A well-executed digital PR strategy can be highly effective in building brand awareness, generating referral traffic and sales leads, and can even help you launch new products and services. Digital PR is also an essential part of link building, which is one of the best things you can do to improve your SEO and rank your website on Google.
Creative and distributing great content is an essential part of both digital PR in general, and link building in particular. In this article we will look at the5 top content strategies to boost digital PR, build links and ultimately achieve your business goals and objectives.
What Are Digital PR and Linking Building and Why Does My Business Need Them?
Link building has gained popularity recently as more businesses and marketers are realising the importance of this technique for SEO and traffic generation. Link building involves the creation of quality links to your site from well-known, authoritative sites. This is crucial because having a strong link profile tells Google that your site is reputable, and is one of the search engine’s top two ranking factors, along with keywords.
Building backlinks is usually one of the key objectives of a digital PR campaign, along with building brand awareness. Digital PR can also be effective in meeting other objectives such as launching a new product. Like traditional PR, digital PR involves outreach to media outlets and publications, but in this case these are digital media, online publications and other websites. See Ghost Marketing’s link building guide for more details on how to run an effective link building campaign.
There are a number of content strategies which when combined with good digital PR can be highly effective in building backlinks to your site, improving SEO, driving organic and referral traffic and therefore increasing sales and revenue. These elements should be part of any good digital marketing strategy to grow your business.
Content Strategies To Use As Part of Digital PR and Link Building:
Guest Posts
One great way to build brand awareness and build links is through guest posting. This is also one of the simplest digital PR techniques.
Many online publications and blogs not only accept but encourage quality guest posts. These types of posts are great because they allow you to reach a wider audience (which when executed correctly will match your target audience) while conveying your brand expertise and personality in a more personal way.
The best way to approach guest posts is by seeking pitching articles to well-known digital publications and sites within your industry or niche, and offering them engaging, useful and relevant content. OF course, you will need to make sure to include links back to your site or posts in the content. The more specific the niche and the more relevant the content, the more likely this is to generate qualified leads along with link building.
Digital Media
Working with popular digital media publications can also be a great option, particularly for innovative products and disruptive enterprises. If you have a particularly interesting or new product offering, these publications will want to hear from you. Again, you should target digital media in your industry, and the more specific the niche the better. This can be a great opportunity to get into very well-known sites with high traffic volumes, which is incredible for SEO as well as lead generation.
Relevant Authority Publications
Engaging with authority publications probably has the best ROI when it comes to PR and marketing. Relevant authority publications are well-known and well respected digital media for a particular industry or sector, but are probably not well known to those outside the sector. Examples include Conversion XL for UX and CRO, The Drum for marketing, and Arch Paper for architects and designers.
This approach is best suited to companies working within a specialised niche. Publishing content or securing a mention on an authority publication within your sector means invaluable publicity. Firstly, the association with this site will be extremely valuable for building credibility, as well as improving your Google ranking through quality backlinks. You can use this association in other PR techniques such as including “as mentioned on…” on your site or in your content. Secondly, you will reach your specific target audience of people interested in your product, and so are more likely to generate quality leads.
Earned Media
Earned media, as the name suggests, is coverage that your business “earns” rather than pays for or pitches, through the quality of your services or products. This could be online reviews, referrals, opinion pieces or blogs which mention your business.
In terms of content, the strategy here is to create great content which shines on its own in order to gain recognition, and to do so consistently. One article, no matter how interesting or informative is unlikely to get you noticed. A regular blog which consistently produces relevant and informative content might. This will be supported with general brand building efforts through digital PR, to increase brand awareness and build your audience.
Social Media/Influencer Outreach
Although working with social media influencers may drift into the realm of digital marketing, this can also be a useful digital PR strategy. Working with influencers to create content such as videos can lead to incredible results, because certain audiences in particular are much more likely to make purchasing decisions based on social media compared to other forms of digital media and advertising. Influencers are particularly powerful because their quasi-personal relationship with their followers translates into valuable trust, which can be passed on to your brand through association.
This strategy is more suitable to certain types of brands than others: specifically B2C companies with consumer or experiential products, and it is important to work only with credible, popular influencers who are relevant to your audience.
Digital PR and link building can yield incredible results for your business in terms of generating traffic, driving leads and increasing sales and revenue for your business. By applying the content strategies which are most relevant to your business and your audience for better digital PR, you can see incredible results for your brand and your business.