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When others link to your website, Google wants to know what value you can offer users – the very reason someone gave you a backlink. This is where digital public relations (digital PR) comes into play.
Compared to manually building links, digital PR focuses on teaching a search engine about your expertise, which is reaffirmed by other publications linking to your content.
Let’s take a deeper look at how search engines like Google have evolved, how digital PR works, and why using it alongside manual link building efforts is considered the best solution to keeping your website relevant.
Google got smart
Google is traditionally all about links – the more links the better. However, it has become a smart semantic search engine. Instead of simply looking at the links, try to understand the context, including the site’s information, what it offers and similar details.
Google’s focus is shifting to valuable sites that provide useful content and strong signals of experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness (EEAT). In other words, link quality matters more than quantity.
For example, websites with limited authority, despite their high traffic, focus on topical relevance. They are basically convincing Google that they are experts in a particular topic or niche. And this is one of the determining factors between digital PR and manual link building.
Related: Improve your website’s visibility and dominate the competition with these powerful techniques
Understanding digital PR
Digital PR is very similar to traditional public relations, except it focuses on the digital space. It is the use of online channels to manage your brand’s reputation and build positive relationships with your target audience.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), digital PR helps to:
- Attract visitors to your website.
- Getting other websites to link to yours, which improves your website’s authority and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
There is no single way to do digital PR. However, a common but effective strategy involves content creation efforts. In other words, you need to create valuable assets, including reports, infographics, white papers, statistics, and other content that are good enough that other publications can organically link to your work.
Digital PR builds quality backlinks but takes time
Organic backlinks – voluntary links to your content – are considered higher quality links than those created manually (via guest posting or affiliate linking). Digital PR is a powerful tool for acquiring high-quality backlinks. However, it is a gamble that requires commitment and patience to obtain good results. Here because.
Building relationships
You need to demonstrate your brand’s value and experience consistently before members of your target audience are willing to recommend or link to your content.
Create valuable content
Researching topics, providing comments, or launching campaigns is not done all at once. You need to invest a significant amount of time and resources.
Gain organic reach
Journalists are constantly advertised to, so your content needs to be truly newsworthy and relevant to their audience to stand out and secure coverage. Sometimes, you also need to have a strategic outreach plan to get your content in front of the right journalists and publications.
Related: Why a good digital PR strategy is so important
Manual link building remains an effective SEO strategy
While digital PR is a great way to increase authority, manual link building remains effective in maintaining your website’s visibility and relevance. The only difference is that you proactively get backlinks to your website instead of letting journalists voluntarily make the link.
However, given the change in the current landscape, you should focus your link building efforts on acquiring interesting links rather than spam. Here are some manual link building strategies that could still provide good results:
Guest posting
Write high-quality articles for other relevant websites in your niche. So, make sure to include a link to your website within the content.
Broken link building
Find broken links on relevant websites and contact the website owners, suggesting your own content as a replacement.
Help a Reporter Out (HARO) cast
There are some platforms where journalists post their questions on topics that may be too niche. Answer their questions with great answers, you could potentially earn a backlink in the published article.
Networking and relationship building
Connecting with influences and leaders in your niche always remains a good tactic. As you build relationships for your business, you may also find natural connection opportunities.
Related: 5 Guest Posting Tips to Help You Rank Higher on Search Engines
Manually creating links risks being penalized
Manual link building is seen as a method of replicating the gain of digital PR links (which can be time consuming). While it may be faster, it also carries the risk of penalizing your website if done incorrectly. Here are some cases where this might happen:
Unnatural connection profile
Search engines like Google analyze link patterns to identify websites engaging in manipulative link building. An example of this is when your website has a sudden surge of links that look unnatural, including those from low-quality websites, identical anchor texts, or links to private blog networks.
Manipulative link building techniques
Engaging in specific practices can be directly flagged as manipulative and lead to sanctions. Examples include link buying, excessive link exchanges, and comment spam.
A two-pronged approach to link building is best
To be sure, search engines today tend to rely more on topic relevance than human-driven linking efforts. In other words, digital PR is becoming a trend and you should take advantage of it too.
However, combining both approaches can help your business create a more effective strategy for building high-quality links. In particular, digital PR will help you get natural, authoritative links from trusted sources. Meanwhile, manually building links helps you locate and control the quality of your links.
Digital PR can be resource-intensive compared to manual link building. If your team isn’t yet ready to focus on creating high-quality content, manual link building remains a great route to take.