Digital PR

If your business relies on organic search visibility to fuel new business and revenue, then you need to improve your rankings to keep pace with your competitors. Mixed with the right SEO techniques, digital PR is crucial in making that improvement happen in the jostle for more customers and the fight for their trust.

Google’s algorithm works out which websites should rank highest for search terms based on the quality and trust signals. These measures look at the content, the technical footprint, surrounding social signals and the quality of backlinks to its pages. In the eyes of Google, this is similar to a voting system.

The more credible sources you have linking to your website, the more powerful your pages are and the more likely they are to rank towards the top of search engine results pages, or SERPs.

Digital PR is a highly effective strategy to deliver these high authority links to your site, from sources your target audience reads.

There are many similarities between digital and traditional PR, in that both rely on pitching stories to journalists, securing coverage and building brand awareness. However, digital PR goes one step further than PR in its links to SEO.

As well as providing a valuable and informative story for a journalist to cover, digital PR also requires a strong enough reason for that publisher to link back to your website. This could be in the form of detailed blog content with further campaign information, new data, a tool or some enticing visuals or photography.

Brand sentiment and messaging heavily influence the topics and themes of digital PR campaigns, but they are also directed by SEO. While brand awareness and coverage is a byproduct of digital PR, the goals and metrics of this type of activity are usually focussed on the quality and quantity of links built. This has a resulting impact on search engine visibility, organic traffic and, ultimately, sales.

Links are one of the most powerful signals to Google in determining how it ranks its search engine results pages, and digital PR is one of the most effective ways to achieve those links.

High authority links, such as those typically placed through digital PR coverage in media publications, can often act as a catalyst for those sites that have hit a glass ceiling with their SEO strategy. You can have the best content and technical optimisation but, if nobody is linking to and endorsing that content, the scope to rank for core keywords is limited.

Digital PR is an effective way to build these links at scale, in a way that allows you to target different parts of the site at different times, to match seasonal trends throughout the year.

Google the term “link building”, and you’ll find lots of information about dubious SEO advice and questionable tactics surrounding buying links. Link acquisition has evolved a long way over the past five years as Google has become smarter in recognising paid links, link exchanges, and other popular techniques from the early days of SEO.

Digital PR is the most effective way of generating authentic, high quality and relevant links in the places your audience is, both at the top and bottom of the funnel. And, while campaign content can be used to build these trusted links, the content can also be used across multiple channels such as paid social, email marketing and retargeting efforts. This builds and develops your brand voice and positioning further.

It should be the crux of your marketing strategy, bringing both digital and communications channels together.

It’s no secret that data now lies at the heart of everything to do with marketing, regardless of your business’s size and scope. All business leaders need to be able to see the impact of their investment, and this is one of the core benefits of digital PR: its measurability.

As well as quantifying brand awareness, coverage and reach, as with traditional PR, digital PR can go one step further in linking these efforts towards keyword ranking improvements and organic traffic. This is powerful data that can be used to guide your digital PR strategy, overtake competitors and gain a competitive advantage. Especially over those that are yet to consider this tactic of link acquisition.

Accurately measuring how campaigns perform, among specific audiences in particular sectors, is what builds the crucial insight needed to inform the direction and scope of your activity, as well as the tactics it will employ.

Your digital PR strategy is what ties all of your activity together. It is the goal towards which we work, and is the overarching principle that drives your campaigns. It defines the purpose of your marketing.

Without a clear strategy, or with an outdated one, your digital PR activity will be disparate and misguided. As a result, it won’t attract the type of coverage, traffic, reputation that your business needs.

In a strategy, we have a yardstick to measure whether a particular activity or campaign is right for you. Will it further your business towards those goals, or will it be a disjointed addition? If it’s the latter, it’s not for you.

By thoroughly analysing your audience, your strategy and the activity it guides will appeal more directly to the very people you need to target.