Why digital PR is important (especially in the age of AI)

Digital Marketing | SEO

Who remembers when buying CDs was the only way to get your hands on the music you wanted? Unless you were prepared to record the Top 40 off your radio.

Ah, the good old days! 

But before we knew it, our oh-so-sophisticated CD player was replaced by the iPod and the musical download. Top of the Pops all of a sudden just didn’t matter anymore.

In the world of digital marketing, the rules change all the time too. As technology advances at an ever-increasing pace, we have to find new ways to ensure the best ROI for our clients and this is particularly true in the world of SEO. 

This is where digital PR comes in. 

But what is it exactly and why has it (all of a sudden) become much more important than it was just a few short months ago? 

What is digital PR?

Digital PR (also known as online PR or digital public relations) refers to the strategic use of digital channels to manage and improve your brand’s reputation and reach. Basically, it’s about using the internet to help more people get to know you better. 

Sounds simple enough, but there is quite a lot packed into this particular nutshell. It encompasses various online PR tactics to reach and engage with a broader and digitally connected audience. This includes:

• Guest blogging (writing blog articles for third-party websites)
• Podcast appearances
• Providing quotes to journalists
• Appearing on influencer videos

Digital PR often builds links from third-party sites to your site. Therefore, it is great for your website’s optimisation. It helps your website rank higher in the result pages, meaning you get more visibility and a greater chance of being found by potential leads.

Many of the strategies used by someone to build links would be used by someone to conduct digital PR.

But digital PR encompasses a broader range of activities than traditional link building and often includes activities that don’t build links, such as appearing on podcasts. Sometimes links are generated from this, but this would be a secondary benefit – the main aim in this case would be building brand awareness.

Why is digital PR important?

Trust and authority:

Search engine algorithms – the sneaky programs that decide which website should appear in the converted number 1, 2 and 3 positions – prioritise websites with high levels of trust and authority. 

One of the ways they calculate how authoritative your website is is by analysing your backlink profile (the number and quality of links connecting to any one page on your website). 

By implementing effective digital PR strategies, you can build up your backlink profile. 

Guest blogs, mentions, quotes and reviews that link through to your website help develop a rich and authentic backlink profile. Search engines gobble this up, and propel your website to the top of search. 

This is where digital PR can work to support your SEO campaign.

Enhanced reach and visibility:

Secondly, digital PR leverages online platforms, social media, blogs, news websites, and other digital channels to reach a broader and more diverse audience. 

This expanded reach allows you to connect with potential leads globally. The more people see and hear about you, the more you’re likely to generate leads through your website. 

Google’s SGE: propelling digital PR to centre stage

This year, it is likely that we’ll see a change in how we experience our search results on Google. 

Although they’ve not announced it, the talk on the SEO grapevine is that Google will begin to roll out its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in the UK during 2024. 

When you type in an informational search (such as “How do you write a guest blog”) you will no longer get a list of websites with the information for you (or a neat snippet that gives you a snapshot answer). Instead, you will get a fully-fledged AI-generated answer embedded within Google’s results page. You won’t need to click through to a different website to find the information that you need. 

For a full rundown of the details of SGE, head over to our blog on the topic. 

This is helpful for the user, but not so great for the business owner. 

Because one of the ways that you can generate traffic and brand awareness online is by writing answers to informational search queries in the form of blogs. The idea is that users who are interested in topics associated with your business will find your blog articles and get to know your brand and solutions. This traffic also sends a strong signal to the search engine algorithm that you’re important and should be ranked more highly. 

So, how do you increase your website’s visibility and drive traffic to it, in a world where Google is no longer directing people to websites to answer search queries?  

Enter, digital PR. 

How will digital PR help?

In much the same way as it always has done – but in an even more intense way. 

Google will still list organic results below its AI-generated results. But, it will feature three websites within the result at the top of the page. Although Google has not said as much, these three websites will likely be those that are ranking amongst the top positions organically anyway (it stands to reason that Google would use the best possible content to generate a response). 

So, to get to the top, you will need to trump your competitors. You will need more links, better quality content and better onsite SEO. 

Effectively, you need to supercharge your SEO efforts. 

So with that in mind, what sort of strategies should you be concentrating on? 

Digital PR strategies to try

1. Publish original findings

Particularly studies and statistics you have conducted. 

Why is this important? 

Well, Google is going to be looking for websites that provide credible evidence to back up their SGE position. If your website is a source of reliable, credible and most importantly, original information, this will greatly increase your chances of being ranked as a source. 

Not to mention, it will help you to score big when it comes to gaining strong backlinks from large and reputable websites which will again, improve your SEO. 

This task doesn’t have to be as arduous as it sounds though, most companies already gather a tremendous amount of data every day. It’s simply about knowing how to present that data to the world in a useful and informative way. 

Perhaps it’s about sales volumes or customer segmentation? Survey results or conversion rates? All useful data to those operating in similar fields, if you can package it correctly. 

2. Infographics 

Infographics are visual representations of data or information. 

They are popular because they are highly shareable and digestible, making them valuable assets for digital PR efforts.

Users are time-poor and often find reading long-form content difficult. Condensing your content into visually arresting infographics and making sure they’re well-optimised can help you trump your competitors. 

When crafting infographics, consider incorporating statistics, facts, or data points (as mentioned above) that are relevant to your industry or niche. Share these infographics across social media, blogs, and other platforms to attract backlinks and increase brand visibility.

Infographics also have the potential to be shared by influencers and other websites, further boosting your reach and authority.

3. Hijacking (well, newsjacking)

Newsjacking is a technique within digital PR that allows you to jump on the bandwagon of what is currently trending. This is a great way to get attention for your brand, particularly if you can relate your business, product or service in some way to the trending topic. 

This might be as simple as a meme but very often it’s about being part of the conversation and contributing your knowledge to not only get eyes on your brand but to help build trust and authority. 

If the trending topic is something you can write an article about, even better. 

Promote it to the journalists and online publications within your field, if it’s a well-written piece on a currently trending topic, you have a fair chance of getting it picked up. 

4. Guest blogging

An oldy, but a goody. Nothing beats writing a great piece of content, with some juicy hyperlinks to key internal pages on your website, that you manage to get published on a third-party website. 

Digital PR: supercharging your SEO efforts

AI brings with it enormous benefits. If you’re a user you are going to find SGE really useful when learning new information. 

But, if you’re a business owner or marketer SGE will bring with it a whole set of challenges. It’s not that you’ll need to reinvent the wheel… it’s just that you’ll need to build a better wheel than everyone else. 

That takes time, money and creativity. 

Digital PR will become increasingly important as SGE develops, as it will be a great way to improve the authority of a webpage and improve your ranking position for your keywords. With more companies jockeying to be one of the featured websites within the AI-generated response, you will need to build more backlinks to more of your pages than ever before. Digital PR is the ideal way to do this, so consider investing in this service to safeguard your website’s performance, and ultimately your business’s future.