How I’ve Mastered Digital PR Strategy For SEO And Link Building

Digital PR strategy should be at the top of your SEO and link-building priority list.

It’s the future of link building, and if you can get it right, it can change your online influence forever.

But what does it involve? How does it boost your authority? And what do you need to do to pull it off?

In this guide, I’ll show you how to do the following using my personal experience in creating FATJOE’s digital PR strategy and even our digital PR services.

• How to understand digital PR in an SEO context
• How to set goals for your digital PR campaign
• How to identify and target the right publications
• How to put systems in place to measure your success

Understanding Digital PR for SEO 🤔

First, you want to understand how digital PR and SEO relate.

Digital PR isn’t a new strategy. Brands have been using a mix of proactive and reactive digital PR strategies for over two decades to boost their online visibility, but it is exploding in popularity right now.

It is not the same as traditional PR. That usually involves contacting conventional media channels for company reputational management, while digital focuses explicitly on gaining backlinks.

Backlinks remain among the most powerful methods to boost SEO. Despite all the “algo” changes, they are core to Google’s algorithm and, therefore, still essential for generating traffic.

Don’t believe me?

Banklinko did some comprehensive research on this topic recently and found something striking. It discovered that backlinks were still central to Google’s ranking approach (despite all the recent additions).

However, I caution against seeing digital PR as just another backlinking strategy, like guest blogging or directory submissions.

It’s not the same.

While those services focus on volume, digital PR builds high-authority links by crafting interesting, original, newsworthy content for top publications.

via GIPHY

While it’s obviously great to hoard as many DPR links as you can, it’s definitely quality over quantity here.

It’s not just about news. A well-executed digital PR strategy enhances SEO more than you might think. It does this by:

• Creating newsworthy, high-quality content for brands
• Boosting organic search rankings
• Earning more high-quality backlinks from reputable publishers
• Increasing organic referral traffic by exposing content to broader audiences

Set The Right Digital PR Goals ✅

The first step is to set effective goals for your digital PR strategy.

I always make sure to do this first, as defining what you want to achieve from the process steers you in the right direction.

You might set objectives like:

• Achieving a specific number of backlinks
• Improving domain authority/rating
• Gaining more media coverage

Where you can, align your goals with SEO metrics that move the needle on your bottom line.

I’ll always work with Dan, FATJOE’s SEO and content guy to make sure my digital PR work is helping his SEO goals.

For example, you could measure success in terms of:

• New organic traffic
• Keyword rankings
• Referral traffic

Drill down into these metrics and ignore the fluff. Find a system of goals and metrics that supports your business’s objectives.

For example, suppose you want to rank in the top three on Google for the keyword “electric commuter bike.” Use tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to calculate how much new organic traffic you could earn (and the new revenue it could generate) if you rose through the rankings for it.

Check the competition first (as I do here):

Craft Newsworthy Link-Grabbing Headlines 📰

Shock them. Intrigue them. Grab their eyes and their clicks.

The next step is to research and create a series of newsworthy and link-worthy press release angles. Audiences should want to read them, and publishers should want to publish them.

Don’t turn your digital PR copy into an advertorial. Mention your brand, but don’t try to sell anything. Simply place the link and allow audience curiosity and interest to drive the rest of the process.

Below, you can see how professional organizations like Honda approach this task. Notice how they stick to the facts and describe their new personal commuter product with swappable batteries in detail.

Of course, you don’t have to stick to Honda’s vanilla approach to digital PR. Numerous types of newsworthy content can contain and attract links.

For example, you can experiment with reactive press releases. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, these can be highly effective and help you jump on viral trends immediately.

If you want a quick takeaway on the best way to do this, I made this video about using Google Trends for snappy reactive PR ideas – it’s an absolute gamechanger.

Another option is interactive content. Infographics can drive more clicks, likes, and shares, helping you spread information.

Finally, expert commentary and thought leadership have a place. A well-written article describing what you do and how you are solving a newsworthy problem can go a long way.

Why Are Digital PR Strategies So Popular Right Now? 📈

Digital PR is popular because you can scale your efforts to drive SEO and link-building with high-authority sites.

Services like ours let you publish your content on hundreds of sites simultaneously, allowing you to reach broader audiences overnight.

Here’s an example of a press release we launched for our AI tool, Optimo, which landed in Business Insider, allowing us to reach a larger worldwide audience:

However, digital PR success isn’t limited to mid- and large-caps. Even small brands can succeed using this strategy.

For example, press releases helped a software company get the news out about its new solution for insurance claim handlers:

This press release targeted a niche audience interested in a new type of client view portal for remote teams in the insurance industry. The brand was able to get its message in front of the right people at the right time.

How To Make A Viral Digital PR Strategy 🔗

Guaranteeing viral pick-up isn’t possible. I wish it was, but it isn’t.

But, if you get it right, you can weigh the odds in your favor.

Stories can blow up overnight, thanks to social media.

Therefore, start by learning what makes news go viral. Research what works. 🤓

I love focusing on:

• The emotional impact of your story and how it makes audiences feel
• The novelty of the story and how it fits into existing trends
• The data-driven insights the story contains (including shocking statistics that will draw clicks)
• The shareability of the story in the form of digestible images and quotes
• The relatability of the story and how it connects with the target audience

After that, write a click-worthy title and hook. Bait your audience with a story they have to read.

For example, take a contrarian view of a news story that breaks the paradigm. Say something interesting that makes readers want to click to learn more.

Alternatively, make your story emotionally charged. Spark outrage or inspiration to get clicks.

Use storytelling to get your point across wherever possible. Explain the “why” behind your message by beginning with a problem, identifying a solution, and ending with your brand’s impact (i.e., how you’re helping people).

Crafting a narrative like this draws your audience into your world. It makes them feel more engaged and convinces them they can benefit more from your products.

Bewitching journalists also helps. Finding a way to provide them with exclusive insights they must pursue at all costs puts you at the top of their priority list. Ways to do this include:

• Creating original surveys and reports
• Gathering internal data that shows something new
• Analyzing industry trends in a novel way that hasn’t been done before

Finally, optimize your content for SEO and AI chatbots. Include keywords that increase the likelihood of your digital PR surfacing for search queries in your niche.

For example, here’s the result for the keyword “How is Alphatec empowering remote teams?”

Notice how Google serves up the site in the number one rank slot after the now-usual AI attempt.

That’s what you want.

Remember: Virality Isn’t Everything

Just as a note, remember that as nice as it is to go viral, it isn’t required for a great digital PR campaign.

Nailing relevant coverage in niche-specific sites is way better than general coverage that gets you nowhere.

Identify And Target The Right Publications 🎯

The next stage is to find the right publications for your digital PR strategy.

This step is often the most challenging. Finding relevant journalists interested in your stories is sometimes like finding a needle in a haystack.

How To Find Relevant Journalists And Influencers To Host Your Story

So, what can you do to move things forward?

Leverage Media Databases

First, try finding the people you need on media databases, including journalists, prominent bloggers, and other influential digital personalities by keyword and topic.

Tools and services to help with this include:

• BuzzSumo
• Meltwater
• Cision

Look for publications and individuals with a history of publishing similar content.

Use Social Media And Content Platforms

Next, use X, LinkedIn, and Instagram to identify journalists and influencers in your niche. Look for individuals who post on topics similar to yours.

Use HARO-like services

HARO might be dead, but there are several similar replacements. I still call it HARO because that’s what everyone knew it as, but you can find alternatives like HERO (Help Every Reporter Out), Qwoted, and the rest.

These let you find journalists actively seeking expert commentary on subjects in your industry or niche, enhancing your visibility.

Target Specific Websites

Lastly, you can sometimes target specific websites. These let you post your digital PRs in front of the audiences most likely to read them (instead of generic news sites).

To do this, communicate with them directly, one by one. It’s time-consuming but can be worth it.

Tools For Media Outreach

Still stuck?

Software tools can also help you identify and target the right niche publications.

For example, Ahrefs lets you find links to your competitors’ websites. Sometimes, these will be from their digital PR efforts, helping you get a head start on outreach.

The social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, can still be helpful for media outreach despite what’s happening over there.

Journalists and influencers often share their most recent work on the platform and upcoming projects. As a brand, you can use this information to find people sympathetic toward publishing your work.

Bluesky is increasingly picking up as well with many journalists there, but it’s still not all of them right now.

How To Segment Your Audience

Finally, segment your audience to target the right publications. Digital PRs should only appear in front of people likely to read them.

The best place to start is with your industry. Only publish in publications that serve your vertical.

For example, if you’re in the health and wellness industry, prioritize publications that serve this niche. The same applies to the technology industry–targeting the tech media.

Next, look for publications with high domain metrics. The higher the metrics, the more SEO juice their backlinks will deliver.

Finally, check if the publication’s readership matches your audience’s demographics. Don’t post a digital PR on a tech website targeting consumers if your customers are enterprises.

How To Make Your Digital PR Outreach Compelling

Reaching out to journalists, bloggers, and influencers to ask them to share your content is inevitable. But how do you stand out in their crowded inboxes?

The trick here is to write a compelling pitch. You need to pique their curiosity and provide value upfront.

But how do you do that, I hear you ask?

Simple: craft a strong pitch. Make sure you include:

• A compelling opening subject line (or heading) that catches their interest (and that they know will appeal to specific target audiences)
• A strong introduction (or even bullet points) to immediately hook the journalist and give them a compelling reason to continue reading the article
• A newsworthy element they can latch onto and add their personality and journalistic style to
• A value proposition that explains why the story is relevant to specific audiences
• A call-to-action at the end that tells them what you want them to do with the information (i.e., write a story, create an infographic, etc.)
• Your contact details and how they should get in touch with you

When reaching out to journalists, take the time to personalize your communications. Address them by name, especially if they are top-tier or someone well-known. This little touch tells them you want them specifically.

Where possible, look for journalists who’ve written similar stories in the past. Often, they will instinctively know the newsworthy angle to follow.

For mass outreach, use templates and fields to auto-enter names and details. Then, double-check the communications make sense (and don’t sound like a robot wrote them).

Sometimes, you will get stuck–that’s normal. If you do, digital PR agencies like FATJOE can help. We streamline and automate the whole process for you. For example, with our PR Campaigns service, we offer domain authority in the 40 to 95 range and some of the top publishers in the world, including sites like MSN, New York Post, and Daily Mail.

Better yet, everything is done for you. You know all that back-breaking work I’ve just laid out earlier? You don’t have to do it! I do.

Following Up With Journalists

Of course, some journalists won’t reply to your outreach (if you do it in-house). When this happens, you’ll need to follow up.

But how do you do that?

Here’s my advice:

• Only follow up once or twice (don’t keep sending follow-ups every week: take a hint!)
• Wait at least three to five working days after sending your original email or communication
• When following up, keep your message short; make it a simple reminder
• Change the angle and pitch differently if you think you made a mistake the first time around

Measuring Your Digital PR Campaign Strategy’s Effectiveness 📏

Finally, it’s a good idea to measure the effectiveness of your digital PR campaigns. Audits tell you if they are improving your SEO and link-building.

At this stage, I suggest circling back to the goals you set earlier. Check these match your results.

For example, suppose you wanted your digital PR to generate 50% more organic traffic. You’d work this out by comparing your target metric to what actually happened according to your real-world website statistics.

The same goes for your keyword ranking goals. The measuring phase involves checking your desired position against your actual one.

Tracking the success of your digital PR campaigns is way easier than before (thank goodness). Brands have all sorts of tools at their disposal.

Google Analytics is probably the best known. It lets you:

• Track referral traffic from earned media coverage
• See how users are responding to PR-driven campaigns and news sources
• Discover how many conversions specific campaigns are generating (i.e., email sign-ups or purchases)

Ahrefs is equally impressive. It lets you:

• Track the new backlinks your PR campaigns generate
• Assess the quality of backlinking sites (i.e., their DA score)
• Monitor any lost backlinks or retention issues

You can also track your rank for specific search terms to see if you are scoring better for specific keywords (always handy).

Moz is another option. It lets you:

• Measure the domain authority of linking sites (i.e., the publishers)
• See what your competitors are doing to build links
• Track how your link profile is changing over time (including your “spam score” or how Google views your links)

Using These Tools To Improve Your Digital PR Strategy

Once you have your digital PR campaign results, look for what worked. See if you had any outlier news stories and ask what made them so viral.

Focus on tracking placements with the most traffic and engagement. Look for opportunities to repeat previous successes at a low cost. Where possible, prioritize high-DR sites. Use data to look for authority publications and remove spammy links.

Lastly, incorporate these lessons into your next campaign and adjust your content, messaging, and strategy as appropriate.

Now You Know How To Create A Digital PR Strategy For SEO And Link-Building 🤓

Reading this, you should know how to use a digital PR strategy for SEO and link-building. Getting this right can supercharge your outreach efforts and help you dominate your online niche in search.

Critically, you need to:

• Understand how digital PR works and that it isn’t just about creating backlinks but crafting newsworthy stories that audiences care about
• Set clear goals for what you want your PR strategy to achieve
• Write link-worthy and news-worthy content for the PR
• Leverage PR formats proven to work with your audience
• Target the right publications using the right methods
• Use digital tools to measure your success

So, what are you waiting for? Give it a try!