Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving to consider more metrics when determining search rankings.
While SEO tactics alone are not always enough to ensure top positions, Digital PR has the potential to steer your online strategy in the right direction.
Through media coverage and influencer collaborations, brands can secure high-quality backlinks and brand mentions that improve visibility.
The Importance of Search Rankings
Search rankings make or break your site’s visibility.
Think about the last time you made it to the third or fourth page of Google results. If you have trouble sifting through your memory, it’s because you probably clicked on one of the top links.
Therefore, the higher your brand appears on search engine results pages (SERPs), the more visitors you get.
Not only this, but the higher you rank on search engines like Google, the more credible you are.
It’s well-known that, SEO geek or not, websites that rank well on the SERPs are trusted by search engines.
If you put two and two together, you get more traffic and higher credibility, which, in the business world, is a recipe for ROI through digital PR.
The Role of Digital PR in SEO
While SEO works to drive organic traffic, Digital PR boosts brand authority through online media.
What Exactly Is Digital PR?
Like traditional PR efforts typically involve print media and broadcast outlets, Digital PR is all about online platforms digital publications, blogs, and social media.
Digital PR helps boost website authority as well as improve brand awareness and credibility. This helps boost SEO efforts and makes your brand appear more of an industry leader.
Key Components of a Digital PR Strategy
While every Digital PR campaign is different, it usually involves the same steps:
- Planning: Digital marketers set clear objectives, analyse the target audience, and come up with a list of potential journalists and influencers to pitch.
- Asset production: They decide on a message and create compelling, high-quality content to support it, which can include press releases, articles, infographics, videos, and more.
- Outreach: Marketers then pitch their content to journalists and influencers to (hopefully) gain coverage on reputable online platforms.
- Assessment: They track backlinks, brand mentions, traffic, and other metrics in order to measure the campaign’s success.
How Digital PR Complements SEO Efforts
Digital PR and SEO both aim to move your brand higher in rankings and improve authority.
Link Building
Acquiring backlinks enhances SEO. Trouble is, not all backlinks are built equal.
56.2% of SEO experts agree that link quantity and quality impact rankings. And it’s true. Because of this, a backlink from a high authority website counts more than one from a spammy aggregator.
Digital PR helps businesses secure guest posts and social media coverage on respected websites. These backlinks act as signals to search engines, improving search rankings.
Brand Mentions
Besides backlinks, brand mentions across platforms can also influence SEO.
Even if publications don’t link back to your website, mentions help you gain visibility. People talk about you, so you’re relevant. It’s the type of thing search engine algorithms pay attention to.
Mentions can also drive traffic. If someone reads about your brand in an article, they’re more likely to search for it.
Content Creation
Digital PR content often includes data-backed reports and newsworthy or engaging brand stories. Optimising this content for SEO doesn’t just attract media coverage and backlinks. It also generates organic traffic.
Social Signals
While social media signals don’t impact ranking directly, they increase your brand’s visibility.
Digital PR enhances these signals. By collaborating with influencers, for instance, you can amplify your content on social media. This may convince consumers to find out more by searching your brand on Google.
The Synergy Between Digital PR and SEO
Digital PR and SEO work together to build your brand’s digital presence.
Digital PR drives SEO with high-quality links and brand mentions. At the same time, SEO efforts strengthen digital PR campaigns as they make your website seem more credible.
Let’s say you score an amazing backlink. This is like a ‘Voting’ point from another website. Each vote equals more credibility.
Search engines see this, and the more they see, the more credible you appear to them. This, in turn, allows you to rank for more difficult keywords over time as your website is more trusted than its competitors.
On the other hand, brand mentions and social media engagement, which are part of digital PR, increase user signals. Though a little lower on the scale of SEO impact, it can still make a huge difference, especially if it's something your competition is lacking.
Either way you look at it, digital PR and SEO go hand in hand. Digital PR helps with SEO, and SEO helps with digital PR as you come across as a more credible source.
Key Metrics to Measure Digital PR’s Impact on SEO
By tracking certain metrics, brands can assess the impact Digital PR campaigns have on SEO and use the findings to refine their approach.
Backlink Quality and Quantity
Backlinks keep popping up because they are the cornerstone of SEO.
Whenever an industry-relevant website links back to you, your page grows in the eyes of the algorithm. Additionally, a health backlink profile makes it appear like you haven’t brought links (which is a blackhat strategy that Google doesn’t like), decreasing the likelihood of SERP bans.
Marketing tools like Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs help brands track backlinks and determine their impact. You can also use them to measure other Digital PR metrics, monitor your rankings, optimise content, and more.
Domain Authority
One of the other metrics digital marketers like to monitor is domain authority (DA), which measures a site’s credibility. While DA doesn’t directly impact SERPs, a higher score usually correlates with higher rankings.
When Digital PR campaigns lead to high-quality media coverage and backlinks, a site's overall authority jumps up. This increases visibility across the board, which boosts the website’s position in search results.
Keyword Rankings
Digital PR can improve specific keyword rankings by driving traffic and engagement to optimised content.
For example, an article in an online publication that links to a brand webpage targeting a specific keyword can boost its ranking. The link basically tells the algorithm that the page is relevant and credible.
Semrush has a useful position-tracking tool that lets you stay on top of rankings and alerts you to any changes.
Organic Traffic
Brands that leverage Digital PR aim to create buzz. When they succeed, this translates to media mentions and social shares.
These signals have the potential to increase organic traffic. Consumers who keep hearing about your brand get curious and search for your products or services.
Google Analytics helps you monitor any spikes and measure traffic growth from search engines over time.
Brand Search Volume
Given that Digital PR increases brand awareness, there’s a good chance more people will search for your brand directly. You can monitor these queries with tools like Google Trends.
Branded keywords are important because they lead to higher conversion rates. People who search “buy Nike trainers” are more likely to make a purchase than those who search “buy trainers”.
Case Studies: Digital PR Campaigns That Boosted SEO
The synergy between Digital PR and SEO becomes obvious when you examine how brands employ the two tactics to enhance visibility.
Case Study 1: Susan, The Future Remote Worker
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Direct Apply launched an effective campaign meant to highlight the health implications of remote working.
Rather than relying solely on data, they went one step further. They created a 3D model of how a remote worker would look like after 25 years spent hunched over their laptop at home.
Source: Directly Apply
Turns out, reading about poor posture, hair loss, and obesity is one thing. Seeing these negative effects of remote work in action is more striking, resulting in a very impressive PR campaign from Direct Apply.
Source: Kaizen
Case Study 2: A Life of Tax
Nothing is certain in life except death, taxes, and the public’s interest in research that makes them gasp. Self knew that when it published a hefty study about the amount of tax the average American pays over their life.
Source: Self
Findings revealed that about a third of lifetime earnings go to various taxes. Seeing the numbers add up resonated with consumers, who flooded the site to read the insights for themselves.
Reference: SEO Results from Self’s Study
Digital PR Is Essential for Better Rankings
Digital PR has become invaluable for brands who want their SEO strategies to make an impact.
By combining the two, companies can amplify their content and influence search rankings in their favour.
