Quantifying Linking Campaign Value

[Quidsi]

Is there any way to predict if and how Organic traffic would change if we sucesfully added some high-quality links to our website?

Quantifying link value would help to plan how much time/efforts we should spend on quality link-building. I understand that the more good links we get - the better. But beyond that, I am looking for some methodology/data/formulas that would help to decide if links are worth pursing.

Here is an example:

Let's say we acquired 20 high-quality links from PR 0-5 pages of some trusted web sites of PR6-8. Let's say that on these pages would also link to 10-20 other web sites. Would such campaign be of some direct value to our ecommerce website of PR6?

My question is limited to how high-quality links improve overall Google search traffic to the website only. I am not interested in calculating value of individual keywords - most of our search traffic comes from long tail. I am also not interested in how to estimate referral traffic - both seem much easier topics to tackle. But how would I be able to measure the value of lets say 1 link from PR 8 site with a PR3 page, when there are 10 other external links on that page?

[Quidsi]

I agree that PageRank is a weak factor, but how else would I intelligently determine value of individual links from individual high-ranking pages?

Also, I am not looking to estimate referral traffic - that seems an easier problem to tackle. So, the question remains: How 1 link from high-ranking web site would numerically influence organic search traffic. Page Rank of a site, Page Rank of a Page, Number of other external and internal links from that page, PageRank of our website - seems like all are important factors in a model that I am trying to find.

[elephantseo]

First, you are wasting time looking at Pagerank in my opinion. You could look at your backlinks acquisition history and compare that to organic traffic history for your site to come up with a model.

Organic traffic is not just search traffic; so it would be good to look at a websites traffic data instead. Try to calculate a CTR for traffic on sites you have a link already and use that to build a model for future sites you are targeting for a link acquisition.

[Quidsi]

thank you, but again, I am not looking for a way to improve a keyword ranking. I am looking more for a formula which would approximate how strong links influence organic traffic for sites with different PageRank.

At the very least I am looking for some approximation

1) how many links of high PR would it take to increase PageRank from 6 to 7.

2. how would this increase influence Organic traffic.

[Dan-Petrovic]

I do it in a few steps:

1. Determine competitor that's one above.
2. Determine competitors for each phrase.
3. Measure strength of competitor's site.
4. Measure the strength of competitor's page.
5. Calculate traffic increase by one position based on current CTR and CTR averages across all phrases.

This process can be applied to multiple ranking scenarios.

[elephantseo]

You can still look at the categorical terms that you base your long tail strategy on for the methods mentioned. A good way to get an indication is looking at competitor links; then use traffic numbers for "phrase match"

You might consider making your link building more strategic in that it focuses less on the link and more on high value traffic potential. Target sites that are a really good match for what you sell.

Lets say you sell paint. Target fan sites then show rooms painted for favorite team themes and link to the paint colors on your site to achieve the same affect.

[Quidsi]

thank you, but I am not looking to improve traffic for select keywords - I am looking for an overall organic traffic lift. Most of our traffic comes from long tail.

[elephantseo]

I wrote a post on creating a link building budget that would probable be of some help: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/linkbuilding-budget.html

The hard part about this is you do not really know how much an acquired link is going to help your rankings. You basically need to determine:

• How many links are necessary to rank for desired SERP position
• Revenue that traffic has to your business
• Calculate ROI for link building for a year or more