Why you need Digital PR as a part of your SEO strategy

Over the years, the digital PR landscape has continued to grow and develop alongside the ever-changing world of digital marketing. In 2024, if you’re not utilising digital PR to further support your SEO efforts, you’re missing out on the opportunity to gain a huge competitive advantage; as the benefits are recognised as part of a solid foundation for your website as one of the 4 pillars of SEO.

The dynamic duo we’re referring to here are digital PR and SEO. Acquiring high authority, relevant backlinks is essential for SEO, while having solid technical, on-page & UX foundations, alongside user-centred content, are equally indispensable – highlighting the importance of the two disciplines working in tandem to achieve results one might struggle to attain without the other.

There’s a symbiotic relationship between digital PR and SEO; we’re going to delve deeper into why having a great SEO strategy will only get you so far. To excel in the digital space, you will also need to focus your attention on driving high-authority, relevant backlinks to your website. 

So, how do digital PR and SEO work together?

High-quality backlinks are great, but they’re not enough on their own 

Let’s start years back; in the earlier days of SEO when the quantity of backlinks was more often than not used as the primary metric for ranking one website over another. 

Whilst this may have once been true, best practice has evolved and Google has developed to become more meticulous and sophisticated in determining both the relevance and the quality of backlinks – this is where digital PR activity comes into play.

As digital PR professionals, our role is, of course, to secure valuable links back to our clients’ websites. But underneath this overarching goal, a key part of our roles is to build relationships with journalists and publications in target industries relevant to our clients’ work. Much like asking customers to leave reviews for products and services is important for building trust for your brand, living in a very digitally-led world means that people seeing brands mentioned in online publications plays a huge part in increasing that brand/consumer trust.

Featuring within industry-relevant publications also enhances brand visibility, authority, and credibility. This, in turn, will contribute to beneficial impacts on your overall SEO efforts.

Ensuring you have solid SEO foundations is key

Looking closely at SEO, having great on-page and technical foundations plays a pivotal role in what impact digital PR activities will have on your site.

To ensure that search engines are capable of effectively crawling, indexing and ranking your site will involve considerations such as:

• Understanding what your audience is searching for online
• Optimising site structure & internal linking
• Improving page speed and user experience 
• Creating useful content which satisfies E-E-A-T criteria

These factors, among many other aspects, are essential for building solid foundations to align with digital PR work. At the end of the day no matter the amount of high-quality backlinks you secure, if your site isn’t correctly optimised you may find yourself in an undesirable position due to search engines struggling to rank your content effectively. 

It’s imperative that when digital PR activity is underway, those links lead to a website that search engines can navigate, understand, and verify easily. 

The role of content as a bridge between digital PR and SEO

One of the main connections between digital PR and SEO is established through content on your website, so it’s essential to keep your on-page SEO strategy in mind when you aim to attract backlinks through digital PR. Things you’ll need to consider when putting your blog strategy together include incorporating relevant keywords, writing engaging meta-descriptions and, ultimately, ensuring that the content delivers value to your target audience.

The strategy of integrating keywords into the content shared through digital PR channels will enable you to improve the visibility of your site by targeting specific search terms. This overarching approach to delivering content will guarantee that your on-page and off-page SEO efforts work together harmoniously to boost your website’s ranking on search engines.

A joint effort in measuring success and reporting on relevant metrics 

The impact of a marketing strategy relies heavily on how it is reported on – which is why it’s important to take a holistic approach to reporting on the measurement and analysis of campaign performance. 

Sure, we can show valuable results relating to activity on a siloed basis. However, a combined approach will allow us to dig deeper into the data by aligning on tactics and presenting an all-encompassing report. 

This approach presents us with the ability to utilise tools such as Google Analytics to track the impact of backlinks on website traffic, user engagement, and conversions. By combining this data with data obtained from digital PR tactics such as the total number of links achieved from campaign activity, the average DR (domain rating) of coverage, and social media shares, alongside sentiment analysis, businesses can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their online presence. 

An integrated approach such as this allows space for continuous optimisation,  and aligns organic activity with overall business objectives.

What results can be achieved by taking a holistic approach?

In a rapidly changing digital environment, the synergy between those working in digital PR and SEO has and will continue to increase in importance. It’s a combination of tactics that has become more vital than ever before. This combined effort will result in:

• A gradually increasing, natural backlink profile
• Increase in domain rating
• Heightened brand awareness & visibility
• Increased referral traffic
• Elevated brand trust
• Increased rankings in SERPs
• And most importantly, growth in organic traffic, leads & revenue!

In such a highly competitive market, the mutually beneficial relationship between digital PR and SEO is a tactic that will leave your business well-positioned for long-term success. As algorithms continue to evolve, implementing a holistic approach that encompasses both of these services plays a vital part in your online presence remaining both strong and adaptable in a digital world that shows no signs of slowing down. 

“Organic growth is delivered by multidisciplinary teams, with experts from technical SEO, research & insights, content, and digital PR working together to deliver on long term strategic objectives. Digital PR delivers on the all-important authority pillar of SEO but has many more benefits, including growth in brand awareness and giving brands a greater chance of visibility in an extremely competitive & AI-centred future search landscape” – Charlotte Tomlinson, Head of SEO & Content