How does digital PR impact website traffic?

If you trade or sell products online, the bottom line is that you’re going to want to increase the number of visitors to your website.

No matter what your digital marketing strategy looks like – whether you’re pouring all your energy and resources into PPC and influencer campaigns or technical SEO and affiliate marketing – getting people to click through to your site is often the primary goal. Because from there, visitors can read about your brand, see what products and services you offer, and hopefully click through to ‘buy’. 

The good news is that digital PR can make it even easier to reach that goal, and it’s particularly useful in increasing your site’s organic traffic. As digital PR professionals, it’s our job to score press hits and acquire those all important backlinks to drive traffic back to your website. Keep reading this blog article to find out more about the different types of website traffic, how digital PR boosts traffic, and how to measure the impact of digital PR on your website’s performance. 

What’s in this article:

• What are the different types of website traffic?
• How digital PR boosts website traffic
• How to measure the impact of digital PR on your website’s performance
• Real examples of digital PR’s impact on website traffic
• Key takeaways

What are the different types of website traffic?

A well-rounded digital PR campaign should aim to gain traffic from different tactics and sources, so understanding the differences is essential for analysing the effectiveness of your digital PR and wider digital marketing efforts. Here are the main categories of website traffic and how they can be improved:

Organic traffic

Organic traffic refers to visitors who arrive at your website through unpaid search engine results. This type of traffic is driven by search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts including off-page tactics like digital PR. This kind of activity can help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords, which increases the possibility of earning organic traffic to your site. 

Direct traffic

Direct traffic comes from visitors who type your website’s URL directly into their browser or access your site via bookmarks and saved tabs/pages. This type of traffic often indicates a strong brand presence and loyal customer base, as it requires people to be familiar with your brand and actively seek out your site, rather than going to your competitors. 

Referral traffic

Referral traffic comes from visitors who click on links from other websites that lead to your site. These can be links from blogs, news sites, directories, or other online platforms, which are some of the primary goals of digital PR. Effective digital PR and content marketing activity can significantly boost referral traffic by securing mentions and links from authoritative external sources. 

Social traffic

Social traffic is generated by visitors who come to your website through social media platforms such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and Instagram. Social media marketing campaigns, engaging user-generated content (UGC), and influencer collaborations can drive significant social traffic to your website.

Paid traffic

Paid traffic results from visitors who arrive at your site through paid advertising campaigns including pay-per-click (PPC) ads, display ads, and social media ads, amongst others. Paid traffic can be highly targeted, scalable, and provides immediate results, making it a valuable tool for driving immediate traffic and conversions. However, it can also become expensive, and traffic and visibility typically stops when the ad spend ends. 

How digital PR boosts website traffic

Digital PR boosts website traffic by securing high-quality backlinks from authoritative and reputable sites. This then helps to enhance SEO performance and improve your brand’s search engine rankings. It also increases brand awareness through media coverage and social media engagement, driving both direct and referral traffic. By consistently promoting your brand and building credibility, digital PR activity leads to sustained traffic growth and a stronger online presence.

1. Building high-quality backlinks

When your content is featured on authoritative sites, it not only drives direct referral traffic but also improves your site’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) performance. When search engines like Google crawl and index your website, they regard these backlinks as endorsements, which can boost how you rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords. Higher rankings lead to increased organic traffic as your website becomes more visible to users searching for keywords related to your brand, products or services. See point 4 for more information.

2. Enhancing brand awareness

Digital PR campaigns are designed to get your brand in front of huge audiences. By creating and distributing press releases and other engaging content, and getting featured in online publications, you’re gradually raising awareness about your brand. As more people become familiar with your brand, they are more likely to visit your website to learn more about your products or services, driving both direct and organic traffic.

3. Generating social media buzz

Well-executed digital PR campaigns often include a strong social media component. When your content is shared across various social media platforms, it reaches a broader audience and encourages shares, likes, and comments. This social media buzz not only drives direct traffic from social networks but also signals to search engines that your content is engaging and valuable, which can potentially improve your search rankings over time. 

4. Improving search engine rankings

Digital PR contributes to improved search engine rankings through content marketing, backlink generation, and brand mentions. When your content appears on high-authority websites, it enhances your website’s domain authority. Also, creating newsworthy content and stories can result in higher engagement and lower bounce rates, which are positive signals to search engines. Improved rankings make it easier for potential customers to find your site when searching for relevant terms, which therefore increases organic traffic over time. 

5. Driving referral traffic

When digital PR efforts result in your brand being mentioned or featured on popular websites, blogs, or news outlets, it generates referral traffic. Visitors who click on these links are directed to your website, often leading to higher engagement and conversion rates since they come from trusted sources. This targeted traffic is more likely to be interested in your brand, services and products, increasing the chances of conversions.

6. Creating evergreen content

Digital PR often involves creating content that remains relevant and valuable over time, such as expert tips and advice, and case studies. This evergreen content continues to attract visitors long after it is published, providing a steady stream of traffic to your website. As this content is shared and referenced by others, it can also lead to additional backlinks and social media mentions, further boosting your site’s visibility and traffic.

How to measure the impact of digital PR on your website’s performance

To effectively measure the impact of your digital PR activity on your website’s performance, you should aim to track a few different metrics. 

1. Website traffic analysis

Use Google Analytics to monitor changes in your website traffic. Look for spikes in traffic that coincide with the launch of PR campaigns, or when content or backlinks are published. You can also track referral traffic to see how many visitors come from specific external sites, including news outlets and online media platforms. 

2. Backlink quality and quantity

Tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and SEMrush help you track the number and quality of backlinks generated from digital PR efforts. You should also monitor changes in your website’s domain authority, which can improve with high-quality backlinks. It’s important to remember DA changes will take place over time. Digital PR is unlikely to have a short term impact on this metric in particular. 

3. Brand mentions and sentiment analysis

Set up Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts to track when your brand is mentioned online. This also helps you keep track of your coverage. Tools like Mention and Meltwater can also help you analyse the volume and sentiment of those online mentions.

4. Social media metrics

Measure likes, shares, comments, and overall engagement on any social media posts related to your PR campaigns, and use Google Analytics to track traffic coming from social media platforms. An increase in social traffic generally indicates successful social media PR efforts.

5. Search engine rankings

Track changes in keyword rankings related to your PR and content marketing activity, as improved rankings for targeted keywords can drive more organic traffic. Use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to monitor changes in your SEO performance.

6. Engagement metrics

It might also be worth analysing how engaging your on-page content is by measuring the average time visitors spend on your site and the number of pages they visit per session. This is particularly relevant for content marketing campaigns, where you create linkable assets on your website. Are people staying on the page to digest your content? If not, you might need to rethink how it’s presented. 

Read more about how to measure PR impact on our blog.

Real examples of digital PR’s impact on website traffic

Fresh Air for Sale

Following the relaunch of their website and a domain change, luggage shipping website MyBaggage.com got in touch with us asking to create a buzz about their new brand and earn lots of high authority coverage to help raise their online visibility.

With the majority of MyBaggage customers being Brits moving abroad we focused on homesick expats and offered them bottled fresh air from each of the four UK home nations, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. We created a landing page for media to link to and tracked all results.

The campaign made headlines around the world and delivered 610 media placements along with 410 backlinks. Organic traffic to the site more than doubled and the site began ranking for a wide range of keywords.

Read more about our work with My Baggage here: https://www.motivepr.co.uk/work/mybaggage 

Driver’s Champion

Our digital PR campaign for Lease Car UK has boosted organic traffic, enquiries and sales to two websites: LeaseCar.uk and sister site LeaseVan.co.uk. Our strategy has been to position the companies as consumer champions for motorists, attracting a huge level of media attention with thousands of coverage items and high authority backlinks pouring into both websites.

With a sustained approach and a very high level of results we have been able to massively boost the performance of both websites in organic search, helping the client to grow sales and expand into new premises. In a twelve month period, organic traffic for LeaseCar shot up by 20% and for LeaseVan the benefit was even greater with a 66% increase. 

Read more about our work with LeaseCar and LeaseVan here: https://www.motivepr.co.uk/work/leasecar-uk 

Key takeaways

• Increasing website visitors is crucial for online success as it drives awareness, engagement, and sales.
• Digital PR significantly enhances organic traffic by earning high-quality backlinks, boosting SEO, and improving search engine rankings.
• Understanding various traffic types – organic, direct, referral, social, and paid – is essential for a comprehensive and measurable digital marketing strategy.
• Track metrics like website traffic, backlink quality, brand mentions, social media engagement, and search engine rankings to gauge digital PR effectiveness.

Ready to work with an award winning digital pr agency to boost your website traffic? Get in touch with us today to see how we can elevate your brand and drive visitors to your site: https://www.motivepr.co.uk/contact 

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