Earned media and implied links, visualized by Brawn Media.
In a patent for search engine ranking methods that was granted on March 25, Google codified the role earned media plays in search rank. The patent describes how the search engine values “implied links,” which it describes as a reference to a target resource [i.e. a web site or web page] such as a citation, but does not include an express link to the resource, as part of its process for determining the search rank of a web page.
What are these implied links? In a nutshell, they are relevant earned mentions, and run the gamut from media pick up to references on blog posts to mentions in discussion groups.
“What does all this mean? It means that once a connection is made by someone typing in a brand name or other search query and then clicking on a site it creates a connection in Google’s eyes,” SEO expert Simon Penson explained in a Moz.com post about brand mentions. “The search engine can then store that info and use it in the context of unlinked mentions around the web in order to help weight rankings of particular sites.”
The implications for public relations are significant. The mentions your PR campaigns create in turn generate audience activity, which Google watches in the aggregate and uses to inform search results. In an excellent blog post on this topic titled, “Google Validates that PR is SEO in Patent Filing,” Christopher Penn of Shift Communications concludes:
“Google is publicly acknowledging that every time your brand gets a mention in a story, that counts as an implied link that affects your SEO, that affects how many links there are to your website, which in turn affects how well your site shows up when someone is searching for your brand. In short, PR is SEO(or part of it). It singlehandedly validates all of the PR that you’ve generated for your brand, all of the mentions and citations that you’ve accrued through hard work, great products and reputation, and effective public relations, even if you didn’t necessarily get an explicit link in the coverage.”
I agree with Penn’s assessment. Public relations builds awareness and credibility that influence audience behavior. Part of the ongoing struggle we have with measurement is due to the fact that those coveted media clips don’t capture the follow-on changes in audience behavior they can inspire.
The new KPIs for PR & an important caveat
Don’t assume that more is better when it comes to “implied links.” Google is a stickler for relevance and quality, and the company is continually refining its search algorithm to deliver ever-better results for users. In doing so, Google have specifically targeted web spam and are emphasizing the value of authentic earned media. Tactics designed to create artificial references to a brand or organization won’t work, and brands employing them may risk incurring penalties from Google, disappearing from search results altogether.
However, it’s also important to note that what we consider “earned,” has evolved. While Google’s search chief is on record saying that the company does not use social signals as part of its ranking algorithm, this does not mean that activity generated from social media users has no effect on search. There’s no doubt that inbound traffic and time spent on a web page are important factors that Google watches. Driving discovery and social sharing of your brand’s owned content is an important first step in generating the references to your company or brand that comprise the ‘implied links’ Google values. And sparking social sharing under a relevant hashtag on Twitter, professionals on LinkedIn or interested consumers on other networks will generate the sort of quality traffic and ongoing activity on which Google’s algorithm places high values.
With all this in mind, here are a few KPIs (key performance indicators) public relations professionals should use to gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns in driving lasting value for their organizations.
Search query volumes: Increases in the volumes of search queries that include either brand terms, or terms strongly associated with the brand, industry or product that lead visitors to the organizations’ web site are difficult to measure perfectly – Google masks a lot of search query data – but some does make it through to the web analytics programs organizations use to tabulate web traffic. Talk to your web metrics guru about gaining access to the reports. Important note: you’ll also need to connect with team handling web site optimization for your organization about what keywords and phrases they’re targeting, and which URLs are associated with each term. You’ll want to make a point of using those terms (or near derivatives) when relevant to your message and you’ll also want to include links to the related target URL in your releases, too.)
Inbound traffic to specific web pages: We’ve previously discussed the importance of including a URL to specific (and relevant!) web page in press releases, rather than dumping readers onto the homepage and forcing them to search for information related to what they read in the release. These links are trackable, and working with your organization’s web team, you should be able to measure increases in inbound traffic to specific pages. (Coordination with your web and inbound marketing teams is crucial.)
Lead quality or conversion rate: What happens once someone has clicked on a link you placed in a press release? The next step that visitor takes is an important one on the buying journey, and it’s something your marketing team is paying close attention to. In many cases, a subsequent call to action on the web page will offer the visitor more content, such as a video or offer of a white paper download. The marketing team looks at the conversion rate (the percentage of time a prospect actually completes a transaction) and they may be scoring the quality of the leads the web site garners along the way. The PR team can have a tremendous impact in generating an influx of well-qualified prospects to the organization’s web site. If you’re tracking the traffic PR generates through trackable URLs, you can also track the quality of those leads, and the subsequent conversion rates. This is the sort of data that can be equated to revenue and will make a CFO sit up and take notice.
Improved search rank for key pages: Increases in search rank for key web site pages for specific sets of terms. Over time, the implied links and earned media the PR team generates should have a positive effect on the search ranking of specific pages on the brand’s web site. Garnering those results – and maintaining them, which requires sustained effort – are some of the truest measures of the value of the media and mentions the brand has earned.
The power of earned media has long been indisputable, but tough for PR to measure. With Google’s acknowledgement of its role in determining search results, public relations pros can connect their campaigns to the online interactions that drive revenue for the organization.