can be a harder metric to measure the impact of, but they are definitely results you should be reporting on, especially if you’ve landed a brand mention on a hyper-relevant site! 

Brand mentions are quickly becoming the internet’s answer to word of mouth, allowing you to build authority and provide that vote of confidence amongst target audiences. 

Brand mentions are also important for strengthening your E-E-A-T signals, resulting in increased brand visibility and trust. While brand mentions in relevant publications for your client may not direct readers straight to a page on-site, they can and do have a huge influence on direct traffic.

Also, don’t forget that there’s always the opportunity to chase for a link to be included at a later date if your initial link reclamation follow-up isn’t successful! 

Landed a domain the client hasn’t featured on before? Maybe it’s one of your client’s dream publications? You should be dedicating a section within your reporting to show the value of this! 

We ask all clients to share a list of their dream publications they’d love to secure a backlink from, which gives us a key target list of unique referring domains from the very start of our partnership.

Ensure you dedicate time to crafting the perfect pitches to land on these sites to help build trust with your clients. In the meantime, we should also be looking into where the client hasn’t landed before outside of this dream list and where it would be beneficial for them to; and reporting on our successes and demonstrating the value of that coverage when we do! 

Diving into a link gap analysis each quarter gives you the chance to gain insight into where your client has been covered, and their competitors haven’t. 

So, not only can you showcase how your results are better and working harder for the brand, but you can also demonstrate why they’re better; by reporting on the comparison in average site DR and overall relevancy.

Reporting on this also allows you to build further trust with your client in that, every quarter, you are effectively honing in on their competitor’s activity to craft strategies that are most relevant to their niche, ensuring they’re always striving to do better than their competitors too.

Being able to see growth across a brand’s DR is part of a longer-term strategy, however, it’s always important to look back at where you started and what you have achieved to date too! 

If you’ve seen growth, then touch on this in your quarterly reporting, and ensure you compare this to previous quarter performance.

Maybe you switched up your strategy in Q2, which led to supporting an increase in DR within Q3; you should be touching on all of these results, and evidencing how performance across your strategies (success and learnings) has had a positive impact in supporting this growth.

Don’t be afraid to have conversations with your clients on the importance of looking at the quality of results, vs the quantity. 

While a client is completely fine to question the volume of results (they are paying us after all!), it’s also important to understand how we can look to build trust between us and the client through our reporting and expertise within the industry, to get that buy-in on quality results. 

Always review, mould and adapt your reporting in line with your client’s needs, to demonstrate why looking at quality (hyper-relevant and reputable) over quantity (the number of total links) is a much more important metric to measure success from in this ever-changing digital PR world.

If you’d like to read more on relevancy in digital PR, our MD, James, wrote a great blog on considering ‘Would you still want this link if Google didn’t exist?’ that could inspire some further thoughts on how you can work to shift your client’s focus from volume to impact!