A PR Article for an E-shop: What It Costs and What It Really Brings

“How much does a PR article cost?” is a question the honest answer to which is: it depends what you are buying for it. Prices range from tens of euros on small websites to thousands with premium titles – and the difference is not inflated, it is just rarely explained. Here is a breakdown you can recalculate for your own e-shop.

What is actually paid for

• Domain authority. The stronger and older the domain with its own link history, the more weight the link and the mention carry. The difference between DA 20 and DA 55 is not cosmetic – it is the difference between signal and noise.
• Real readership and relevance. A daily with tens of thousands of readers a day also brings direct visits. A website without an audience sells only a link.
• Editorial strictness. Titles that edit the text, refuse exaggerated wording and watch the labelling are more expensive – and exactly that is why they have value. A website where anything gets through is cheap for the same reason.
• Permanence of the publication. An article that stays online for years works for you the whole time. Ask about it explicitly.
• Type of link. Follow, nofollow or sponsored – it influences whether you buy an SEO effect, or mainly reach and a mention.

Three returns from one investment

The mistake most e-shops make: they measure only one of them and then complain it did not pay off.

1. The SEO effect. A link from a trustworthy domain strengthens the whole website, not just the linked page. It shows over weeks to months and cannot be read off a single article – watch the rankings and organic traffic of the target category.
2. Direct traffic. Measurable immediately through UTM parameters. With a well-targeted title it means hundreds of visits, with a general medium rather dozens. Treat it as a bonus, not as the main reason.
3. The mention for AI. The least visible and today the most valuable. A text in a trustworthy medium becomes material the models assemble recommendations from. You will not see this return in analytics – you will see it when ChatGPT starts taking your side after a while.

How to calculate whether it pays

Take your average margin per order and the average customer value over the time they keep buying from you. If your margin is €32 per order and the PR article costs €320, you need ten extra orders – not today, but over the whole time the article is online and the link keeps working. With a permanently published text in a relevant medium that is a realistic brief. With a one-off mention on a website without an audience it is not.

The second check: compare the price with what the same money gets you in performance advertising. PPC brings you visits today and nothing tomorrow. A PR article brings fewer visits but keeps working after the budget is switched off. Sensible e-shops do not do one or the other, but a ratio.

What to watch out for

• Networks of websites built solely to sell links. You recognize them by randomly mixed topics with no logic, the absence of a newsroom and a suspiciously low price. Google keeps an eye on them and a link from them does, in the better case, nothing.
• Over-optimized anchors. Ten articles with exactly the same link text look artificial. Mix the brand, the URL and natural phrasings.
• Articles without a reader. If the text would interest nobody even without the link, it has no value for the model or for Google.

How to make it easier

The most expensive item is usually not the article itself but the time spent hunting for media – e-mails, price lists, haggling, invoices from ten suppliers. That is exactly what the Linketica marketplace solves: titles with visible parameters and prices in one place, ordering from credit and a single settlement. The decision “where” thus stays with you, but without the administration around it.