PR Power of the Web

by Durant Imboden

In the world of public relations, the World Wide Web is like Rodney Dangerfield: Its motto could be "I don't get no respect." Too many PR counselors underestimate the Web's value as a publicity medium for their clients.

Never mind that, according to the Travel Industry of America, 64 million Americans use the Internet to plan trips and 70% of U.S. travelers do at least half of their travel bookings online.

If you're a Netskeptic, consider these points:

• A Sunday newspaper article is likely to end up in the recycling bin on Monday morning. A magazine article gets very little readership after a month. In contrast, a Web article can be "evergreen," with readers finding it in search engines for months or even years after publication. (Example: A Viking Burgundy cruise review from November, 2003 generated 15,176 page views in May, 2008, nearly 4½ years after publication.)

• An "evergreen" Web travel article provides decision support and decision validation to readers who search the Web for independent reviews of destinations, hotels, cruise lines, etc. before booking. (See testimonials from travel vendors and readers.)

• Unlike a printed article, an online story can link to your client's Web site. The reader who's intrigued by a description of a city, a hotel, or a cruise can get more information instantly--just by clicking a mouse button.

First they read, then they click.

Let's look at some actual numbers from our own site, Europe for Visitors. The first table represents a typical week during the spring travel-planning season in 2001 (when our traffic was quite a bit lower than it is now):

Now let's reduce those figures by 20% (to compensate for seasonal traffic variations) and project the resulting numbers over one year:

The annualized traffic of nearly 9 million page views* is impressive enough. Even more impressive, from a publicist's viewpoint, is the "referrals to other Web sites" number. Almost 1.9 million readers clicked through to Web sites that had links from Europe for Visitors--among them, sites for tourist offices, transportation companies, hotels, guidebook publishers, and other travel vendors.

What to look for in a Web site:

Once you've shed your Netskepticism and decided to leverage the PR power of the Web, you should observe these simple rules when adding names to your electronic Rolodex:

Favor quality over pedigree. Offline media don't always replicate their quality or success on the Web. Also, an independent travel "content site" may reach more prospects for your client's product or service than most magazines and newspaper travel sections do. If a site looks professional, has quality editorial content, and is written for your client's target audience, the staff (even if it's just one person) is worth cultivating.

TIPS:

• Use Google Trends for Websites, Alexa Traffic Rank, and Metrics Market to compare the site against other Web sites in the same category. This will help you identify which sites provide enough circulation and reach to help you spread your client's message.

Important: These tools aren't perfect. Alexa can be wildly inaccurate for sites with rankings below 50,000, and both Google Trends and Metrics Market estimates are considerably lower than the numbers that we see from Google Analytics or our server logs. Still, these tools are useful for determining who's a player and who isn't for a given topic.

• Look for sites that have a strong presence in Google and other search engines.

• Beware of sites that offer letters of assignment to writers in lieu of payment. Such sites may attract writers who are more interested in traveling than in writing.

Match the message to the medium. If you're promoting short-term offers, pitch your message to news- or deals-oriented sites. If you're looking to build long-term awareness of a destination, cruise line, tour company, etc., look for sites that focus on "evergreen" coverage.

Focus on editorial travel-planning sites. When evaluating Web sites for PR purposes, look for sites that emphasize travel planning and not just armchair travel or community. Sites that focus on "travel how-to" will reach more prospects than sites with a "travel narrative" or "my summer vacation" emphasis.

Look for sites that link. For your client, the link from a well-read article may be nearly as valuable as the article itself. That link to your client's Web site has two benefits: (1) It drives traffic directly, and (2) it can improve the "page rank" of your client's Web site in search engines, thereby attracting even more visitors, page views, and sales opportunities.

* Traffic figures are from May, 2001, when we were able to track both incoming and outbound traffic. Our monthly pageviews have grown since then, but our current hosting service is unable to supply referral data for outbound links, so I've used the old numbers in this article.

Recommended reading:

Working With Travel Writers
Daniel J. Marengo, editorial director of The Fontayne Group, offers tips on organizing and hosting press trips (including a distinction between "writers" and "riders").

Last updated June, 2008