When it comes to your SEO strategy, you need to consider the importance of digital PR and outreach. It’s all well and good creating the best piece of content ever to grace the world, but you need people to see it. This is where digital PR services come into the fold. With the right outreach and digital marketing strategy, you can place this industry-leading content on relevant websites and magazines and, indirectly, increase customer conversions, web traffic etc. Our Outreach Manager, Robbie, is sharing the thought process for link building and just what you need to consider.
Essential trust signals
Relationships are built on trust. To establish that trust, you need to become useful and, subsequently, invaluable. If you obtain connections with relevant sites to your industry, producing unique content that will directly appeal to your audience, you’ll begin to see this improve. If your prospects keep seeing your brand pop up when they are looking for info, and you provide that info, they will begin to come to you directly.
We have previously touched on the key benefits on the rise of link building, but there are key benefits to consider. Essentially, utilising good outreach services will:
- Boost referral traffic
- Increase performance in the SERPs
- Establish your company as an authority in the industry
- Encourage indirect customer conversions
Influence on Google’s algorithm
Gaining links remains not only an essential part of your SEO campaign, but a tool for getting you higher up the SERPs. This table is based on the Moz ranking factors, and is a collaboration with SimilarWeb, Domain Tools and Ahrefs. The results are from over 150 leading search marketers providing feedback on over 90 ranking factors on a scale of 1-10. The survey is completed every two years.
Domain level: As part of our link building services, we consider the DA of the site. A backlink from a high domain authority site (80-90) is worth almost five from 20-30 sites. Essentially, this link tells Google your brand is important and, as such, you experience the benefits – increase in your DA, move up in the SERPs etc.
Page level: Again, as part of our outreach services, we consider the page level rank. This includes the likes of trust metrics, the quantity of linking root domains, anchor text distribution and the spam score of the websites.
At Flow, we achieve relevant links using a number of outreach tactics. While many are fairly straightforward – publish as a member etc. such as Medium – others do require creativity and collaboration.
Link building pyramid
In simple terms, this is a pyramid regarding importance. At the bottom of the pyramid and, essentially, the foundations are the basics. The likes of gaining directory listings are critical, and should always be completed first. Similarly, as are chasing brand mentions and asking for a link, while cleaning up broken links. These are relatively quick and easy to implement, with more time coming in as we move our way up.
As we move up, you can see the content creation, collaborations etc. require more time, but provide more worth. However, if you do not have the resources to fulfil these services, it may be time to look into the services of a digital PR agency.
Brand mentions
Where your company is mentioned online, but without a link – there is wasted potential. As part of our link building services, we contact the site and ask them to drop one in. You can vastly increase the number of referring domains (and traffic) just by doing so.
Stockists/suppliers
This form of link building is crucial to the digital marketing strategy for Ecommerce stores. If you sell or stock external products, you must ensure you are listed on the site producing the product. You can vastly expand your reach and, similarly, revenue. Another part of our digital PR services is to crawl competitor sites and discover where their stockist/supplier links are coming from, and aim to replicate.
Blogger/Influencer collaborations
Depending on your audience, these types of collaborations can aid in appealing to a new audience. For instance, we work on our client’s behalf to establish whether there is any scope for product reviews, competitions etc.
You should always match your brand awareness with bloggers and identify your objectives. For example, if you are looking to nurture relationships without spending too much, smaller-scale bloggers are ideal. Brands looking for an immediate boost in traffic and, likely, revenue are better building relationships with larger bloggers. However, be aware they will cost substantially more.
Press releases
This is a more traditional form of outreach services. Press releases work very well online as they enable us to target publications in your industry, regarding events, specialist products etc. Similarly, you can provide websites with updates on your company.
Content marketing/placement
Placing unique content on high DA websites is the most sought-after method of link building, and worth its weight in gold. If you can craft a piece of content unseen in your specific industry, backed by trusted stats, the potential for links can be staggering. At Flow, we offer content placement as part of our link building services, looking to feature your company on relevant sites. However, if doing this yourself, you must always be aware of duplication when repurposing existing content.
Media requests/pitching
Similar to the above, if you see a journalist from the likes of The Guardian asking for industry quotes or ideas, our team work to provide the necessary information. There are various tools we use in order to do this, such as Gorkana. This database enables us to gain valuable contacts to later approach with unique ideas.
With clear SEO benefits, an online PR ‘publication first’ approach can help your brand receive respect and admiration in your industry. Once you’ve proven your knowledge and integrity, there is also the possibility of indirect customer conversions. Content that targets your potential customer base shortens the distance between those people and your products
