The Importance of Online Media Placements
While print media placements (i.e. newspapers, magazines, etc.) are still critical to a successful public relations campaign, online placements with links back to the company websites are extremely important in today’s digital age.
Adding a digital presence provides a powerful punch for clients by expanding their audience reach and helping connect and develop relationships with a much wider body of consumers than print.
One important aspect of online placements is that they improve search engine optimization (SEO). Earning high quality placement on search engines through search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge benefit that cannot be earned through print media work alone. When clients have backlinks to their websites from trusted, high-traffic sites, they have a better chance of ranking on the first page of Google for important keywords that relate to their business.
Pitching and placing stories online is one of best ways to get high-quality links from major publications that direct to your website, organically.
For example, if you are a cosmetic dermatologist, you’ll want people searching for the medical treatments you provide to find your company because they’re your target customer. To ensure you come up in a search, a strategic online placement in Marie Claire or Allure, highlighting you as an expert in Botox will be a great SEO tactic.
This is because it has you cited as an expert on a top beauty authority website within an article related to your specific keywords. This strategy works across industries, whether you’re an attorney or law firm, an event planner or caterer, or a food and beverage brand, in addition to many, many others.
Another important aspect of online media placements is that they are more easily shared than print placements. Press stories provide valuable third-party credibility for clients. Couple that with readers sharing the story on social media, and your possibility for influence grows drastically.
For example, a single issue of Women’s Health, which has a circulation of around one million readers, may be read about ten times at a doctor’s office, but only one or two times in an individual home. However, an article on Women’s Health Online has the opportunity for nearly 12 million viewers per month, and lives on the site, in many cases, for years to come.
Here are some other examples of print circulation vs. online unique visitors per month (numbers are approximate):
- The New York Times: 600,000 print circulation / 30,000,000 unique online visitors per month
- Vogue: 1,000,000 print circulation / 7,000,000 unique online visitors per month
- Metro New York: 137,000 print circulation / 400,000 unique online visitors per month
- For more information, or if you’re interested in finding out more about a digital media campaign, please email us at rcourihay@aol.com.
In fact, when mentioning online media placements, we usually think of advertising. Search Engine Optimization is a long term strategy that relies on continuous technical improvements and content creation. So link building is just a fraction of the SEO, and is in fact, an off site SEO technique that is very delicate and technical, and the content above just explained a small piece of it.
Our approach is always to focus on our target audience, and you can do that just by thinking about your client profile.
For example, if we have influencers who you want to offer your services to, you would target their pain points and write a topic like:
Being Instagram Big: How Much is Your Profile Worth
And in that topic we can reflect on 1. Vanity metrics 2. Influencers and micro influencers 3. What is an engagement rate 4. How to add more value to your online presence 5. How to take a step further (this is where you mention other digital marketing and traditional marketing initiatives, and invite them to contact you)
That type of content marketing works because we are A) giving answers to our targeted group, B) educating our prospect about the importance of the services we offer, C) presenting ourselves as a knowledgeable source for influencers in need, and inviting them directly to reach out to us.