Link Building vs Digital PR: What’s the Difference?

Google are a smart bunch and certainly know how to make us work hard to get those all-important rankings. With an ever-evolving algorithm and hugely competitive landscape, it’s a battle to see yourself outrank those you are up against.

That is why those among us in the SEO world look to deploy a host of tactics to ensure the words and images on screen translate to a high position on the SERPS.

Some of these strategies don’t always work though. We can spend time cultivating what appears to be high quality, relevant and detailed content, tailored to the search intent, yet for some reason, the Google gods think it’s not worthy of a high position. So, what do we do?

We must adapt, and match the audience demand as things change, we have to be aware of trends and make ourselves an authoritative voice on those trends. To do this, we adopt link building and digital PR strategies.

These give us the chance to amplify the voice or the message of the brand and the associated content to a potentially new and valuable audience that may have not yet found us via Google.

Building links has long since been known as a valuable tool in the world of SEO. If a high-quality site has a link to your content, it’s basically saying “we agree with this” or “these people know what they are talking about.” From this, your sites credibility grows and those ranking start to improve. So, what is the difference if both aim to give you the same result? In this edition of our blog, we take a look.

What is Digital PR?

Even if you are new to the world of marketing, you’ll know that PR can be both good and bad. In digital, bad PR isn’t so much a controversial statement, or a publicity stunt gone wrong. It’s more so that your content lands on a poor-quality site and causes your own site to lose a bit of its credibility.

Digital PR is where you use PR tactics to secure backlinks or exposure on high quality sites. Think news media, such as The Times, The Guardian, Sky News. Think industry publications specific to your niche. Think big. With digital PR you craft valued assets that can be shared and consumed by a wide audience, who in some cases, may have no interest in your brand but are lured in though your creative content. This could be videos, infographics, detailed reports or articles. Think about articles you may stumble upon such as “The five places you are likely to die.” It sounds a little morbid, it sounds a little odd, but you are giving it a click….Then once you start reading, you’ll find a link within to, let’s say, a life insurance company who have created this novel, quirky PR piece.

I’ll give you another example, how often do we see “Netflix viewers shocked by gory scene in latest show” or something similar? You click it, you want to know what the scene was, what the show was or whether people were genuinely shocked. Once on the piece, you find a few references to specific scenes, perhaps a quote from a viewer, but there it is…..the link to sub to Netflix.

You’ll craft this content, specifically for outreaching, to relevant outlets. With each item you outreach being built to the audience of the publications you are reaching out to. Some you may have built relationships up with through earlier work, others you might find via tools such as Muckrack, Prowly or Dotstar. These outlets become the metaphorical gun that shoots your message out to the new, untapped audience. To get them to do so though, you need two things. Great content, and a relationship.

Digital PR relies on relationship building, and it takes time. You need to build a contact list of site owners, journalists, marketers and more. Reaching out to them will be the start of your journey. Some may not want to know; others may love every aspect of what you have. It’s a slow burner and one where results may not be evident right away. Let’s use an example. At Chillibyte, we landed some links for a property client of ours on the Ideal Home site. This stemmed from spotting an opportunity on Dotstar. We then pitched to the journalist, she liked what we had and published it. Since then, we have been able to offer expert commentary from our client for a variety of pieces for the site where the writer reaches out to us, rather than us having to reach out to them.

You can view digital PR as they way to sing, dance and shout about your brand through being creative, informative and engaging.

What are the common digital PR tactics?

It all depends on what message you need to get across. You may have stories or stats to offer that align with a trend or current affairs. Data driven outreach is loved by media outlets as they can use it to help solidify their story. Expert commentary is loved just as much as it allows the publication to inform their audience with quotes from those “on the front line” rather than just give unsubstantiated opinions.

For the most part, digital PR will include:

• Creative marketing efforts to capture attention (videos, social campaigns, calls to action)
• Research and data driven content that provides valuable information
• Commentary and opinion to show the brand as a voice of authority
• Product launches and partnerships, showcasing innovation, new trends and endorsements

So, what about link building then?

There is a fair bit of similarity between digital PR and link building. The end result after all, is fundamentally the same. However, manual link building is a little different.

We all know that a backlink can help increase your site authority, and much like digital PR, if the link comes from a high-quality site, it’s going to work wonders. In PR though, a link isn’t always guaranteed. Some publications see your hope for a link as a chance to sell you an advertorial package, others may simply ignore links in the press release and just opt for a brand mention.

With link building, the core focus is the link. In fact, a link may be all you need to supply to the hosting site as opposed to a huge press release with media files and reams of info.

If you can successfully build links on high quality sites, you stand to see not just an enhanced credibility for your site but gain improved visibility within your industry. This then helps to build relationships among other industry experts, giving you the opportunity to perhaps work alongside each other in the future should opportunity arise.

With increased website credibility, the increased organic traffic follows (hopefully) and from this increased traffic, you should….and we say should….have a better chance of converting visitors into customers.

So how do we build links manually? We do it a little like we do with digital PR, except in some cases, you don’t need content, you just need to answer a question or provide a piece of data that helps another site out. Common link building tactics could include simply requesting a link from partners or affiliates, it could be from providing a blog with relevant images or a piece of data, or it could be from providing content that the host thinks is link worthy such as a helpful tool, some valuable resources or some key data that backs up their story or article.

You may find sites that have broken links where you can reach out and say, “Hey, I see you are talking about buying a new car, your link is broken, but don’t worry, I’ve got this if you want it” They might then just thank you for highlighting their broken page by giving you the link.

Another option could be where you reach out to a blogger for example and tell them you have some content relevant to some items on their site. You might have an infographic that complements their existing work. You don’t want paying for supplying them some valued info that bolsters their coverage, you just want the link that shows where the infographic came from.

You can view link building a little like being a helpful aid to other sites.

Overcoming hurdles

By covering both PR and link building, you stand to gain links from the high-quality media outlets but also the industry specific blogs and sites. This shows to Google that not only does the industry rate you, but the media does too.

Google won’t just take a link as a sign of quality though; it looks at the site and checks whether it serves a purpose to the user. It wants to know; will a click take the consumer to somewhere relevant and authoritative or will it take them to something of poor quality. As a result, links do not become the only factor. The quality of the content and the quality of the site come into play too.

You could, for example, look at a site that gets plenty of traffic, yet all its other metrics point to it being a site of low authority. If the content within is of high quality though, the rankings could be too. Engaging, quality content can convince Google that you are the thought leader in your field. And this, can be priceless.

It can take time though and as a result, many look to link building in favour of content. The thought being that lots of good links will push you to the top step of the Google podium. Whilst to a small degree that is correct, highlighting just one page as the bells and whistles of your site could actually demean your site’s worth. Instead, it’s best to cultivate high quality content, site wide, then when you build links and outreach, not only will Google know you are a worthy voice in the field, but the media outlet will too.