3 Ways Digital PR Is Great For Your SEO & 7 Steps To Get Started

Jun 23, 2022

An ecstatic woman holding a laptop in one hand with her other hand in a fist in celebration

When it came to SEO, it used to be that we could only talk about one thing: backlinks. Backlinks were that one mysterious thing we all wanted but weren’t quite sure how to get without paying for them. We all believed that it was simply the number of backlinks to our page that was holding us back from appearing at the top of the search results.

Today, they’re not something we need to panic about, but they are most definitely beneficial to improving our site’s authority and helping us rank our sites highly in the results. So, what’s the best way to go about getting them today? With digital PR.

What is Digital PR?

Digital PR isn’t all that different from non-digital PR(public relations), in that you’re simply trying to increase awareness of your brand with news stories and getting yourself out there. The difference with digital PR is that you’re not only trying to increase awareness but also gaining backlinks for your site, get more mentions and shares on social media, and improve your SEO as a result.

How Does Digital PR Improve SEO?

1. You get high-quality backlinks

If you do it right, you can gain a huge number of backlinks from other genuine sources such as online publications, reviews, and other sites that want to talk about your business.

2. You become an authority for your customers

You may be the best company to go to for information on your topic or for your service, but if you don’t have a good online presence, it will be difficult to prove that to people in this digital age. Sure, everyone locally may know who you are and that you’re the company to call for their problem, but if someone new comes across you and the only evidence of your expertise is your own website, they’re going to doubt you.

However, when a customer sees you’ve been talked about allover the place online, they’re much more likely to want to become a customer too. The more people are interested in you means more clicks, which means search engines are going to rank you more highly.

3. Search Engines see you as an authority

Of course, it’s not only real people that will believe you are an authority – search engines will too. Sites that are getting talked about and pointed back to a lot through backlinks will be perceived as a site worth sharing with their searchers. This is actually measurable through your “Domain Authority”, which is a score MOZ created.

7 Steps to form a basic digital PR strategy

Step 1: Set your goal

No marketing campaign or new short-term SEO strategy should start without a S.M.A.R.T goal. That means it can’t just be “get more traffic” or “get more backlinks”, it needs to be more specific than that. Since this is likely your first digital PR strategy, you don’t need to be too specific, but you do need to define what’s going to make this strategy a success for you and when you’ll measure your success. You could use your Domain Authority Score as a marker.

Step 2: Set your target audience

One big mistake many brands make when they decide to do digital PR is they simply write press releases and short articles and send them off to literally anywhere they think will publish it.

Instead, think of the audience you hope to attract to your site (AKA your ideal customer at various stages of the customer journey) and what you think they want to see. Don’t try to get an article published on a site that posts a lot of fake news, for example, and if you’re a serious company, don’t get an article published on one that largely posts for entertainment purposes.

Step 3: Plan what you’re going to share

This doesn’t need to be anything concrete just yet – just brainstorm what you’re going to share. If you’re submitting articles, you’re going to need a lot of content that’s similar but not the same as each other.

So take some time to decide what you’ll share over the course of the next few weeks or months. Do you want to build excitement for anew product or service release? Do you want to build awareness for your brand through educating people on why they need your product? What content may the outlets you work with want? Are there national holidays coming up you can use to your advantage?

Step 4: Make a list of who you want to reach out to

Next, make a list of the digital publications, sites, and influencers you want to reach out to. Think about:

Digital publications for helpful content
News outlets
Bloggers
YouTube channels and podcasts
Online events
Writers who cover subjects like yours for publications you want to access
Other brands and businesses that may benefit from sharing your content, either through a swap, affiliate commission, or related customers.

You can reach out to as many people as you like – not everyone will say yes, and some people will require you to have your content ready to go, while others may want to work with you to create relevant content, which leads us onto our next step…

Step 5: Create your content

Make sure you create the content well before your due to post it live, so you have a bank of content ready to go and you will also have the flexibility to rearrange the content schedule if needs be. There are lots of different services to help create your content, such as copywriters and designers, if you don’t have the time to create it yourself. Go back to your list of ideas and start creating content that can build upon each other.

Step 6: Submit your content and work with journalists and bloggers

Now you’ve got the content you need, or are ready to work with a journalist, blogger, or brand to create it, you’re ready to go! So get submitting (don’t forget to include your own links)!

Step 7: Track and evaluate

The last step is to track and reflect on the campaign – even if it’s an ongoing one. Ideally, you’ll be using analytical tools that show you who is linking to you, so you can see how many backlinks you’re getting and how much traffic is coming through each one. This will be useful for the future when you want to work with them again (or not).

Digital PR can be an incredibly effective strategy to not only increase your brand awareness, but also improve your SEO. If you’re looking for more support in growing your authority and your audience, we’re here to help. Why not start with a free SEO audit? We’ll let you know the strengths and weaknesses in your digital marketing strategy.