Using digital PR for SEO is proving to be more effective than ever before. Here’s how you can leverage its capabilities:
As traditional media consumption declines and online media becomes more prevalent, brands are turning to digital PR and SEO to stay relevant and visible. With consumers increasingly connected to each other and to the information they seek, companies are recognizing the need to incorporate digital PR into their public relations strategies. By doing so, they can increase brand awareness and promote their products or services to a wider audience. In today’s climate, digital PR and SEO are proving to be more effective than ever before.
To find today’s consumers, companies need to look online. This is because potential customers browse for necessary information about a product or service online without even making contact first.
In this article, we will look at:
- What are Digital PR and SEO?
- Why it should be part of a digital marketing strategy
- How to create a Digital PR and SEO strategy
What are Digital PR and SEO?
As mentioned previously, Digital PR is a way for businesses to increase their online presence. By networking with PR agencies, journalists, bloggers, and other media members, companies can gain high-quality backlinks and social media mentions. As a result, they can improve their search engine optimization (SEO). PR agencies work with companies to create content for their strategy, connect with journalists, and increase their online visibility.
Digital PR helps a business reach its target customers by building social proof and earning high-quality links. It is related to SEO because a well-planned Digital PR strategy positively impacts a website’s search engine visibility and ranking.
The main focus for companies employing digital PR strategies is publishing quality articles and securing backlinks from relevant websites and blogs. In addition, these companies aim to attract press coverage with their stories. However, in order to earn mentions in the press, companies need to build relationships with journalists. Aside from this, companies have also used blogger outreach, influencer marketing, affiliate programs, etc., as part of their digital PR strategy.
Public relations has been around for a long time; it is an industry that is continually adapting to new technologies and trends in order to stay relevant. The shift towards digital PR combines the possible limited shelf life of SEO with a longer-term PR approach. A company’s PR strategy should result in positive brand awareness, quality content, viral campaigns, memorable social media marketing, and partnerships with traditional media.
Why Digital PR and SEO should be part of an effective strategy
It is impossible to have digital PR without SEO and vice versa. Content marketing, SEO, social media, and digital PR work together to boost organic rankings, brand awareness, and website traffic. While content marketing has been an important part of PR for a long time, it has become even more essential recently. This is due to the need to optimize high-quality content with SEO and digital PR.
Companies can benefit greatly from digital PR and SEO. Ultimately, a good digital PR and SEO strategy helps companies to produce original content and be recognized as a trusted source of information in their industry. Let us look at some of the other ways digital PR can benefit your brand.
1) Earning recognition as a thought leader
When a company invests in creating high-quality, newsworthy content, more readers will be interested in what they have produced. If you produce content that many people are interested in, then other content creators are more likely to link back to your content. Some ways to earn quality backlinks include:
- Providing emotional content that a target audience can relate with.
- Sending personalized email pitches that show the company has done the proper research about the journalist.
- Writing an email pitch that concisely summarizes the critical points of the content.
- Offering an exclusive story to the first people pitched.
2) Acquiring high authority links
Link building can earn a company a variety of links, but using a digital PR strategy gives companies the bonus of acquiring higher authority links. Since syndication networks tend to pick up stories from authoritative publishers, companies that use digital PR can earn impressive media placements without having to do extra work.
3) Earning more brand mentions
A good digital PR and SEO strategy increases awareness of your brand, which results in more people talking about you. People trust word-of-mouth recommendations more than they trust advertisements from brands. We are constantly seeking advice and having conversations about the latest trends.
If people are talking about your brand, then it means they’re hearing about you. Over time, higher brand awareness will generate higher sales.
4) Building long-term authority
Consistently producing great content allows companies to better position themselves as experts and thought leaders in their field. A good digital PR strategy can build a company’s domain authority. This is a logarithmic scale that predicts how well a website will rank on search engines.
Publishing content on high-authority websites and gaining quality backlinks helps to boost your domain authority. Since domain authority gives users a clear sign of whether a company is a credible brand, the higher you rank on the SERPs, the more traffic you will attract.
How to create a Digital and SEO PR strategy
Each company is different, so there is no magical strategy that will work for everyone. Even so, there are a few necessary steps that companies should follow to build an effective strategy.
1) Create an overall PR strategy
It’s not enough to simply go through a brainstorming and editing process, slap a disconnected plan on the table, and declare that you have a PR strategy. In order to build an effective PR strategy, everyone on the team needs to understand why digital PR is essential from both a company and personal standpoint. If you can help people to understand this, then you will be able to create a strategy whose parts complement each other.
2) Have the right people
Having a good team that understands the world of digital PR gives you a better chance of reaching your goals. You can hire a digital PR specialist. Alternatively, you can also work with a PR agency like Pressfarm, whose digital PR experts can help you achieve media coverage and connect them with the appropriate media outlets. Pressfarm understands that successful digital PR involves creating and distributing unique and creative content for journalists and target audiences.
With a winning press release, some compelling guest posts, and a creative media kit from Pressfarm, you can make a splash with your brand and boost your SEO. In addition to content creation, the experts at Pressfarm are also skilled at distributing this content so that you can get it in front of the right eyes. By submitting your content to respected media outlets and startup directories, Pressfarm can help boost your brand’s online visibility in relevant search results across different search engines. Pressfarm also boasts a PR database with over 1,000,000 journalists where you can find your perfect media match.
By working with Pressfarm, you can start generating the publicity your brand deserves.
3) Pitch to the media
Once you’ve created content to implement your PR strategy, it is time to make a media list. When your list is done, you should take time to build relationships with the journalists on your list before you even pitch a story.
Sending pitches to journalists who you have established relationships with gives you higher chances of gaining media coverage.
4) Keep track of content
When you start gaining coverage, it’s essential to keep track of the stories being written about you. This will help you understand what kind of stories resonate with the public. In order to evaluate these stories, you should also analyze the metrics for each piece of content including unique viewers per month, domain rating, social shares, and publicity value.
5) Engage in guest posting
Guest posting is an effective way to reach a wider audience with your branded content. By collaborating with other thought leaders to write guest blogs for them, you can boost your web traffic as well as your reputation as a brand. Since guest posting is a relatively affordable way to promote your brand, you should take the time to build a professional network where you can do this.
Conclusion
Digital PR and SEO are both essential parts of any successful PR strategy in this day and age. They allow companies to reach a bigger audience and gain social proof. A comprehensive strategy should contain the essential elements, as well as a flair of creativity that sets your company apart from the competition.
A good digital PR and SEO strategy should keep changing to adapt to our ever-evolving digital landscape. While you can try to keep up with these digital trends yourself, hiring PR professionals to help you through the process can be useful.