John Mueller, Google Senior Webmaster Trends Analyst, offered considerable praise for digital PR in a recent Twitter conversation, even pointing out the significance of this strategy when compared to technical SEO. Mueller contributed to the discussion with this tweet, “I love some of the things I see from digital pr, it’s a shame it often gets bucketed with the spammy kind of link building. It’s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.” Building relevant links is not a new strategy.
This strategy is more than a decade old and remains an evolving one that can be used as a ranking factor and can also attract attention, bring awareness along with more relevant links to help businesses gain a more competitive advantage.
What is Digital PR
While there is no official definition for Digital PR, it is essentially a tactic developed to maintain a company’s positive online presence. It combines timeless PR with social media, search, and content marketing, optimizing backlinks in support of SEO, to start conversations and develop relationships with target audiences. The process requires the creation of valuable, linkable assets, thus encouraging bloggers, journalists, and other publications to discuss your exceptional content and link to that content. Here’s how it works:
The relevant links are placed editorially, in other words, a journalist/reporter/influencer or publication chose to write about and link to your content. The relevant links are earned because of the company’s quality content and value is added through the link or citation of the source.
Here, this PR strategy differs from Guest Posting as no payment/gift is made for the link’s placement. Digital PR links most often originate from authoritative sources (news articles, industry leaders, higher education, etc. ) that provide relevant content. Links earned this way are not easily replicated, unlike guest posting links.
Making the Comparison – Digital PR and Traditional PR
As John Mueller of Google relayed, Digital PR is obviously different than traditional PR, though the lines which once clearly differentiated the two are disappearing. Traditional PR finds its foundation in KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which increase brand awareness.
These are more difficult to measure, which means equally difficult to discern the actual impact. That’s why traditional PR relies on new product releases and brand stories, particularly via offline publications.
Digital PR, on the other hand, targets online publications, earning backlinks, increasing visibility, and enhancing SEO strategies by virtue of quality linkable assets. In this scenario, KPIs are based on the quality of earned relevant links as well as the overall effect on SEO performance.
It may promote new products and share brand stories, but it also utilizes research reports, studies driven by data, and features infographics, calculators, and other tools to increase the interest and appeal of the content.
Build Relevant Links with Digital PR
Digital PR can be used to effectively build natural links, overcoming SEO obstacles, while not compromising link quality. The relevant links are earned editorially, from quality, significant publications. Of course, it’s is more than a driver of links. It offers a number of benefits for your business and your brand.
Digital PR provides opportunities to earn authoritative links from relevant sources, which, in turn, helps your business rank higher for competitive keywords. Plus, relevant links garnered from these efforts aren’t easily replicated, thus you gain a competitive edge over your competition.
While there are a number of link-building strategies out there, you only need the links which get clicked and drive referral traffic to your website. Referral traffic means potential customers who can then be engaged and targeted for relationship building. Not available from other link-building strategies, referral traffic comes by leveraging Digital PR to improve Google search performance and expanding your marketing goals.
Digital PR has the potential—through earned links from authoritative publications—to put your company directly front and center of your target customers which helps you build brand awareness and increase conversions. Optimizing this strategy keeps your brand in your target audience’s mind.
One of the goals of SEO is positioning your business as an authority in your industry, thus allowing you to build trust with your customers. The links earned with Digital PR do just that, setting your business above your competition as industry experts who can be trusted. You become a sought-after, trustworthy voice in your industry.
Finally, Digital PR brings together the marketing channels – social and search – to drive social engagement across the board. Creating relevant quality content which earns authoritative links, can then be shared on social channels as well, where a single share can result in thousands of views.
Exults Digital PR
As marketers and brands see the complementary properties of SEO, high-quality content, and premium backlinks to enhance their websites’ search engine results pages (SERPs), Digital PR is gaining momentum as the way to leverage all three through an effective digital marketing strategy.
The expert team at Digital PR powered by Exults is ready to help your company leverage this tactic as a key factor in your SEO strategy to develop a successful digital marketing plan. Call today and let us help you craft an effective strategy for the future.