A Step-by-Step Guide to Digital PR Link Building to Boost Your SEO Efforts in 2024

You know, backlinks are considered to be one of the strongest ranking factors for search engines. 

Why? It’s because Google’s search quality senior strategist, Andrey Lipattsev, himself, in a Q&A session has confirmed that links and content are Google’s top 2 ranking factors.

That’s why we think every business trying to rank on search engines must develop link building strategies.

Now it’s great if you are already using a link building strategy. 

But my question is – Are you using digital PR in your link building strategy? If not, you are missing out on a really big opportunity.

Let’s learn about it.

In this post, you are going to learn what a digital PR link building strategy is and how to use it. 

What is digital PR

To explain it in short, a digital PR is when you use PR tactics to gain backlinks.

In such a strategy, you create content that people ( especially journalists and publications ) would like to write about in their content and link to it.

You create valuable content such as infographics, data-driven blogs, expert insights, etc, that publications want to cover in their content.

You perform tactics that create an influence on the web and present you as a thought leader. This encourages publications to link to your content.

Fun fact: Digital PR Gets 433% More Popular As Link Builders Gain Experience.

Why is a digital PR important for link building

Now you have a good understanding of what digital PR link building is. 

What’s next? Well, it’s time to learn why exactly you need digital PR in your link building strategy. 

Here you go:

1. Get quality backlinks to rank

Do you know what’s really amazing about digital PR? It gives you “quality” backlinks.

Other link building strategies give you all kinds of links including both quality and spammy backlinks. However, the main focus of a digital PR is to only give you quality backlinks.

When you win those PR strategies, you’ll get mentions and links from trusted sources in your industry. And guess what? Those links will tell the world that you’re legit and an expert in your field.

Furthermore, when big names link to you, your search engine strategy will begin to skyrocket.

2. Get recognized

Digital PR works like magic to boost your brand’s visibility and make everyone talk about it.

With a mix of different strategies such as content distribution, media channels, etc, it attracts more audiences.

your brand shines brighter in the digital world, and more people discover it, leading to a flood of website traffic and social media buzz.

3. Earn people’s trust

Getting mentions from top-notch media outlets and popular websites is like a dream for all businesses. 

Why? It’s because these mentions give you the validation you need to show everyone that you are the real deal.

You see, people are more likely to trust popular media channels and websites. And when these big websites link to you, people instantly start trusting your brand.

It all comes to the fact that people want to hear what others say before they start trusting your website.

So, when others see these reputable sites talking about your brand, they go like, “Hey, if they say it’s awesome, then it must be!”

The best part? Search engines like it too.

4. Beat your competitors 

You know what? Links earned from other link building tactics such as infographics and guest posting can be easily copied by your competitors.

How? It’s simple – Just like every other business your competitor will spy on your backlinks profile and find out how you are earning your backlinks. 

Once they find out, they’ll create better versions of your strategy ( ex – better infographics) and ask your prospects to link to them instead of you.

This means these kinds of strategies won’t give you any real competitive advantage.

So what should you do? Well, digital PR can help you with that. 

By using digital PR for link building, you’ll earn backlinks from big publications which cannot be copied by your competitors easily.

5. Get more clicks and more traffic

What happens sometimes is, you get a backlink that helps you rank higher, but that backlink never brings any traffic to your website. 

Now most people think the only thing they should focus on in their link building strategy is to earn backlinks and improve their SEO game. 

However, we suggest you focus on getting traffic as well.

You see, the traffic received from a backlink is called referral traffic, and getting referral traffic is extremely important because you never know who’s going to be your next customer. 

By using digital PR, you get backlinks from media and publications that add a link to your website. 

Publications are visited by thousands of people on a regular basis which increases your chances of getting more traffic.

How to get started with PR link building (4 questions)

So before you start using all the amazing techniques in your link building strategy, let’s understand how it works and what steps you need to take.

Here are some questions you need to ask?

1. Who are my target customers

You can’t just target any publication or media for your link building strategy. To succeed, you only need to target those visited by your target customers.

To find out which media channels your target audience visits on a daily basis, you first need to understand your target audience.

Start by asking yourself:

• What are the tastes and interests of my target customers?
• What is most important to them?
• What kind of news stories do they like to read?
• Do they have any podcasts or YouTube channels that they follow?

2. Where should I get backlinks from

Now that you know everything about your target audience, it’s time to identify the websites you’re targeting.

Research and identify the publications and media channels your target customers visit the most and develop strategies to generate backlinks from them.

3. Why will they give backlinks to my website

You now have a better understanding of who your target customers are and which media channels you need to get backlinks from. That’s a huge one!

Let’s set up our plan.

Here you need to understand and create strategies that attract your target audience and lead them to backlink to your website.

One example of this could be when creating a blog post that uses data. You will find that if you create a blog post with statistics and data on a specific topic, you are very likely to get backlinks from your target publications.

why? Simply because journalists love to use data in their news stories and if they use yours, they will surely provide a backlink.

4. How should I approach them

Once you create your content, the last step is to achieve your goal.

You can use email, social media channels to find relevant publications, bloggers, and influencers.

It’s important to keep in mind that most of your efforts won’t give you any results and there are high chances that your pitch will get ignored. 

However, the key here is to not stop and keep on reaching out to your different targets until you achieve your backlinks goal you can also use blogger outreach services to speed up the process.

PR link building techniques

You can’t just use the normal link building techniques to earn PR links. For this, you need to modify your techniques and personalize them to attract links from publications and influencers.

According to Backlinko, Good ol’ fashioned PR still works. That is, assuming you’re doing something newsworthy. 

Here are some techniques:

1. Data-driven research studies

Journalists love to provide backlinks to websites that use this link building strategy.

In this way, all you have to do is analyze and collect data and statistics on a specific topic and then upload it to your website as a content page.

An example of this might be a specific survey or study topic that the publications you are targeting are keen to cover in their references.

Example: “A survey on the Impact of Digital Tools on Remote Work“.

2. Product public relations

You have to play smart here.

This strategy, if done correctly, can lead to visitors who are more likely to buy your product. How does it work? We will explain:

When publications, bloggers, and influencers mention your product and link to it, the people who click on that link are most likely to buy your product

Why? This is because they wouldn’t click that link if they had no interest in your product.

The best way to get press coverage of your product is to create a story around it.

Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and think about what will get people and the media talking about your product.

3. Provide expert insight

Journalists are constantly seeking news and content from experts in order to present it to their audience.

You can take advantage of this opportunity.

Ask your team what kind of audience you’re interested in, what’s currently happening in the industry, and what the media want to cover.

Once you have a clear understanding of this, you can give insight into a topic your targets are most likely to cover.

You can also ask the expert on your team to provide insight on that topic and collaborate with the media to help them add expert opinions on that topic.

4. Newsjacking

This is simple – Newsjacking is when you take news or a breaking story and react to it with your expert advice.

For example, if there’s something interesting going on in the industry, you should add an element of your expert advice to that breaking news.

This would earn more backlinks from journalists. Why? It’s because most top-tier publications constantly seek expert advice on breaking news.

5. Help A Reporter Out

HARO is one of the best ways to make journalists add a link to your website. 

What is it? Well, HARO is a website that connects reporters or journalists with industry experts.

How can you make use of it? Let us explain.

You can register on HARO as a “source” and sign up for their daily email. The daily email will give you daily updates on all the new requests posted by the journalists.

Once you find a question that falls under your area of expertise, you can then reach out to that reporter or journalist and offer them your expertise. 

If your offer gets accepted and the reporter publishes your quote in their article, you’ll get a mention along with a backlink.

Mistakes to avoid

If you are trying to learn how to build links with PR tactics, you must also learn about how to “not” build links with PR tactics. In simple words – mistakes to avoid.

Here is a list:

1. No proper research

Do you know where most businesses go wrong when building links with PR? Not doing proper research.

You casually surf the internet, come across a publication and think “Hey, this website looks good, I should pitch them”. 

Now, taking steps is a good thing. But what if that publication isn’t the right place for you to get a backlink from? What if it has a different audience than your target customers? Things can go wrong. 

That’s why you need to research and do your homework before executing your PR link building strategy.

2. Only focusing on quantity

Getting 10 relevant quality backlinks is much better than getting 100 backlinks from random websites. 

That’s why your main focus must always be to get backlinks from quality websites and websites that are relevant to your business.

According to our link building statistics, “Quality is more important than quantity, so get rid of bad or spammy links and focus on creating valuable content for your users”.

3. Unpersonalized and generic outreach

If you’re trying to save time by sending the same message to everyone, you’re making a big mistake!

People don’t have time to read everything. This is why they only read relevant and useful messages.

And if you don’t send a personalized pitch that doesn’t tell them how you can help them, your message will just end up in the delete section.

4. Unethical link building

Using unethical link building tactics to get PR links like buying links or participating in link schemes can ruin your business.

If the search engine finds that you used the wrong methods to create PR links, your business can be penalized as well.

5. Not tracking results

Your PR link building doesn’t end with your pitch. Then, you need to manage the results.

If you’re not tracking the results from your PR and link-building efforts, you could be missing out on a lot of backlink opportunities.

Conclusion

So this was a complete guide to building PR link building.

Link building with PR strategies actually have the potential to increase your search engine rankings. So yeah, you’re doing the right thing.

It’s your turn to implement these strategies in your business.

FAQs