With today’s ever-changing media landscape, it can be tricky for brands to keep on top of the many ways of reaching potential customers. We’re living in a digital world, which means things move faster than ever before, and there are always new terms, tech and tactics to implement. By now, we all know that PR is an essential part of any brand’s marketing strategy – but what about digital PR?
Digital PR is more than just the latest marketing buzzword out there. It’s now an integral part of any communications strategy.
We wish we could say digital PR is simply traditional PR but online – it’s not quite that straightforward, though!
Traditional PR focuses on getting coverage in print, magazines, newspapers, radio and TV, aiming to build the brand and shape its reputation. Digital PR applies the same principles to securing coverage online, but there’s much more to it than that. It’s also about securing links to your website from high Domain Authority websites, creating content packed full of keywords, and talking about topics before they are trending – all to ensure your brand is top of the search engine results.
Firstly, what is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is essentially a score given to a website that will help predict how well the site will rank on search engines. It’s calculated by algorithms that evaluate multiple factors, including trustworthiness and relevance of the content, website age and speed, overall SEO health, and both internal and external backlinks. Scores can range anywhere from 0 to 100, and the higher the score, the better. In fact, anything over 60 is deemed as “excellent.”
Digital PR strategies therefore involve link-building strategies. The aim of the game is to secure coverage on websites with a high DA score that will include a link back to your website, as this will boost your own ranking while helping to position you higher on search engines like Google or Bing – both of which will help your brand get chosen more often!
More than landing links
The secret to success, though, goes way beyond landing links. There may be some agencies out there who focus purely on securing those backlinks from high DA sites, but they overlook one very important factor – target audience. As a specialist home and garden PR agency, we know that it’s as much about Domain Authority as it is considering the readership of that site. Sure, a link from a strong website is great for SEO, but what good is it if the people reading that article are never going to be interested in the products or services you have to offer? It’s therefore important to combine securing high-quality links in the right places, with the right readership. Repeatedly.
Keeping ahead of the trends
To add another layer to things, digital PR also calls for an “always on” approach to your content strategy. In the gardening world, we’re lucky that things generally follow the seasons (give or take a few curveballs from the weather!).
But, and this is a biggie, you also have to consider what is trending online. Your content should answer peoples’ questions before they are even asking them, so that your brand is among the first results when someone searches something related to your products or services.
This also means the content you put out there has to be packed full of keywords (but not so packed that it becomes clunky), while conveying your brand voice and providing an engaging read.
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As you can see, there’s quite a lot to consider when it comes to digital PR, but it’s also clear that brands can’t afford to ignore it if they want to boost brand awareness while driving traffic to their website.
At Honest Communications, we devise strategies based on securing backlinks and reaching target audiences, using search data, keywords and current trends to inform our editorial plans. If you need help with your digital PR strategy, get in touch with us or email hello@honestcommunications.co.uk
