Importance of Digital PR for SEO and Link Building: –
Use digital PR as part of the link building strategy.
There is a great opportunity to gain a competitive advantage.
Take a look at the results of a digital PR campaign in terms of quality, editorially sourced links.
Few tactics can help to get links on a large scale, but digital PR can help to get relevant links.
There are a host of other benefits to the business.
Search into digital PR and help understand why it is a tactic that cannot be ignored if it fuels organic website growth.
Digital PR is all about using PR tactics to get backlinks to support the SEO strategy.
Needs to create linkable assets (sometimes known as link bait) and promote them to relevant journalists and publications to encourage them to write about the content and link to it.
However, successful digital PR is about having great ideas that journalists want to cover while creating engaging assets that link.
Digital PR is about creating content that tells stories that are so good that journalists really want to cover and link to them.
To help understand the tactic, let’s compare it to an alternative link-building approach which is guest posting.
Now let’s get one thing clear: not endorsing guest posting is a link building tactic.
Digital public relations:
Links are placed editorially (see Google’s link scheme guidelines for more information on how Google recommends that links be obtained), which means that an editorial decision was made by a journalist to link the content.
They are obtained as a result of creating something great, not because money has changed hands.
Links generally come from the content of thematic relevance on high authority domains.
Think of newspapers, industry resources, and other authoritative sources.
Competitors cannot easily replicate the links obtained with digital PR, given the nature of the tactic.
Guest Post:
Links are placed within content written by the owner (or on behalf of) the website to which it is linked.
These links are not editorial and must have the rel = “nofollow” attribute added.
Links are often placed as a result of a payment made (or products that are given away).
This is a violation of the Google Webmaster Guidelines.
The quality of the linking sites is usually quite low and is often not thematically related to the site to which it is linked.
Competitors can easily replicate guest post links by identifying them using a link analysis tool.
Digital PR vs. Traditional PR:
One of the biggest areas of confusion when it comes to digital PR is the comparison that is often made to traditional PR, and that the lines between traditional PR and digital PR have started to blur.
Digital PR is all about leveraging linkable assets to gain backlinks (and generate other benefits) that affect a website’s organic visibility and SEO efforts.
The KPIs of the tactic are usually the quality of the links obtained and the impact they have on SEO performance.
It involves telling brand stories or promoting products.
It often involves creating studies and research papers based on data, presenting data as an infographic, or developing tools and calculators as a way to create engaging content.
Traditional PR almost always relies on KPIs to increase brand awareness.
Measure and report on actual impact, and is often based on promoting brand stories and product launches.
A big focus is on offline media, while digital PR generally focuses on online posts.
Digital PR is on the rise:
While most digital marketers have long recognized the importance of implementing technical SEO and publishing high-quality content to drive organic search rankings.
Many marketers recognize the need for high-quality backlinks to boost the business.
Digital PR as a Link Building Tactic:
Digital PR is the most effective link building tactic that can be used to overcome some of the most common challenges and hurdles SEOs face:
- Scale link building without compromising the quality of the links obtained.
- Editorially gain links.
- Get links to high-quality and current publications.
Digital PR can drive more than just links, although SEOs often turn to tactics as a way to achieve this.
6 benefits of getting links with digital PR:
Here are six reasons why digital PR should be part of the link building strategy:
1. Get authority links from top-level posts:
There is no other way to get authority links from top-notch publications than with public relations.
Get some organic mention, but having to consistently earn these links at a decent speed to catch up and overtake the competitors or stay ahead of the game.
Not all links are the same. won’t rank for competitive keywords without high authority links, and digital PR can help to get them.
2. Gain a competitive advantage with links the competitors can’t clone.
Tactics like guest posting and resource link building leave to open to playing cat and mouse with the competitors.
To land a link on a resource page, the competitor detects it when he spies on the link profile and contacts the webmaster suggesting himself as another great addition. The link is added.
Now we are not saying there is no value in these links (there is), only if the competitor follows the link locations and gets the same links, no one gets a competitive advantage.
It really is often that easy to replicate someone else’s link profile. Or at least parts of it. Find out who is linking, reach out and request the link, justifying why it would be a great addition. This is done over and over by agencies, businesses, and other competitors.
(Note: If needs to catch up on a competitor’s link building efforts, use the Semush link building tool to find these opportunities.)
Be smart and use a tactic that helps to get links that are not so easy to replicate: digital PR.
3. Get links that are actually clicked and drive referral (and sales) traffic
Many link building tactics result in links that are not clicked.
Some SEOs don’t care, but should.
But aside from link building, referral traffic means users to the website.
People who could become the next customer.
Add these people to the retargeting lists or develop compelling ways to sign them up to the email list.
Referral traffic is one of the benefits of digital PR that other link building tactics cannot offer.
By leveraging digital PR, one can get top-notch and relevant post links to justify the investment in tactics and contribute to the broader marketing goals.
4. Put the company in front of the target audience and generate brand awareness.
When using digital PR to get links from top publications that are topic-aligned with the target audience, putting the business in a great position.
Expose the business to tens of thousands of readers through the campaign.
These readers may not know the business, but getting coverage means greater awareness at the top of the funnel.
While it may not convert right away, getting coverage and building a brand will further develop the sales funnel.
5. Position as industry experts and build trust:
SEOs have been talking about E-A-T (experience, authority, and trustworthiness) for a few years.
Top-level industry publications that link.
Being featured in top industry publications also helps build trust among the audience.
Digital PR can help to get coverage that is proud to shout about and allow to share where to have performed.
6. Boost social commitment:
Search and social are often viewed as different marketing channels, but the reality is that the two can work together to achieve incredible success.
Digital PR can be the catalyst for this to happen.
By creating stories and yelling about them to the press, lose opportunities if don’t also yell about them on social media.
5 different digital PR tactics.
Campaigns, launches, interactive content, and even product PR, and the reality is that digital PR isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
There are different tactics and success comes from knowing which one to use and when to use them.
Five different digital PR tactics could be used.
Not all are suitable for all companies, so take the time to understand which one is right for the industry.
1. Research studies based on data:
Journalists love data-driven research studies, so it is perhaps not surprising that this is perhaps the most widely used digital PR tactic.
Data is a great way to tell a story and has the option of using the own or third-party data to create campaigns.
Journalists want new and unique stories, and data-driven investigative campaigns are a perfect fit.
2. Creative campaigns:
There is a common misconception that without data, a campaign will struggle to gain traction.
While data can be a great way to build a hook, creative campaigns are an effective way to get to what journalists want to cover.
Think of visualizations, predictive images, or creative tricks that get people talking.
3. Newsjacking:
Newsjacking is all about monitoring the news and reacting to breaking news with information, comments, and insider tips.
It’s an effective tactic, and it doesn’t require complex content assets.
With news hijacking, the linkable asset is usually an expert within the business.
But for this tactic to be effective, three things must happen:
- A piece of news must be published.
- Some publications want to talk about something that journalists need input from experts.
- Needs to communicate with the journalists covering the story and provide comments or ideas from an expert spokesperson.
- This should add value to the subject, not just regurgitate what happened.
4. Expert-Insights PR and thought leadership:
People, their knowledge and experience can be an effective way to get great linked coverage, even when they are not connected to a breaking news topic.
Journalists seek out experts in their field to offer advice and guidance to educate their readers.
Sit down with product or service specialists within the company and talk to them about what the audience needs to know, the most frequently asked questions to ask, or the hot topics to know.
Then turn them into expert knowledge presentations.
Share tips and advice with journalists, build a relationship with them and may be able to consistently get links and coverage along with other tactics as they will likely come back when they write articles on similar topics within the field.
In many cases, can predict what journalists will be talking about at certain times of the year, making it easy to plan a schedule of expert briefings to help plan what to send and when.
Share the tips with journalists and be available to collaborate and help them write an interesting article.
Create a blog content snippet to go along with it, whenever possible, to improve the coverage percentage of that link, rather than mentioning a brand.
5. Product PR:
Product PR often feels like it’s largely traditional PR.
But the truth is, the lines start to blur and products (or, more specifically, offers or stories about the products) can help to earn links.
Product links often generate significant amounts of revenue due to the nature of the tactic.
At the end of the day, if someone is talking about the products in an article and these links are clicked, it makes sense that some of these users continue to shop.
Products alone are rarely stories, but the big savings during the last sale can be stories.
Like how products can help solve a common problem that the audience has.
Go beyond launching products on own.
Take the time to think about what would make a journalist write about the product and, more specifically, why someone would want to read about them.
Find and reach relevant journalists.
The list of digital PR tactics that can use is long and is not limited to those mentioned above.
Semrush recently acquired Prowly, a public relations tool that can be used to find and introduce relevant journalists.
It contains a media database with over a million contacts, making it easy to find the right people to communicate with.
When choosing the best journalists to launch, the more specific the targeting, the better.
When beginning to write the proposal for the media, use the same techniques as for normal e-mail dissemination.
Keep the topic interesting, personalize the message and offer value!
One of the most common assumptions about digital PR is that it is only suitable for B2C and ‘fun’ brands.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Need to understand what the audience cares about and work to find stories that resonate with them.
B2B companies often find that expert-knowledge PR and news hijacking, combined with detailed research studies, helps position them as thought leaders as effective ways to use digital PR to gain authority links and coverage.
Meanwhile, B2C companies tend to take advantage of a wider range of tactics.
Digital PR is a tactic that can be just as effective for B2B companies (and even SaaS) as it is for B2C brands.
Need to be smart and know the audience.
Get to know the audience and discover the themes that resonate with them.
Measuring the success of digital PR.
There’s no escaping the effectiveness of digital PR as a link building tactic, but how should to measure campaign success to truly demonstrate impact and justify more investment.
It is recommended that the core metrics track for digital PR include:
Links obtained.
Need to report the links the campaign got and will be able to get the linked coverage using the Semrush Backlink Analytics Tool.
Enter the campaign URL or the page that has been promoted, and go to the backlinks tab to see all the web pages that link.
Take note of the AS (Authority Score) of the links that are obtained.
Also use the Semrush brand monitoring tool to help to get new coverage, including parts that don’t link.
Sales and referral traffic:
This may sound simple, but if not analyzing the referral traffic (and associated sales) that linked coverage sends to the campaign assets, could be missing out on opportunities to demonstrate the broader impact of the efforts.
Measure and report on this from Google Analytics.
Analyze other metrics:
There are more metrics that can track to demonstrate digital PR.
Campaign performance, but links earned, coverage, and referral traffic is perhaps the easiest to demonstrate.
Beyond this, consider reporting on:
The impact of earned links on organic visibility (use the Organic Research Tool to see how the site’s visibility changes over time), analyzing it with campaign launches.
Insured coverage in dream publications.
The ratio of tracked links to untracked links.
Social commitment and exaggeration.
An increase in brand searches.
Take the time to understand the metrics that are important to the business stakeholders, and be sure to report in a way that demonstrates the broader success the digital PR efforts are having.
Despite being commonly used as a link building tactic, the reality is that digital PR can offer much more than other approaches.
It’s scalable, can help to gain links of authority that other tactics can’t, and build the brand.
Get started and build links through the digital PR efforts!