Gaining backlinks through digital PR is an SEO strategy that’s been around for a while now. Many brands hire digital PR professionals to assist them with their online marketing campaigns by building a substantial portfolio of quality backlinks to increase leads. This strategy is quite prevalent in that the world’s leading search engine Google implemented stricter guidelines on counting backlinks when determining search results.
There are many backlinking methods that digital PR practitioners use to boost their client’s websites’ exposure. An issue that came up because of it was the increase in spam that contained backlinks to different brands’ websites. Hence, Google started cracking down on backlinking in 2013 to control the situation.
The mechanics of acquiring backlinks have changed since then, and digital PR people have found other ways to do it. Gaining backlinks without spamming is crucial to the success of an SEO campaign and the image of digital PR. This article talks about how they work with backlinks without coming off as spammy online.
Newsjacking
We live in a world where everything that trends online is classified as news. Once a topic or a piece of content goes viral, more eyes will get to see it, increasing its exposure. PR professionals use that to their advantage to gain backlinks through newsjacking.
Newsjacking is the practice of a brand’s content with a current event to generate media attention and boost its exposure. It’s an effective way of raising brand exposure because of how quickly news spreads in this day and age through social media. By piggybacking on trending news bits of the day or week, brands will gain more attention, allowing them to be seen by more people.
Apart from that, it also avoids being classified as spam content. It’s not spamming because people continue to share content related to the current event, and it’s not the PR professional or brand that’s doing it. It’s just a matter of being appropriate for the content they release for newsjacking and how they can relate the brand with the trending news item properly.
Blogger outreach
Outreaching to bloggers is also a way to avoid coming off spammy when working for backlinks. A reputable social media agency in California or anywhere, for this matter, will recognize bloggers’ influence that produces different kinds of content and has a following. Therefore reaching out to them to write or create videos on a brand works like a charm.
Most bloggers have an engaged community of readers and followers, making their content potent for backlinks. They’re also more entwined with the current trends in social media and content marketing, a concept that’s closely related to digital PR. Digital PR people can gather tons of quality backlinks by conducting a blogger outreach in the same niche as the brands they’re advocating for.
Blogger content where quality backlinks can be placed includes product or service reviews. Reviews are arguably the most popular way of marketing a brand without hard selling. Aside from backlinking, it also enhances a brand’s image to the public.
Visual content
Producing appealing visual content almost always works nowadays. Brands can get the help of a PR person and a content manager to create catchy visual content. It can be used as part of your outreach efforts or newsjacking as well.
Brands can either post their appealing visual content on their website or their social media accounts, or even both. Using an infographic or a short video with a link on the caption or description back to the brand’s website won’t be considered spamming since it’s within the visual content boundaries.
Wrapping up
Backlink spamming is a dealbreaker for search engines and will only compromise a brand’s SEO and digital PR efforts. It’s wiser to think of other link building ways to boost exposure online rather than being an obnoxious figure on the internet. The key is to remain natural and unforced in building a strong backlink profile through non-spammy means.
Author’s Bio:
Edwin Deponte is a motivational writer who is also passionate about anything digital and social media marketing-related. On his free days, he spends his time indulging in digital and social media marketing books.