Digital PR Archives - Go Fish Digital https://gofishdigital.com/blog/category/digital-pr/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 21:07:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://gofishdigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cropped-gfdicon-color-favicon-1-32x32.png Digital PR Archives - Go Fish Digital https://gofishdigital.com/blog/category/digital-pr/ 32 32 What Is Digital PR? https://gofishdigital.com/blog/what-is-digital-pr/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/what-is-digital-pr/#respond Sat, 13 Jan 2024 20:41:19 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=7400 Digital PR represents a pivotal shift in how brands engage with their audience and build their online presence in the digital era. By blending traditional public relations strategies with modern digital technologies and platforms, Digital PR transcends conventional boundaries to enhance brand visibility, establish authority, and foster meaningful connections. It leverages a myriad of tools—from […]

What Is Digital PR? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Digital PR represents a pivotal shift in how brands engage with their audience and build their online presence in the digital era. By blending traditional public relations strategies with modern digital technologies and platforms, Digital PR transcends conventional boundaries to enhance brand visibility, establish authority, and foster meaningful connections. It leverages a myriad of tools—from data-driven insights and influencer collaborations to interactive content and social media campaigns—to not only tell a brand’s story but also significantly impact its search engine optimization and link-building efforts. This strategic approach ensures that a brand not only reaches its target audience more effectively but also secures high-quality backlinks, driving both brand recognition and digital growth.

What Is Digital PR?

Digital PR is a modern marketing strategy that leverages online platforms to improve a brand’s online presence and visibility. Unlike traditional PR, which focuses on newspapers, television, and radio, Digital PR operates in the digital space, utilizing websites, blogs, social media, and other digital platforms to reach a wider audience. This strategy involves creating compelling stories and content that resonate with both the brand’s target audience and digital journalists, bloggers, and influencers. By doing so, Digital PR aims to gain high-quality backlinks, social media mentions, and improve  rankings, ultimately enhancing the brand’s reputation and visibility online. Through strategic collaborations, content creation, and leveraging digital platforms, Digital PR connects brands with their audience, builds brand awareness, and drives website traffic, aligning PR goals with digital marketing and SEO strategies for comprehensive brand promotion.

What Are The Benefits Of Digital PR?

Digital PR, when strategically executed, serves as a powerful catalyst for enhancing link-building efforts, directly contributing to improved SEO and online visibility. Here are the expanded benefits of Digital PR with a focus on its impact on link-building:

1. High-Quality Backlinks: One of the primary benefits of Digital PR is the acquisition of high-quality backlinks from reputable websites and media outlets. Through compelling data-driven campaigns, surveys, and interactive content, brands can earn coverage and mentions that result in valuable backlinks. These links not only drive referral traffic but also significantly boost the website’s authority and search engine rankings, as they are seen by search engines as endorsements of your site’s credibility and relevance.

2. Enhanced Brand Visibility and Authority: By securing media placements and influencer collaborations, Digital PR increases a brand’s visibility across the digital landscape. This exposure not only introduces the brand to new audiences but also establishes its authority in the industry. High-quality, informative content that addresses the needs and interests of the target audience positions the brand as a thought leader, further solidifying its reputation and encouraging more sites to link back to its content.

3. Targeted Audience Engagement: Digital PR strategies enable brands to engage directly with their target audience through social media, interactive content, and personalized storytelling. This engagement not only fosters brand loyalty and awareness but also encourages social sharing and mentions across platforms. Engaged audiences are more likely to link to and share content they find valuable or interesting, extending the reach of the brand’s message and enhancing its link-building efforts.

4. SEO Synergy: Digital PR and SEO are intrinsically linked, with the former amplifying the efforts of the latter. Through strategic content creation and distribution, Digital PR initiatives can improve keyword rankings, increase organic search visibility, and drive more traffic to the website. The data and insights gained from Digital PR campaigns can inform SEO strategies, ensuring content is optimized for both the audience and search engines, leading to better search performance and more organic links.

5. Diversified Link Profile: Digital PR helps in building a diversified link profile, which is crucial for SEO. By utilizing a mix of content types and distribution channels, brands can earn backlinks from a variety of sources, including news sites, blogs, industry publications, and social media. This diversity not only strengthens the brand’s online presence but also protects against algorithm changes that might devalue links from specific types of sites.

Common Digital PR Strategies

Digital PR strategies are integral to enhancing SEO through link building, employing innovative methods to create compelling content that attracts high-quality backlinks. Here are refined strategies incorporating data analysis, surveys, interactive content, and creative assets:

1. Data-Driven Campaigns: Leverage existing datasets or use tools like Google Trends and Yelp to gather new data points, analyzing them to tell a unique story or offer fresh insights. For example, mapping out the best cities for certain lifestyles based on various data sources can capture media interest. By providing an additional level of analysis, such as breaking down data by demographics or combining multiple datasets, your campaign can offer valuable insights that media outlets and readers find compelling, encouraging them to link back to your original content.

2. Surveys for Original Insights: When existing data isn’t enough, conducting surveys through platforms like Pollfish or MTurk can yield new insights. Tailor your surveys to uncover interesting findings by demographics or interests, ensuring the questions are crafted to reveal deep insights. This method allows for creating content around topics with wide appeal, such as lifestyle, work-life balance, or consumer habits, broadening the potential for media coverage and backlinks. Incorporating creative questions and multimedia in surveys can make the findings more engaging, leading to higher quality backlinks from diverse sources.

3. Interactive Content for Engagement: Develop interactive content, like quizzes, calculators, or contests, that directly engages the audience. This type of content is highly shareable and encourages users to interact with your brand, increasing the likelihood of coverage by journalists looking for engaging stories for their audience. By ensuring your team and website can support the development of such content, you create unique opportunities for generating backlinks and enhancing your SEO efforts.

4. Creative Assets and Visualization: Transform your data and survey findings into digestible, visually appealing formats. Use innovative data visualization techniques, incorporating relevant imagery, color schemes, and clear labels, to make complex information accessible. Complement these visuals with well-crafted copy that provides context, highlights intriguing statistics, and includes detailed methodology information. This approach not only makes your content more attractive to link back to but also assists reporters in covering your story, thereby boosting your Digital PR and link-building efforts.

How Is Digital PR Different From Traditional PR?

Digital PR and traditional PR share the common goal of improving a brand’s reputation and visibility, but they diverge significantly in their approaches and platforms. Digital PR focuses on online platforms, leveraging websites, social media, and digital publications to reach its audience, whereas traditional PR typically relies on print, broadcast, and radio. The digital approach allows for more direct engagement with the audience, immediate feedback through social media and comments, and a broader reach beyond geographical limitations. Additionally, Digital PR benefits from the SEO value of online content, improving a brand’s search engine visibility in a way that traditional PR cannot. The measurable aspect of Digital PR, with the ability to track website traffic, engagement metrics, and backlink quality, offers a clear advantage over traditional PR, where results can be harder to quantify.

How To Create A Digital PR Strategy

Developing a Digital PR strategy that bolsters link-building and SEO requires a thoughtful, systematic approach. Here’s how to craft a strategy that not only elevates your brand’s online presence but also significantly improves its backlink profile:

1. Define Clear Objectives: Start with a clear understanding of what you aim to achieve through your Digital PR efforts. Objectives may include increasing the number of high-quality backlinks, enhancing online visibility and brand authority, or improving search engine rankings. Setting specific, measurable goals will guide your strategy and help you assess its effectiveness.

2. Understand Your Target Audience: Deeply understanding who your audience is, including their needs, preferences, and online behaviors, is crucial. This insight will inform the type of content you create, the influencers you partner with, and the platforms you use to distribute your content. Tailoring your strategy to resonate with your audience increases the likelihood of engagement and shares, leading to more backlink opportunities.

3. Leverage Data and Insights: Utilize data analysis and surveys to generate original, compelling content that stands out. By presenting unique insights, you not only capture the attention of your audience but also attract the interest of journalists and bloggers looking for fresh stories. This content can serve as a powerful tool for earning backlinks from reputable sources.

4. Engage with Influencers and Media: Identify and build relationships with key influencers and media outlets in your industry. These partnerships can significantly amplify your reach and lend credibility to your brand. When influencers or journalists share your content, it not only reaches a wider audience but also enhances your link-building efforts by attracting backlinks from diverse, authoritative sources.

5. Create Shareable, Engaging Content: Focus on producing high-quality content that engages and provides value to your audience. This includes everything from informative blog posts and data-driven reports to interactive tools and compelling visuals. Content that resonates with readers is more likely to be shared and linked to, driving your Digital PR and link-building objectives.

6. Optimize for SEO: While creating content for Digital PR, incorporate SEO best practices to enhance its discoverability. This includes using relevant keywords, optimizing titles and meta descriptions, and ensuring your website is technically sound. SEO-optimized content is more likely to rank well in search results, increasing its visibility and the potential for backlinks.

7. Measure and Adjust: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your Digital PR strategy, monitoring key metrics such as backlink quality, website traffic, and engagement rates. This data will allow you to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where adjustments can be made to improve results.

8. Continuous Outreach: Digital PR is not a one-and-done effort; it requires continuous outreach and content promotion. Regularly pitching new stories, engaging with your online community, and staying active on social media can keep your brand top of mind and foster ongoing opportunities for link building.

Crafting a comprehensive Digital PR strategy is essential for brands looking to navigate the complexities of today’s digital landscape. By setting clear objectives, understanding the target audience, leveraging unique data insights, and engaging with influencers and media, brands can create compelling content that resonates with both their audience and search engines. The benefits of such a strategy extend beyond mere visibility, fostering trust, authority, and a diversified link profile that enhances SEO performance. As the digital sphere continues to evolve, the importance of Digital PR in a brand’s marketing mix becomes undeniable, offering a path to not just survive but thrive in the competitive online marketplace. Through continuous measurement, adjustment, and outreach, Digital PR stands as a dynamic force that propels brands towards achieving their digital marketing and link-building goals.

What Is Digital PR? is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Strategizing Digital PR for Lawyers: A Comprehensive Guide https://gofishdigital.com/blog/digital-pr-lawyers/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/digital-pr-lawyers/#respond Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:00:09 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=7278 For lawyers looking to grow their business in 2024, digital marketing has become a key tool to thrive and remain competitive. Digital marketing for attorneys enhances a law firm’s visibility and plays a pivotal role in engaging potential clients.  Digital PR is one of several strategies that can substantially impact a law firm’s online presence […]

Strategizing Digital PR for Lawyers: A Comprehensive Guide is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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For lawyers looking to grow their business in 2024, digital marketing has become a key tool to thrive and remain competitive. Digital marketing for attorneys enhances a law firm’s visibility and plays a pivotal role in engaging potential clients. 

Digital PR is one of several strategies that can substantially impact a law firm’s online presence and client interactions in the long term. Digital PR encompasses a range of strategies that enhance a website’s authority, increase visibility, and build meaningful connections with potential clients and peers.

Whether you’re just starting to build your online presence or looking to enhance your existing digital strategy, this guide will walk you through the essentials of digital PR, tailored specifically for the legal industry.

Navigating Digital Marketing

For lawyers, SEO is a fundamental component of digital marketing. By appearing at the top of search results, attorneys can increase their visibility and credibility, making it easier for potential clients to find them.

Digital PR strategies are vital for boosting a lawyer’s SEO efforts. These strategies include creating and distributing high-quality content that attracts backlinks from reputable sites. High-quality backlinks drive traffic and signal to search engines the value and trustworthiness of the lawyer’s content.

Think of each backlink as a recommendation. When a website links to your site, it’s essentially saying, “This site has good content worth visiting.” Search engines use these links to determine how valuable and relevant your site is for specific topics. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the more trustworthy and authoritative your site appears to search engines. 

Digital PR and SEO work together to drive results. Effective digital PR leads to improved SEO that strengthens online visibility and reputation. This enhanced reputation aids further PR efforts, creating a positive feedback loop. 

Tactical Approach to Digital PR

When evaluating the goals for each of your digital marketing initiatives, you should set unique key performance indicators for each strategy. For SEO tactics, that may mean higher keyword rankings or increased organic traffic. The primary KPI for digital PR may be the number of backlinks or quality of referring domains. 

Backlinks serve as a testament to the relevance and authority of a lawyer’s website. The quality and quantity of these backlinks can directly correlate to the success of digital PR campaigns. They indicate how well the content resonates with the audience and the wider community and how effectively it garners attention and engagement.

Tracking the number of backlinks and analyzing where they come from provides valuable insights into the impact of a law firm’s digital PR efforts. It helps in understanding which types of content are most effective in attracting high-quality backlinks and which platforms or collaborations are most beneficial. You may want to keep track of the following metrics: 

Assessing the increase in backlinks over time enables law firms to gauge growth in their online authority and reputation. This approach to ROI tracking ensures that the law firm’s efforts are visible and translate into tangible results.

Tools and Platforms for Digital Marketing

The foundation of effective digital PR lies in the creation of unique, creative content. This content should be developed with a wide audience in mind. The target audience of your digital PR campaign may not align with your company’s typical target audience. Since the goal of this strategy is to build backlinks, you should ideate content with broad appeal. 

The goal is to create content that is not only informative but also shareable and engaging, encouraging readers to spread the word. This can come in many different forms, including the following: 

  • Data Analysis: This involves using existing datasets to tell a new story or provide additional insights. It might involve analyzing data from various sources to create compelling narratives or identify trends relevant to your audience. 
  • Surveys: When no existing dataset matches your campaign idea, surveys are a powerful tool. Surveys offer the flexibility to explore almost any topic and draw responses from diverse populations.
  • Interactive Content: This includes quizzes, calculators, tools, or contests that invite audience interaction. Interactive content is engaging because it allows the audience to relate directly to the material.

Regardless of the format you opt for, it’s essential to present the findings in an easily digestible format. Using imagery, color schemes, and clear labels helps make complex data accessible. Accompanying blog copy can provide additional context, fill gaps, and offer a narrative that complements the visual data.

After creating the content, the next step is to get it in front of the right audience. This point is where traditional PR strategies come into play, as you should identify who you’ll target and how you’ll reach them. Effective pitching involves personalizing communication, understanding the journalist’s area of interest, and presenting the content as a valuable resource for their readership.

There are various tools and platforms designed to assist in digital PR efforts. These include content management systems for organizing and publishing content, PR email platforms for distribution and engagement, and media databases that provide access to journalists and influencers.

Addressing Challenges in Digital PR for Lawyers

Digital PR offers countless opportunities for law firms, but it’s not without its challenges. Addressing these effectively is key to a successful digital PR strategy.

One common issue is the struggle to think of unique and engaging content ideas. To overcome this, law firms can look at current trending topics, client FAQs, or recent case studies for inspiration. Pulling in additional team members while brainstorming for fresh perspectives can help.

The brainstorming process sets the grounds for the rest of the digital PR strategy. If your concept is not feasible and unique, it will lead to issues later on. For instance, if you try to pitch a story that’s been covered in the media just a few weeks ago, you’ll quickly realize that journalists won’t be interested in reporting on the topic again. It’s better to get ahead of these potential challenges in the ideation phase to avoid wasted time and effort. 

Many law firms also face constraints with resources for producing and promoting campaigns. To mitigate this, prioritize quality over quantity — focus on creating fewer but more impactful pieces of content. You may also consider partnering with a digital PR agency with well-established processes and relationships. 

If the content isn’t meeting expectations, take a step back to analyze and understand why. This could involve A/B testing different types of content, revising SEO strategies, or actively engaging more with audiences on social media platforms. Using analytics tools to track user engagement and feedback can provide valuable insights into content performance. 

There are many different reasons why a campaign might not be building the links you hoped, so take a critical look at each piece of your content, from the data to the outreach. 

Shaping Trust and Credibility

Digital PR is not a one-off campaign; it’s a continuous effort that shapes the perception of law firms among their clients, peers, and the broader public. Regularly publishing insightful articles and contributing to relevant online discussions helps lawyers establish themselves as knowledgeable and reliable. This consistent messaging helps in building a reputation for expertise and trustworthiness.

The impact of digital PR is cumulative and long-lasting. As a law firm accumulates a robust portfolio of backlinks from diverse, authoritative sources, its website gains more authority. Heightened authority directly impacts the firm’s search engine rankings, leading to greater online visibility and a higher likelihood of being discovered by potential clients.

Each positive interaction, each well-received piece of content, and every successful campaign contributes to building a positive reputation. Over time, this can translate into a competitive advantage as the firm becomes a go-to source for legal expertise and advice. Building and maintaining relationships with media and influencers in the legal sector can lead to ongoing coverage, further amplifying the firm’s reach and solidifying its status in the industry.

Conclusion

Consistent, quality digital PR efforts build trust and credibility. Each positive interaction and well-crafted campaign can contribute to a law firm’s digital reputation, with the cumulative effect of these efforts leading to a substantial competitive advantage. The strategic focus on backlinks enhances immediate credibility and secures enduring SEO benefits that ensure long-term visibility and authority.

Adopting effective digital PR strategies is essential for law firms looking to thrive in an increasingly digital marketplace. Implementing these tactics can transform how firms are perceived online, attract more clients, and establish them as leaders in their field. 

At Go Fish Digital, we understand the intricacies of digital PR in the legal sector and can build quality campaigns that exceed expectations. If you’re looking for support building backlinks through digital PR, get in touch today.

Strategizing Digital PR for Lawyers: A Comprehensive Guide is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Understanding and Leveraging Digital PR Link Building https://gofishdigital.com/blog/digital-pr-link-building/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/digital-pr-link-building/#respond Wed, 27 Dec 2023 16:00:38 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=7267 Digital PR has become an indispensable tool in the digital marketing landscape, particularly when it comes to link building. At its core, digital PR link building capitalizes on traditional public relations tactics to boost the online visibility of a website. The ultimate goal is to enhance a site’s online presence and credibility.  This approach not […]

Understanding and Leveraging Digital PR Link Building is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Digital PR has become an indispensable tool in the digital marketing landscape, particularly when it comes to link building. At its core, digital PR link building capitalizes on traditional public relations tactics to boost the online visibility of a website. The ultimate goal is to enhance a site’s online presence and credibility. 

This approach not only boosts search engine rankings but also fosters meaningful relationships with audiences. The process involves creating compelling content that attracts high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, which can, in turn, improve visibility and enhance a brand’s authority online.

However, to effectively leverage digital PR link building, it’s essential to understand its nuances. This includes identifying the right opportunities within the news cycle, crafting engaging narratives, and strategically sharing content where it will have the most impact. 

Interested in specific strategies and tips that can help maximize your digital PR efforts? Read on to learn about how you can improve your link building strategies in the ever-evolving digital world.

Importance of Digital PR Link Building

Backlinks play a pivotal role in determining how search engines, like Google, rank websites. When a website links to your site, it gives a signal to search engines that your content is valuable and credible. This endorsement, similar to a vote of confidence, can significantly boost your site’s visibility in search engine results pages. 

Eventually, a strong backlink profile can lead to increased sales by driving more organic traffic to your website. Users tend to trust websites that appear higher in search results, leading to higher click-through rates and potentially more conversions. 

Backlinks from reputable sources serve as a testament to the quality of your content and the trustworthiness of your brand. They are integral in establishing and reinforcing brand authority. When authoritative sites in your industry link to your content, it signals to both search engines and users that your brand is a reliable source of information in your field.

Digital PR and link building work hand in hand to increase web traffic, lead generation, and revenue. Stories that capture the interest of your audience and are discussed across different platforms can drive a steady stream of visitors to your site. As more people visit your site, the chances of converting leads or customers increase. In turn, this can have a direct positive impact on revenue generation. 

Digital PR is a strategic approach to link building that balances quality with quantity. It opens up the opportunity to receive coverage from top-tier, relevant media outlets that reach your target audience. This strategy allows you to develop a well-rounded, healthy backlink profile. 

Implementing Effective Digital PR Link Building Strategies

One common misconception about generating backlinks is that it requires cold outreach, countless follow-ups, and, ultimately, reverting to paying website owners. In reality, effective PR link building can, and should, be executed without these tactics.

The key lies in creating content that naturally attracts attention and encourages others to link to it. This can come in many different forms, such as one of the following: 

  • Data analysis that provides perspective on an existing piece of research (i.e. the Census or Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • Survey insights that share unique findings on a newsworthy topic 
  • Creative graphics that add a visual element to bring an idea to life 

When your content is genuinely useful and interesting, it’s more likely to be shared and referenced by journalists. This organic approach to link building also ensures that the backlinks you gain are authentic and valuable in the eyes of search engines.

Alternative tactics, like buying links, are considered spammy and can actually hurt your site’s reputation. These practices are frowned upon by search engines and can lead to severe penalties, including a drop in search rankings or even removal from search results. 

Instead, focus on building links organically through high-quality content. This approach ensures that your link-building efforts are sustainable and contribute positively to your overall digital marketing strategy.

Benefits of Leapfrogging Into Industry Authority

Not all websites are treated equally by search engines. A site for a local, family-owned business is not expected to have the same level of authority as a worldwide fast-food chain. However, someone searching for a local restaurant is more than likely not typing in the same search terms as someone looking for fast food. 

When evaluating your backlink profile, consider where you are in relation to your competitors, particularly those currently ranking for your priority keywords. This is where your backlink profile can make a direct impact. 

Building a handful of backlinks at a time may not feel like enough to beat out your competitors, but there’s more to consider than just the number of links you have. Consider the following: 

  • Quality: A few links from a site with a domain authority of 70 or greater carry more weight than hundreds of links from sites with DAs of 20 or less. 
  • Relevancy: Earning a link from an authoritative industry site can immediately add value, more so than a generic blog. 
  • Rate of Growth: If you’re building credibility at a fast pace while others sit stagnant, you might appear to be more relevant in the current landscape. 

Surpassing your competitors in backlinks can create a compounding effect. Higher rankings lead to more visibility, which in turn attracts more backlinks, further solidifying your position at the top. This creates a challenging environment for competitors, as they not only have to match your backlink profile but also overcome the established trust and authority you’ve built with both users and search engines.

While some have questioned the weight backlinks carry, it’s been proven time and time again that digital PR will have a positive long-term impact on websites. But don’t take it from us, check out what Google’s own, John Mueller has to say about the strategy. 

Screenshot of John Mueller’s tweet about the benefit of digital PR

The reality is that organically receiving a backlink from a site with a well-established reputation, like The New York Times or Business Insider, will always add value to your website. 

Crafting Long-Term Link Building Strategies

A major benefit of digital PR is its longevity. In addition to prioritizing timely events when creating campaign concepts, it’s important to invest time and resources into developing evergreen content that remains useful, informative, and engaging over time. 

Content that fulfills these criteria naturally attracts other websites to link to it, as it adds value to their own content and audience. A well-produced digital PR piece will continue to garner coverage months or even years after its publication and initial promotion period. 

Not only can a campaign have sustained extended benefits, but this strategy also results in long-term impacts on a website’s authority. 

Each new, quality backlink adds a layer to your website’s credibility and visibility. This ongoing process is like rolling a snowball down a hill; as it moves, it gathers more snow, growing larger and more impactful. Similarly, as your content continues to secure backlinks, it escalates in visibility, reaching wider audiences and attracting even more links. 

Where competition is relentless and ever-changing, maintaining a lead in backlinks is not just beneficial, it’s critical. The leading websites often get the lion’s share of traffic, leads, and conversions. This consistent effort can set you apart from competitors, either closing the existing gap or making it challenging for them to catch up if you’re already ahead. 

It’s not just about having a larger quantity of backlinks; it’s about maintaining a steady growth rate, ensuring the links are high quality and coming from diverse, authoritative sources. This strategic approach places your website in a prime position to be considered a thought leader and go-to resource in your industry.

Strategic link building is cost-effective in the long run. Unlike paid advertising, which requires ongoing investment to maintain visibility, the effects of link-building compound over time. This means that the efforts you put in today can continue to pay dividends in traffic and authority for years to come, making it a wise investment for the future of your business.

Conclusion

From enhancing search engine rankings to establishing brand authority and credibility, the benefits of effective PR link building strategies are undeniable. Implementing these strategies is not just about short-term gains but about cementing a lasting presence and authority in your industry. Through consistent and dedicated efforts, businesses can reap the benefits of sustained organic traffic, increased lead generation, and enhanced brand credibility.

Link building is an evolving strategy, requiring adaptability, creativity, and a focus on long-term goals. By understanding and implementing these strategies, businesses can not only achieve their current objectives but also lay a strong foundation for future success in the ever-changing digital world.

At Go Fish Digital, we’re constantly innovating our digital PR process to help our clients reach their link goals. We have dedicated teams for brainstorming, creating, and pitching unique, newsworthy content. We also have established relationships with journalists across the country, ensuring that our content lands in the right inboxes. If you’re looking for support on your digital PR link building initiatives, reach out today.

Understanding and Leveraging Digital PR Link Building is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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The Power of Digital PR Strategy to Improve Online Presence https://gofishdigital.com/blog/the-power-of-digital-pr-strategy-to-improve-online-presence/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/the-power-of-digital-pr-strategy-to-improve-online-presence/#respond Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:51:38 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=7179 Introduction The term Digital PR refers to a set of public relations and SEO strategies used to improve a client’s digital presence online. A robust strategy will increase the overall authority of your site and build brand visibility on the web. Read on to gain an understanding of what digital PR can do for your […]

The Power of Digital PR Strategy to Improve Online Presence is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Introduction

The term Digital PR refers to a set of public relations and SEO strategies used to improve a client’s digital presence online. A robust strategy will increase the overall authority of your site and build brand visibility on the web. Read on to gain an understanding of what digital PR can do for your brand and how to implement it successfully.


Understanding Digital PR

The primary purpose of digital PR is to operate as a supplemental SEO strategy — to increase the authority of your site when crawled by search engines like Google. The way that Go Fish Digital accomplishes this ultimate goal is by building backlinks from media outlets. A backlink is a hyperlink from one website to another, such as your homepage, a blog, a landing page, or a product page, from another site. This builds link equity— a transference of authority and value to your site. Backlinks from authoritative sites are one metric that search engines use to tell how credible your own site is, sometimes called a vote of confidence. Think of it like a strong referral from your manager telling your company you’re fit for a promotion, or a high credit score telling your bank you’re worthy of a bigger loan.

Unlike a traditional PR strategy, which directly promotes the brand by emphasizing elements like expert industry knowledge, high-quality products, or a unique value proposition, digital PR uses tangential content pieces. These are interesting articles, data reports, or studies designed to produce newsworthy insights, that are then actively pitched to journalists and linked across high authority outlets to make your website more credible in the eyes of Google. The goal, again, is to ultimately aid overall SEO efforts by strengthening your backlink profile, not directly positioning your brand or product in the media, but rather, positioning your website on authoritative media websites.


Practical Digital PR Strategies and Solutions

Tangential content is an essential digital PR strategy. These creative campaigns, while tangential, are completely customized for the client throughout the process, who can opt to avoid certain topics (ex. religious or political content) and/or target certain topics (ex. insurance or dating). This must be balanced with the fact that the more newsworthy, relevant, and clickable the content, the more journalists will be interested in covering, and the more links will be secured. 

For example, while posting a controversial piece (ex. mask use during the pandemic) could conflict with your brand values, it would likely generate a lot of coverage. However, so would a lighthearted, yet polarizing piece on each state’s favorite Girl Scout cookies. Finding a middle ground that works for the client but is attractive to the media is key, and the options are infinite — from heavy data studies to illustrative AI campaigns. They can be posted on the client’s blog directly, or, on occasion, an orphaned page used for pitching wherein journalists are asked to link back to your homepage if the content doesn’t naturally fit an already designated spot on your site, such as a ‘news’ section or a ‘press room’.

Overall, at Go Fish Digital, our data across countless digital PR campaigns conclusively shows that the more tangential the content is — not about your brand but with a relatable tie-in to the brand — the more likely you are to secure a diverse (high-quantity and high quality, canonical and syndicated) backlink profile.

Journalists are completely accustomed to receiving tangential pitches. We’ve sourced feedback from reporters, who’ve confirmed they prioritize interesting and informational content that is relevant to their audience. A loose tie-in to the brand also means reporters can write up the content without worrying whether they are promoting a service, unlike traditional PR, where brands will pay top dollar for placements on media sites. These same sites understandably aren’t willing to highlight overtly branded content for free. Conversely, by creating content that naturally fits into the news cycle, and has a tie-in to your brand, yet doesn’t feel overly self-promotional, you can organically earn the interest of journalists writing for top news sites.

Other successful strategies include identifying competitors in your industry who are in the linkbuilding space by tracing the coverage that their campaigns secure in the media, and then pitching those journalists with your content. By securing a link on the same domain as your competitor, you not only have brand visibility where they do, but you are now in effect negating the power their link has over your own backlink profile. Imagine it as a game of darts, where earned points cancel out points earned by the opposing team.

Networking with journalists is equally important in digital PR as it is in traditional PR. At Go Fish Digital, we primarily communicate with journalists via email pitches, press releases, and interviews on behalf of our clients to answer campaign data requests or give a quote. Having your brand name become synonymous in a journalist’s inbox as a true resource, not an ad or guest post request, is priceless. If you treat gaining coverage as a result of establishing these relationships, you’ll find instead of one backlink to your site, you’ll build a relationship with no ceiling on the number of backlinks. Keep networking and soon they’ll recognize your name as a credible source.

Tackling Common Digital PR Problems and Implementing Solutions

As the news cycle is running in a realtime, and linkbuilding is all about attracting journalists, a common problem we see in digital PR is competition with other content campaigns, who are often trying to capitalize on the same topic and frequently pitching the same outlets.

We combat this at several stages during our creative process. We meticulously vet our brainstormed ideas for newsworthiness, relatability, uniqueness, size of the pitching pool, and more before presenting a pitch deck to a client. We remain nimble and reactive during production so we can implement creative pivots should a competitor drop a related campaign.

Next, clients with a large scope need to avoid cannibalizing their own campaigns, which means launching similar campaigns with the same pitching period that target the same beat and then have to compete against each other. Client communication (if you work in an agency) or communication with management (if you work in-house) is an easy fix here. Organize your timelines with journalists’ content calendars and keep the newscycle top of mind to create proper spacing. You can then walk the client through your strategy during the process.

One other common problem in digital PR is when a client wants to stick very closely to the brand rather than opting for a tangential campaign. Branded campaigns can be successful, but it’s far more likely with clients whose websites are highly authoritative or whose brand name is recognizable. Also, certain industries see more success with branded campaigns because of the amount of journalists and types of outlets — for example, real estate, travel, and finance — while others have proven particularly difficult — for example, relationship and dating, where journalists are more likely to write opinion pieces. That’s not to say it’s impossible in these spaces, it simply requires extra creativity! Our data recommends tangential campaigns for such brands, while an authoritative travel brand, for example, would likely still see success with a branded campaign.

Tools and Metrics in Digital PR

Digital PR and traditional PR share some similar tactics — building mutually beneficial relationships where media outlets can benefit from (sometimes exclusive) information while the brand benefits from exposure — but they differ in key performance indicators (KPIs).

Instead of goals like high event attendance and product sales, digital PR aims to improve the health of your website in order to improve your online presence and increase search engine visibility. An added benefit is driving new users to your site, which both increases brand visibility and can lead to conversions depending on your industry. From a sales perspective, digital PR is a top-of-the-funnel initiative: It can gain the attention of potential customers (who see the content campaign in the media and follow the link) and bring them into the company’s sales funnel.

It may be a long-term SEO strategy but there are certainly metrics that are used to measure the impact of digital PR in the short term. The most relevant when securing links is domain authority (developed by Moz) or domain ranking (developed by Ahrefs). Both measure the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a scale of 1 to 100. Theoretically, the higher the number the better the website will rank on search engines. When pitching, we target high DA/DR outlets, which will pass on more link equity to your site than low DA/DR outlets. Generally, a DA over 70 is considered an excellent link for your backlink profile, but a range of links of different DAs and from different industries also comes across as a natural pattern to search engines, potentially boosting your online presence as well.

Link quantity refers to the number of links earned: We call 8-10 links per campaign a standard performance.

Link relevance and link prominence are also important metrics alongside with link quality (measured by DA). Link relevance is how relevant the media outlet is to the client’s industry while link prominence is how significant the campaign is in the story (for example, the article revolving around the campaign vs being an additional source).

Anchor text is the text that is hyperlinked and it can help indicate if the link is canonical (the original media piece) or syndicated (iterations of the original piece on other news sites that often use the same images and text) and if the latter, where from. Some experts say that a varied anchor text in a link profile is preferred by search engines. The META SEO inspector is one extension that can identify the canonical tag of the article, which indicates whether the piece is syndicated or not. 

Links can also be categorized as a follow or nofollow link, which can each affect the value of the link differently. A follow link transfers that vote of confidence to your site, strengthening the health of the overall website. A nofollow link refers to a tag within the hyperlink that media outlets add to their so as not to transfer link equity. This practice was established to prevent link manipulation during the early days of digital PR. When a search engine reads the nofollow tag, it turns a blind eye to the link for search ranking purposes. While the primary goal of digital PR is achieved by securing follow links, nofollow links are still beneficial:

Google Analytics can be used to track impressions in the form of sessions, page views, page views per session, and much more. The tool can also be used to see where exactly the traffic to the campaign landing page is coming from. For example, if you secure a Forbes link, which is always nofollow, the benefit is made obvious by tracing the origin of the sessions. If a high number of sessions is coming directly from the Forbes piece, your site is not receiving link equity, but the piece is driving landing page sessions which can increase brand awareness, drive conversions, and increase sales.

To name just a few of our other favorite tools: Cision for building outreach lists, Buzzstream for pitching and email tracking, and Coverage Book for assembling performance reports. Tools like Ahrefs and Buzzsumo can be used to monitor backlinks, along with manually monitoring coverage via social media and search engines.

Additional Benefits of Digital PR

By incorporating digital PR into your SEO strategy, you’re not only taking the proper steps to increase your visibility online. The earned backlinks will increase your authority in the eyes of search engines, and the content that lives on your site can also rank for keywords and become a valuable resource to journalists and your audience.

If you’re looking to convince your client or boss of the ROI of digital PR, try starting with these two measurable outcomes: brand visibility and top-of-the-funnel sales strategy. Next, emphasize the difference between traditional PR and digital PR: A digital PR strategy will work hand in hand with your SEO goals to increase the authority of your site and rank for keywords. Content campaigns can also generate passive coverage over time when journalists cite the piece as a source down the road (we see this often with career and business campaigns). 

With no effort on your end, aside from maybe an updated publish date, the content lives on, securing links and driving traffic to your site far outside the pitching period.

Conclusion

If your company is genuinely committed to building backlinks, a tangential digital PR strategy needs to be your bread and butter. We’ve done the tests for you.

If your team can understand the significance of digital PR strategies for your business, you’re one step closer to bridging the gap between your competitors and strengthening your online presence, among other benefits.

We’re constantly evaluating what’s working at the moment, and how to best learn from and measure both our setbacks and successes, so stay tuned. We look forward to sharing new insights with you in the near future.

The Power of Digital PR Strategy to Improve Online Presence is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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A Win Is A Win: How To Measure Success In Link-Building https://gofishdigital.com/blog/a-win-is-a-win-how-to-measure-success-in-link-building/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/a-win-is-a-win-how-to-measure-success-in-link-building/#respond Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:19:24 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=7044 Overview 2 campaigns walk into a bar. One has 20 backlinks and the other has 4. Which is more successful? When I started working in the digital PR industry, I measured success by the number of backlinks I built for my clients. However, after over 2.5 years, that mindset has shifted quite a bit for […]

A Win Is A Win: How To Measure Success In Link-Building is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Overview

2 campaigns walk into a bar. One has 20 backlinks and the other has 4. Which is more successful?

When I started working in the digital PR industry, I measured success by the number of backlinks I built for my clients. However, after over 2.5 years, that mindset has shifted quite a bit for me. Sure, I’ve pitched plenty of campaigns that have seen a variety of outcomes. Some have received over 100 backlinks, while others have only seen a handful. But why do I still consider them all successful? 

Link-building doesn’t come with a cut-and-dry manual to measure success. The digital PR landscape changes as often as the turnaround in a newsroom. What once worked in your pitching strategy may need to be altered for the new class of editors and journalists on the other end of your email. But as you reframe your pitches, you should also change your measurements of success.

Read on for a  a glimpse into how I measure success for my clients!

Quantity of Links

From an early age, many of us gained the perception that more meant better. That still holds up! Generally, the more links you can build for a campaign, the more successful it is! A rule of thumb that I was told in my early years of digital PR was that a ‘typical’ performing campaign at Go Fish would receive anywhere from 8-10 links. Anything more than that would be considered highly successful. And if you look at success from an SEO perspective, a campaign with more links will drive more link equity to the client’s site.

Remember, success isn’t as exact as the numbers 8, 9, and 10. But for the sake of this lesson, let’s look at a few campaigns that I consider successful from the sheer amount of backlinks that they built:

The King of Wings campaign built 45 links, which was not only a success due to the sheer volume of backlinks but because this was also the most links that a single campaign earned for the client to date. As you can imagine, the client was thrilled to see this, and we considered this a successful campaign. 

Another example of success measured by quantity was The Most Popular Light Beer and Seltzer In Each State. This campaign earned 35 backlinks – now that’s something to crack open a drink and cheers to! 

Quality of Links

It’s often hard to explain to a client that though their campaign only got a handful of links that it’s still considered successful. Like I said earlier, we’ve all been ingrained with the ‘grading scale’ mentally growing up. So how do you explain that a campaign with 7 links is successful? Let’s take a look:

How Much of Your Landlord’s Mortgage Are You Paying as a Renter Across the U.S.? only earned 7 backlinks. So, what makes this a successful campaign? Let’s ask 2 important questions:

Of those links, were any considered ‘high quality’?

Ding ding ding! YES! This campaign received a backlink from The Business Journals in Portland, a site that has a domain authority of 92. The Business Journals provide news to local readers regarding business, real estate, technology, and more, so it was great to have a client featured in this outlet and show the impact on their audience..

Gaining higher quality backlinks can ultimately lead to a site’s increase in domain authority, improved keyword rankings, and help the site appear more authoritative in the eyes of Google and other search engines. 

Did this campaign receive any industry-specific backlinks that were in the client’s domain?

Once again, the answer is yes! Inman linked back to the campaign in an article that they wrote solely about the campaign. The client works in the real estate and construction industry, so having them featured in an outlet like Inman is great for brand recognition.   

So even though the number 7 may seem small, this campaign was covered by a high-authority site and another site within the client’s industry. Having a combination of high-quality and industry-specific links can help diversify a client’s backlink profile. 

The Perfect Recipe

In a perfect world, we’d imagine that a successful campaign would marry the two concepts from above. A campaign would receive a high amount of backlinks, but those backlinks would be high-quality as well. And while we don’t live in a perfect world, this situation does exist!

Take these campaigns for example:  

The State of Affordable Housing in U.S. cities has built a total of 89 links to date. Of its coverage, you’ll find links from The New York Times, New York Post, CNBC, Business Insider, and more.  

Within The Most Expensive Airbnb in Every U.S. State’s impressive 96 backlinks, you’ll find coverage from House Beautiful, Apartment Therapy, Travel and Leisure, and more.

The Importance of Passive Coverage

While it’s never easy delivering the news of a campaign having a ‘less-than-successful’ amount of links, it’s important to remember that these content pieces still exist on the internet and have the potential to build links beyond the promotion period. 

A journalist whom you’ve pitched to may be planning to cover your campaign but has a full calendar and can’t publish it until next month. 

A journalist who is researching a specific topic could stumble upon your campaign and include insights from it in their next article. Whatever the case may be, passive coverage should be celebrated.

One example of the power of passive coverage comes from the 2022 Texting & SMS Marketing Statistics campaign. A standard promotion period lasts 6-8 weeks and can be adjusted depending on timely events, topics in the newscycle, etc. This campaign was pitched for 7 weeks and received 31 links in its promotion period. After 10 months following outreach, it’s currently sitting at a whopping 116 backlinks! 

While a client may want to see coverage throughout a campaign’s promotion period, it’s important to remember that link-building is a long game. Not every campaign can be an overnight success. The power of passive coverage has proven that digital PR can help build link equity over time. 

Conclusion

So there you have it. Well, sort of… 

There’s no perfect equation to success in digital PR. If there were, we’d all know exactly how to build high-quality backlinks and A LOT of them for each campaign. Where your campaign lands on the success meter should be looked at from a case-by-case lens, remembering these few measurements: 

Did it receive a generally high number of backlinks? 

Did it receive a handful of backlinks from high-authority sites? 

Does it have potential to be referenced down the line by journalists and receive passive coverage?

Does your campaign possess a combination of these measurements?

…and there you have it! Enjoy your newly framed mindset of measuring success!

 

 

 

A Win Is A Win: How To Measure Success In Link-Building is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Digital PR Campaigns in Home & Real Estate https://gofishdigital.com/blog/guide-to-link-building-campaigns-in-home-and-real-estate/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/guide-to-link-building-campaigns-in-home-and-real-estate/#respond Fri, 06 Oct 2023 15:55:42 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=6967 Link building is still an indispensable component of SEO. In a nutshell, link building involves acquiring high-quality links from other websites to your own, which sends trust signals to Google that your content is valuable. We can think of each link as a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes.  At Go Fish, we build links […]

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital PR Campaigns in Home & Real Estate is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Link building is still an indispensable component of SEO. In a nutshell, link building involves acquiring high-quality links from other websites to your own, which sends trust signals to Google that your content is valuable. We can think of each link as a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes. 

At Go Fish, we build links by producing creative content campaigns –– data-rich, newsworthy content that tells a compelling story and that journalists will want to link back to. Many refer to this approach as digital PR.

Digital PR campaigns can come in the form of data studies, surveys, rankings, contests, illustrations, and quizzes, among a slew of other formats. 

These types of link building campaigns have never been more competitive across industries, and the real estate + home sector is no exception. In this blog, we’ll focus specifically on link building in the home and real estate niche, providing link builders with a quick guide to producing successful digital PR campaigns in this space. 

The Best Data Sources & Formats for Home & Real Estate Content

The Fastest-Selling Home Styles in Every State, The Most Gentrified Cities Around the U.S., The Dream Kitchen Survey, and the Game of Thrones House Sorting Quiz are all strong examples of digital PR campaign ideas, from past and present, within the home and real estate space. But how can link builders come up with these ideas? 

Sometimes the ideas spark from a timely or trending event in the news (like a recession or Barbiecore). Sometimes we have a lightbulb moment. But more often than not, ideas spark from a data source –– one that’s either existing or created. Let’s take a look at some of the best sources for both types of data within the home and real estate industries.

Existing Data Sources

Real Estate Marketplaces: Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Apartments.com

Zillow’s research hub has a whole host of housing, time-series data by specific geographies (state, city, zip) from median home values and rent prices to median days on the market and inventory data. Zillow also has several APIs for users who want to dive deeper into real estate metrics like home value forecasts, Zestimates, and neighborhood data.

Government Agencies: U.S. Census, Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) 

The Census is a real estate link builder’s dream with data tables you can filter for various home and housing metrics, from property taxes and homeowner characteristics to migration patterns and homeownership rates (diced down by every demographic you can think of). Again, most of the datasets can be analyzed both nationally and locally (by state, county, MSA, and more) –– a huge plus for local media outreach when promoting a digital PR campaign.

Trade Associations: National Association of Realtors (NAR), National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)

Trade associations like the NAR store current real estate market insights on both a residential and commercial level. Housing affordability indices, commercial real estate transactions, and gentrification insights, among hundreds of other indicators, are at the link builder’s disposal on the NAR’s research and statistics page

Created Data Sources

a Google Trends heatmap showing search volume of the keyword mojo dojo casa house by state

Web Scraping: From sites like Airbnb, Google Trends, Yelp, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Zillow, and Redfin

As link builders, we can’t sleep on scraping websites for new data that will help us tell a story. Analyzing TikTok views, pulling search data from Google Trends, or scraping Airbnb listings are all methods for creating a new dataset that will help with:

  • Gauging popularity
  • Detecting trends
  • Uncovering new information

Past campaign performance data shows that 78% of campaigns that use created or scraped data earn organic media coverage, and the average DA of these campaigns’ referring domains is 59 –– considerably higher than average.

AI Tools: ChatGPT, DALL·E 2, Midjourney

It’s no secret that AI is changing the game for content marketing, and digital PR campaigns are no exception. Content marketers can build links within the home and real estate spaces using AI-driven content generation tools like Midjourney or DALL·E 2. These tools produce unique artwork, illustrations, or designs based on specific prompts. 

This format is quite a departure from the data journalism approach mentioned above, but can be just as effective given the right topic! Here are a few AI image campaigns in the home space that we’ve got major crushes on:

Here’s what Barbie’s dreamhouse would look like in every state: Sara Aspier used Midjourney to build a Barbie dreamhouse for each state, based on the state’s most common architectural style. 

AI imagines a typical home in every state: All Star Home tested Midjourney to generate an “idealistic” home in all 50 states and the 30 largest U.S. cities. 

Surveys

Some of the best created datasets continue to be proprietary survey insights. Using automated survey platforms, link builders within the home and real estate industries can launch anonymous polls about homebuying and homeowning topics for the purpose of yielding newsworthy statistics.

For example, we launched the “Zillow Obsession Survey” for a client within the contracting space, inspired by a viral, SNL skit about Zillow browsing. The survey produced head-turning insights such as “53% of respondents have looked up the value of their boss’s house on Zillow” and “49% of respondents would rather browse Zillow than have sex” which helped the campaign earn coverage from top outlets like House Beautiful, Business Insider, and HuffPost. 

Home + Real Estate Digital PR Campaign Examples

Now that you’re familiar with some of the best sources and formats for digital PR campaigns in home and real estate content, let’s look at some real-life campaign examples. 

The Most & Least Expensive Architectural Styles Around the U.S.

a chart ranking American architectural styles from most to least expensive

Many studies have been conducted about the most popular home architectural styles based on Google search data or quotes from industry experts. There are countless listicles on the subject in the search results, but to build quality links from top-tier news outlets, we need to provide unique value for the journalists we’re pitching to.

In this case that meant providing them with new and unique data that they don’t already have access to or don’t have time to pull themselves.

In “The Most Profitable Architectural Styles Around the U.S.” campaign, we used a web scraping tool to find the average home price and number of days on the market for different architectural styles (from Colonials to ranches) across thousands of Zillow home listings in 50 U.S. cities. The study told a compelling story about how certain architectural styles are more valuable than others depending on where you live. 

With fresh data, a sound methodology, and a strong local angle, this campaign was able to earn coverage from top business journals and local news outlets around the country. 

Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness in Cities Around the U.S.

a U.S. map plotting the cities with the highest ratios of vacant homes to unhoused people

For digital PR campaigns to build links organically, we often need to piggyback off of the news cycle or go where the reporters already are. In this case, that meant producing a campaign that could be tied back to unaffordable housing during a time when mortgage rates were through the roof, housing inventory looked dire, and rent prices continued to rise.

In the “Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness Around the U.S.” campaign, we used data from the Census and HUD to compare home vacancy rates to homelessness across America’s largest cities, highlighting the ongoing challenge to find affordable housing for both renters and buyers alike. 

A newsworthy angle, local insights, and a combination of authoritative data sources helped this campaign earn coverage from top real estate, local, and national news reporters.

Surveying Americans on Their Home Organization

an infographic showing the 10 most common items in American junk drawers

In order to earn a high number of high-quality links, we also need to make sure our content is relevant to a wide audience of readers. “The Home Organization Survey” campaign is a shining example of wide relevance. We surveyed U.S. homeowners about their home organization systems, their biggest sources of clutter, and the messiest rooms in their COVID-era homes. 

Relaying unique insights around a highly relatable topic with broad appeal helped this campaign earn dozens of backlinks from top-tier home and lifestyle sites.

Wrap-Up

Let’s face it –– link building is hard in this day and age. More and more sites are vying for coverage across top media outlets. The competition is fierce, but hopefully, these strategies can help you produce campaigns that will stand out amidst the clamor of the digital PR world. 

Need help earning links? Get in touch with our team at Go Fish Digital to learn more about our approach to digital PR.

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital PR Campaigns in Home & Real Estate is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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The Dynamic Interplay of SEO and Digital PR for Maximum Impact https://gofishdigital.com/blog/seo-and-digital-pr-for-maximum-impact/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/seo-and-digital-pr-for-maximum-impact/#respond Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:44:27 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=6953 The Dynamic Interplay of SEO and Digital PR for Maximum Impact In today’s digital landscape, the realms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Digital Public Relations (PR) have become intricately intertwined, each complementing and enhancing the other. As brands strive to establish a robust online presence and connect with their target audiences, the marriage of […]

The Dynamic Interplay of SEO and Digital PR for Maximum Impact is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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The Dynamic Interplay of SEO and Digital PR for Maximum Impact

In today’s digital landscape, the realms of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Digital Public Relations (PR) have become intricately intertwined, each complementing and enhancing the other. As brands strive to establish a robust online presence and connect with their target audiences, the marriage of these two disciplines has proven to be a powerful strategy. SEO, with its focus on optimizing content for search engines, and Digital PR, with its emphasis on building brand reputation and visibility, share a symbiotic relationship that, when harnessed effectively, can yield remarkable results. In this guide, we delve into the ways in which SEO can impact Digital PR, offering insights and practical tips to help you leverage the synergy between these two essential components of modern marketing.

 

Here’s how SEO can impact Digital PR and vice versa:

  • Keyword Optimization: Incorporate relevant keywords and phrases within your press releases, blog posts, and other PR content. This helps improve search engine rankings, making your content more visible to your target audience.
  • Quality Content Creation: Develop high-quality and informative content that addresses your audience’s needs. Valuable content can attract more backlinks and social shares, enhancing your PR efforts.
  • Link Building: Secure high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites to your PR content. This not only boosts your PR visibility but also improves your website’s overall SEO ranking.
  • Optimized Meta Tags: Craft compelling meta titles and descriptions for your PR content, incorporating keywords to improve click-through rates and search engine visibility.
  • Mobile Optimization: Ensure your PR content is mobile-friendly, as Google considers mobile compatibility as a ranking factor. A responsive design enhances user experience and positively impacts SEO.
  • Local SEO: For location-based PR campaigns, focus on local SEO strategies. Optimize your content for local keywords, create a Google My Business listing, and encourage customer reviews to enhance local search visibility.
  • Multimedia Integration: Incorporate images, videos, and infographics into your PR content. Visual elements enhance engagement, increase sharing potential, and can rank in Google’s image and video search results.
  • Social Signals: Leverage social media platforms to amplify your PR efforts. Sharing PR content on social media channels can lead to increased visibility, engagement, and potential backlinks.
  • Content Syndication: Distribute your PR content through reputable online platforms and news syndication websites. This can lead to wider exposure, backlinks, and improved SEO performance.
  • Monitoring and Analysis: Regularly monitor your PR campaign’s performance using SEO analytics tools. Track organic search traffic, keyword rankings, backlinks, and social shares to assess the impact of your efforts.
  • Optimized Press Releases: When distributing press releases, optimize them for search engines by incorporating keywords, adding relevant links, and ensuring the content is newsworthy and valuable.
  • Guest Blogging: Contribute guest posts to authoritative blogs in your industry. Include links back to your PR content, driving referral traffic, improving brand visibility, and enhancing SEO.
  • Content Promotion: Promote your PR content through email marketing, influencer outreach, and online communities. Increased visibility and engagement can lead to more backlinks and improved SEO performance.
  • Responsive Website: Ensure your website loads quickly and is user-friendly on all devices. A positive user experience can reduce bounce rates, improve engagement metrics, and positively impact SEO.

By integrating these SEO tactics into your Digital PR strategies, you can enhance your brand’s visibility, reach a larger audience, and ultimately achieve better results in both PR and SEO efforts.

 

Having understood the ways in which SEO tactics can bolster digital PR strategies, let’s explore methods to enhance SEO without relying on plugins.

If you’re in search of ways to enhance your website’s SEO sans plugins, you’re on the right track. While an array of SEO plugins exists for WordPress, some websites and brands opt for a leaner, faster approach by steering clear of them entirely.

Elevating your website’s SEO is a pivotal step in attracting organic traffic and magnifying your online presence. While many website owners turn to plugins for SEO optimization, not everyone possesses the technical expertise or resources to do so. Fortunately, there’s a wealth of avenues to bolster your site’s SEO without relying on plugins. 

 

Here are some tips and tricks for improving your WordPress site’s SEO without plugins: 

 

Optimize Your Site’s Structure:

When it comes to SEO, having a well-organized site structure is crucial. Not only does it make your website easier to navigate for your visitors, but it also helps search engines understand the content and hierarchy of your site. To optimize your site’s structure, consider the following:

  • Ensure your website is easy to navigate with clear pages and categories. 
  • Use internal linking to help visitors find relevant content, and make sure your URLs are descriptive and include relevant keywords. 
  • A clear, logical structure with well-labeled pages and categories makes it easier for visitors to navigate your site and find the content they need. This can also help reduce your bounce rate and keep visitors on your site longer, which can positively impact your search engine rankings. 
  • Make sure your menu is visible on every page of your site, and use descriptive labels for each menu item.
  • Use subcategories and subpages to organize your content. This can help search engines understand the relationships between your pages and improve the user experience.
  • Use breadcrumb navigation to show users the path they took to arrive at a particular page on your site. This can help users navigate your site more easily and can also improve your search engine rankings.

Use Optimized Titles and Meta Descriptions: 

Website titles and meta descriptions are critical when it comes to SEO. 

  • Make sure titles are descriptive and accurately reflect the content on each page. Include your primary keyword in the title, but avoid stuffing too many keywords in the title.
  • Write compelling meta descriptions that entice users to click through to your site from their search results. This not only helps visitors understand the content of the page before they click, but it can also help search engines understand the topic of the page and rank it accordingly. Use your primary keyword in the meta description, but also make sure it accurately reflects the content on the page.
  • Keep your titles and meta descriptions concise. Search engines may truncate them if they’re too long, so try to keep them under 60 characters for titles and under 160 characters for meta descriptions.

Use internal linking to help visitors find relevant content: 

Internal linking is a powerful way to guide visitors to relevant content on your site. 

  • By linking to related pages or posts within your site, you can help visitors find additional information that may be of interest to them. 
  • This also helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your site, and can improve your rankings for relevant keywords.

Create High-Quality Content

Keep your content fresh – content is key when it comes to SEO! 

  • Write high-quality, informative content that is relevant and provides value to your visitors. Consider the questions and concerns your audience may have, and provide informative, actionable answers.
  • Use keywords that are relevant to your content, but avoid stuffing too many into your content, which can harm your SEO.

Optimize Your Images

Images can slow down your website if they’re not optimized. 

  • Use descriptive filenames and alt tags for your images. Search engines like Google not only crawl the text on a website but also the images. Images that are properly optimized can help to improve the visibility of a website on search engines. For example, if the image is of a red dress, the file name and alt tag should include those keywords.
  • Make sure to compress them to reduce the file size. Large images can slow down the loading speed of a website, which can negatively impact SEO. By compressing images and reducing the file size, the website will load faster, improving the user experience and positively impacting SEO.

Remember SEO is an ongoing process, so continue to monitor your site’s performance and make adjustments as needed to ensure that your site remains optimized for search engines. 

Optimizing your site’s SEO without plugins can be a time-consuming process, but it is a worthwhile investment in the long run. By ensuring your website is structured well, using optimized titles and meta descriptions, creating high-quality content, and optimizing your images, you can improve your search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your site. Not only does this increase your visibility to potential customers or readers, but it also establishes your website as a credible source of information in your industry. So take the time to optimize your website and enjoy the benefits of increased traffic and better search engine ranking.

 

Now that you’ve taken steps to maximize your website’s SEO, let’s cover how combining SEO and digital PR is a winning strategy that can take your website to new heights! 

By harnessing the power of both strategies, you can maximize your online visibility, build brand authority, and drive targeted traffic to your website. Here are 12 reasons why the synergy between SEO and digital PR is crucial for your website’s success:

  1. Amplify your reach: Digital PR helps you reach a wider audience through media coverage, while SEO ensures that your website is visible to relevant searchers.
  2. Enhance brand credibility: Securing press coverage through digital PR establishes your brand as an industry authority, boosting credibility and trustworthiness.
  3. Earn high-quality backlinks: Digital PR efforts often result in valuable backlinks from reputable sources, improving your website’s SEO authority and rankings.
  4. Drive targeted traffic: Optimizing your website for SEO ensures that it appears prominently in search results, attracting qualified traffic that is actively seeking your products or services.
  5. Increase brand awareness: Digital PR campaigns generate media mentions and social media buzz, increasing brand exposure and raising awareness among your target audience.
  6. Improve search engine rankings: By earning authoritative backlinks and optimizing your website’s content, SEO strengthens your website’s visibility in search engine rankings.
  7. Boost website traffic: The combined impact of improved search rankings and increased media coverage drives more traffic to your website, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates.
  8. Expand your online presence: Digital PR initiatives expand your brand’s online footprint, reaching new audiences through media outlets, social media platforms, and industry influencers.
  9. Enhance content visibility: SEO optimization ensures that your valuable content is easily discoverable by search engines and users, increasing its visibility and impact.
  10. Strengthen brand reputation: Through digital PR, you can proactively manage your brand’s reputation by shaping the narrative and responding effectively to media coverage.
  11. Gain a competitive advantage: By leveraging the power of SEO and digital PR together, you can outshine your competitors in search results and media exposure.
  12. Achieve long-term growth: The lasting effects of SEO and digital PR efforts compound over time, creating a sustainable foundation for continuous growth and success.

By embracing the synergy between SEO and digital PR, you can harness the full potential of both strategies and unlock exceptional results for your website. Together, they form a powerful duo that propels your brand forward, strengthens your online presence, and drives tangible business outcomes.

By fine-tuning your website’s architecture and content, you’ll be setting the stage for an SEO and Digital PR performance that will propel your brand — SEOaring to new heights in no time!

If you’re still struggling with optimizing your site’s SEO or your digital PR strategy, reach out to Go Fish Digital today. Go Fish Digital also specializes in digital PR. It’s possible to improve your site’s SEO with the right approach, improving your website’s search engine rankings and attracting more traffic to your site. 

 

The marriage of SEO and Digital PR is a dynamic partnership that can propel your brand to new heights in the digital landscape. Through the seamless integration of these strategies, you not only improve your online visibility, but also establish your brand as a credible authority, engage your target audience, and achieve meaningful results. Whether you’re optimizing your website’s structure, crafting compelling content, or securing authoritative backlinks, the combined impact of SEO and Digital PR creates a virtuous cycle that fosters continuous growth and success. As you implement the insights and tips shared in this guide, remember that the synergy between these two essential components of modern marketing holds the key to unlocking exceptional outcomes and ensuring your brand’s sustained prominence in the ever-evolving digital world.

The Dynamic Interplay of SEO and Digital PR for Maximum Impact is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Stuck Writing Subject Lines? 7 Strategies to Get Your Pitch Opened & Story Covered https://gofishdigital.com/blog/subject-lines-strategies/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/subject-lines-strategies/#respond Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:49:16 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=6851 Introduction There’s nothing worse than writing a killer pitch with an open rate in the single digits. In a 2019 interview with MuckRack, BuzzFeed News reporter David Mack put it plainly: “I get roughly 300 emails a day…Most of the time, I read a subject line and that’s it.” And if your subject line ain’t […]

Stuck Writing Subject Lines? 7 Strategies to Get Your Pitch Opened & Story Covered is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Introduction

There’s nothing worse than writing a killer pitch with an open rate in the single digits.

In a 2019 interview with MuckRack, BuzzFeed News reporter David Mack put it plainly:

“I get roughly 300 emails a day…Most of the time, I read a subject line and that’s it.”

And if your subject line ain’t solid, a perfect pitch doesn’t matter — it never sees the light of day.

The good news? Writing strong subject lines is a skill you can build with practice, and there are a few solid strategies that have helped me grow in my two years as a digital PR strategist. Call it at least 800 subject lines of trial and error.

As a baseline for success, as you move through these different methods, test multiple subject lines on small groups of contacts as you go. While open rates can vary based on pitching software, spam filters, the beat, national or local angles, and more, a relative rule of thumb is a strong open rate will be above 30%.

Here are some of my favorite strategies for writing effective subject lines that will get your pitch opened and story covered:

Going Through the Motions

Let’s look at this data campaign: The Best Cities for Hybrid Work. Our team scraped LinkedIn’s job database for hybrid job openings in 100 of America’s largest cities and pulled salary data across cities and industries. My basic outreach strategy was to target career, finance, and local journalists.

Working on autopilot, pitching all day, your first instinct for a national subject line might be to CMD-V the campaign title into your subject line and fire away those mass emails: 

The Best U.S. Cities for Hybrid Work Opportunities

Let’s say, locally, you do the same, and grab that first insight as written in the study:​

Atlanta Ranks #1 as the Best City for Hybrid Work

In the next seven steps, we’ll workshop these subject lines together and transform them into ‘opens’ in the inboxes of journalists at top-tier outlets.

Strategy 1: Get Personal

Strategy 1 is the most time-consuming and most effective technique for writing a subject line, which is why we’ll cover this first. This involves reaching out to journalists such as:

  • Those you already have a professional relationship with
  • Those whom you’ve thoroughly researched and your campaign is a great fit for their very specific role (e.g., An Atlanta career reporter whose last three articles have been on hybrid work practices)
  • Those who have previously covered your client’s content
  • Those who have previously covered your agency’s campaigns
  • Those who cover this particular type of content (city-rankings, Google Trends campaigns, etc)

A BuzzSumo analysis of their 600K journalists database found, “48% of journalists said that the number one thing a PR can do to get in their good books is to ‘Understand my current beat and position, and make their pitch relevant to this.’”

A common practice to begin addressing this is to localize your pitch using merge fields, adding phrases, city names, and other city-specific statistics that match with contacts from that area.

There’s no reason this can’t start in the subject line! Whether you employ merge fields for groups of journalists at a time, or do this manually, it should be as tailored as possible and jump out of their inbox as coming from someone who has done their research:

Hi [Name]another 2022 hybrid work study for you!

We’re calling her by name, we’re bringing up a previous relationship, we’re calling out her beat.

Simple Texting releases new employee data, updated with LinkedIn data

We’re bringing up a client they trust and mentioning a previous campaign.

[City] ranks high once again in nation rankings for high wages

We’re naming his location and beat while referencing a previous campaign.

And so on. Later we’ll go in-depth on how to use past coverage to your advantage. The main takeaway is this: nothing beats human connection and good research. Even in a subject line. Your ultimate goal is to be a resource for journalists. If you treat gaining coverage as a result of this, you’ll find instead of a single payoff, a single backlink for your client, you’ll build more backlinks for all of your campaigns to follow.

Strategy 1 will not only lead to journalists opening your pitches, but they will recognize your email in their inbox and your name as a credible source.

Strategy 2: Front-Load Your Subject Line

Now, let’s focus on journalists we don’t know personally. Realistically, imagine we know their outlet and beat.

Let’s front-load our first two subject lines with keywords. Most email platforms will cut off around 60 characters, while journalists checking pitches on their phones might see around 30. I want the first few words to be punchy, and The Best Cities for… is a subject line I’ve used many, many times, which means my contacts have seen it, many, many times. Sometimes it works, but this is a national pitch that needs to stand out in massive newsroom emails.

I went with this: 

Making six figures while working hybrid is easier in these cities

I know these reporters want finance and career pitches, and I, for one, would open an email that starts with the idea of making six figures. I’ve provided a specific angle: Think less of sending the title of a paper and more of a news headline. There’s no value in being vague.

Similarly, a local subject line should have the city or state in the first couple of words:

Chicago breaks the top-10 in national ranking of best cities for hybrid work

The first two words here, “Chicago breaks…” include a strong verb and the city name right off the bat.

Strategy 3: Flex Your Authority

Flex your authority. 

Is my marketing software client a direct authority when it comes to hybrid work?

Not so much. I won’t include their name in the subject line here.

An example of a case where you should? A furniture retailer on interior design:

Campaign: The Most Popular Interior Design Styles

Joybird analyzed over 130 design trends & decor items

Joybird study reveals the most popular design styles

When you can’t flex the authority of the client, you can flex a thorough methodology. I’ll ask myself, is the data collection one of the most interesting, compelling pieces of the campaign? If it is, try adding it in as a component:

The top interior design styles, according to Pinterest data

And there’s the money subject line! Apartment Therapy covered the campaign with the headline:

“These are The Most Popular 2023 Interior Design Styles, According to Pinterest”

Headline from Apartment  Therapy

Adding the general campaign type and the name of the city (at the front-end, Strategy 2!) accomplished the same technique, seen here for Joybird’s Best City for Homebodies:

[Study] Pittsburgh Among The Best Cities For Homebodies

… covered with practically the same headline by CBS News. Success! Flex your client or your method!

Headline from CBS coverage

In the case of Hybrid Work, we have a data study, specifically a LinkedIn scrape, and the method was really interesting to me. It was as easy as adding:

Making six figures while working hybrid is easier in these cities, study suggests

[DATA] Making six figures while working hybrid is easier in these cities

Make six figures while working hybrid in these cities, according to LinkedIn

Now you’re primed to shoot off some emails. A journalist at The Street plunked it from their inbox, covering it with the headline:

“Want to Make Six Figures Without Going to an Office? Move to These Cities”.

Strategy 4: Steal The Headlines

Okay, so you’ve secured some coverage. It’s time for one of my favorite, and quite effective (and easier!) strategies: Steal! That! Headline! Capitalize on that successful angle, respect what the journalists found most newsworthy, and trust they know how to write headlines in a tone their beat is going to respond to.

And make sure to pocket these headlines — specifically the types of verbs, the abbreviations, and any patterns, not just for your next round of subject lines, but for your next campaign! The more you pitch certain beats, and within that, the same outlets, you’ll have a better knack for their headline style and can work to echo it in your subject lines as you see fit.

A journalist at CNBC covered Hybrid Work with the headline:

“The 10 best cities for finding a hybrid job that pays $100,000 or more”

Headline from CNBC coverage

Coverage of another career campaign for the same client, The Most Common Corporate Lingo was covered again by CNBC with the headline:

“10 corporate buzzwords that show up in job listings the most.”

Headline from CNBC coverage

I’ve got a takeaway: My next finance campaign? My subject line will be structured as a list of 10! Paying attention to an outlet or journalist’s headline is also an indicator of what style/angle an editor is going to approve. Journalists appreciate the extra legwork.

Strategy 5: Don’t Waste Anyone’s Time

There are going to be times when you don’t find a campaign absolutely riveting. Maybe it’s a survey, and you just couldn’t predict that the insights would be a tad snooze-worthy. Maybe it’s an AI campaign that made you swear never to work with robots again. Maybe it’s a campaign so close to the client’s brand that you fear pitching it to journalists will have you labeled ‘AD’ or so far from the brand you’re now inbox clickbait.

Roll up your sleeves. This is your opportunity. You’re going to find an interesting statistic in this campaign if it’s the last subject line you write.

Because Strategy 5? Don’t be boring!

Ask a friend, a family member, or a man on the street if the insight you’ve deemed important is actually interesting. Hop over to Google News and see how others are covering the topic. Do your due diligence.

And when all else fails, don’t overextend your pitching strategy. Acknowledge the campaign’s limitations and work to find the journalists that truly would care about XYZ (Maybe it’s not you, or most of the rest of the world, but there’s seriously a beat for everything these days). Protect your relationships with journalists who wouldn’t be interested, and challenge yourself to pitch to more niche publications.

If you can’t glean an interesting subject line when all is said and done, relook at the campaign as a whole. Don’t blast just anyone’s inbox as a last resort.

Strategy 6: Commit to a Tone

Throughout this guide, we’ve walked through the Hybrid Work campaign. Our subject lines became sharper, but one could say our tone remained consistent. 

From

The Best U.S. Cities for Hybrid Work Opportunities

to our more interesting iterations like

Want to Make Six Figures Without Going to an Office? Move to These Cities

both are matter-of-fact and informative. While the latter is more likely to be opened, I wouldn’t say the former would automatically be off-putting to a journalist. Similarly, in their Employee Burnout campaign, I first opted to use a broad subject line:

A Snapshot of Employee Burnout & Quit Rates in the U.S. 

which received no coverage, and when I switched to a more data-driven insight

1 in 3 think about quitting their current job at least once a week

which was picked up by Forbes. While the latter was opened more and secured coverage, both subject lines are appropriate tones for the client and the campaign.

Conversely, there are many incidents where ‘spicing up your subject line’ can alter the tone in a way that will land you right in a spam folder. One of the best parts of agency life is the diverse group of clients I get to work with each day. There are many wonderful opportunities for your subject line to be silly, punny, or tongue-in-cheek. I secured a TODAY Show segment with a food pun! However:

  • Check your campaign, client, context, and climate
  • Practice your subject line humor first on radio stations and local TV news before you send a national pitch
  • If you ever fear you’re toeing the line, get some pulse checks from your team

Remember that your subject line will be out of context from the rest of your pitch. My own rule of thumb, if I’m not completely confident, is to put my humor in the hook of the pitch and try a different strategy in the subject line.

Another indicator of tone is the use of capitalization. Journalists don’t want to be shouted at in their inbox with an ALL CAPS but don’t be afraid to experiment with them for emphasis. All of these iterations are acceptable:

  • Pittsburgh is The Best City For Homebodies
  • Pittsburgh is the best city for homebodies
  • Pittsburgh is the BEST city for homebodies

For more direction, look at the coverage in that beat and see how they use capitalization or judge grammatically whether it’s more of a sentence or a headline.

Strategy 7: Establish Urgency

If you can, create a sense of urgency if appropriate. This can mean mentioning a timely event, from Christmas to National Cake Day to hurricane season. Most frequently in my day-to-day, I’ll apply this to entertainment beat pitches. Some general examples include:

  • Today is [Event] – Everything you need to know on [Campaign Topic]
  • [Date] is [National Holiday] – This is [State]’s favorite [Campaign Topic]
  • Prepare for tonight’s premiere by catching up on [Campaign Topic]

More specifically, on a campaign on Every State’s Favorite Robot, I swapped my headline multiple times during the promotion period to establish a sense of urgency.

1st Evergreen:

The Most Popular Movie Robot in Every U.S. State

2nd RoboWeek:

Celebrate RoboWeek: [Robot] is [State]’s favorite movie robot

3rd National Star Wars Day

May the 4th be With You: [Robot] is [State]’s Favorite Movie Robot

Another way I’ll establish a sense of urgency or timeliness in the subject line is to find journalists who are actively reporting on a story that my campaign might help inform. I’ll then make the subject line that one statistic that might relate most.

Finally, if a campaign is hot out of the oven, I’ll date it with the subject line:

August 2023 study reveals…

Conclusion

An open rate in the single digits? We’ve all been there. Give some of these strategies a go!

Strategy 1: Get Personal

Strategy 2: Front-Load Your Subject Line

Strategy 3: Flex Your Authority

Strategy 4: Steal The Headlines

Strategy 5: Don’t Waste Anyone’s Time

Strategy 6: Commit to a Tone

Strategy 7: Establish Urgency

Stuck Writing Subject Lines? 7 Strategies to Get Your Pitch Opened & Story Covered is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Link Building for Interns: The Game https://gofishdigital.com/blog/link-building-for-interns/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/link-building-for-interns/#respond Wed, 16 Aug 2023 15:05:27 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=6724 Congratulations, Intern! You just landed an amazing opportunity to learn from experienced professionals, hone your skills, apply your education, and explore the world of digital marketing. Now that you have the game in your hands, it’s time to play. Related Articles: SEO Agency Digital PR Services Content Marketing Agency Do the Tutorial When you begin, […]

Link Building for Interns: The Game is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Congratulations, Intern! You just landed an amazing opportunity to learn from experienced professionals, hone your skills, apply your education, and explore the world of digital marketing. Now that you have the game in your hands, it’s time to play.

Related Articles:

Do the Tutorial

When you begin, it’s vital for you to understand what’s going on or else you’ll be button-mashing wildly. Those who are too eager and skip instructions usually miss key concepts. 

Learn the Controls

To produce what’s expected, you have to know what’s expected. You’ll need to find out exactly what your client’s expectations are, the strategies your team uses for link building, and how to complete the individual tasks you’ll be working on. Therefore, pay close attention to each piece of instruction you receive and don’t be afraid to ask good questions. Engaging with your mentor on the subject matter will not only ensure your comprehension but also show that you care. Plus, you don’t want to get to level 84 and then realize you had an ability you weren’t using the entire time. 

Press (A) to Start

Once you’ve completed the tutorial, you can jump into the action. It’s much easier to learn by doing than it is to get a freeze frame from your mentor for every single scenario.

Develop a Quest Plan

There are a lot of super important back-end tasks that go into link building campaigns. With campaign production, your job is to set the mission up for success. When generating campaign ideas, use your naivety and fresh perspective to your advantage by shooting for the stars. You can always make an idea more practical later. If it’s really outlandish, make sure to include a potential strategy for data collection as well as your hypotheses for pitching angles. If there aren’t any wheels, you can’t drive. It is also important to keep a pulse on what’s happening so you can brainstorm trendy ideas as well. Reading the patch notes can give you the inside scoop on buffs and nerfs before other players notice.

Gather Intel

When working on data collection, think critically about the structure of the study and make sure the research is sound. If you’re not buying it, no one else is. If you think that you need to change methods to produce newsworthy data, speak with a mentor about potentially pivoting in a different direction. Good reconnaissance can win you the match. 

Locate Targets

Once the dataset is complete, the outreach begins. With campaign promotion, your job is to finish what the production process started by finding the story in the data and earning coverage. When you build a contact list, find the beats that align with the campaign angles the most. If you’re struggling to find relevant beats, get really creative with the angles; as long as there’s a tie-in, there’s a path to victory.

Hit the Mark

If you get the chance to pitch contacts, use your knowledge of pop culture and timely events to hook their attention, outline the story within the data, and make your insights fascinating. Remember, if you’re not buying it, no one else is. Keeping up with the news cycle and looking out for newsjacking opportunities are also vital outreach strategies for success. If you apply what you’ve learned about your role with your skills and always keep your goal in mind, you’ll get to crushing levels in no time.

Pay Attention to Tips

We all get stuck on a hard boss battle at some point. The key is to remember that feedback from your mentors is integral to learning and improving. If someone tells you that you need to amend your work or switch up your methods, they’re likely giving you valuable XP. 

Revamp Battle Strategies 

When you reach a roadblock, you should try your best to figure it out on your own first by using the resources available to you. If you’re completely lost on a task, consider the following questions to help frame your next move:

  • What will this task look like when it’s finished?
  • How does this task help generate links for the client?
  • What extra effort can I put forth on this task to make sure this campaign is successful?

If you can’t answer those questions, reach out to your mentor for guidance. Then, get to work. Often, you have the skills, you just need to better understand your mission. With your eyes on the prize, you’ll adapt and navigate to the finish line every time. 

Level Up

Just because you defeat a few enemies doesn’t mean you’re a master quite yet. Never stop finding ways to improve your efficiency. You can do this by looking for the shortcuts that save time without jeopardizing quality. 

Utilize Secret Tunnels

You can reorganize the steps in your personal processes to create harmonious pathways to victory. For example, if you highlight the email column in your contact list and then run the command sequence (Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Duplicate Values… > OK) to highlight duplicates first, the column will stay highlighted for you to run the command sequence (Find & Select > Go To Special… > select Blanks > OK > highlight Delete dropdown menu > Delete Sheet Rows) to eliminate blank rows second. If you do it the opposite way it’ll take extra keystrokes. Maximizing your efficiency saves time and helps build good habits that protect your work quality. There’s usually more than one way to get the gold; never stop looking for the strongest and fastest combo.

Win

There will come a time when your original mission is complete. You’ll put in the effort by paying attention, asking questions, exploring, doing the work, improving, and then doing the work better. Finally, you’ll see the results: almost all of the feedback you’ll get will be positive reinforcement, the campaigns you assist with will get links, and you’ll earn your very first piece of coverage from a top-tier publication. Let’s go! The grind always pays off.

Set New Goals 

You may eventually feel like you’re finished, but don’t stop there! Start the game over and aim for a perfect run. Beat the record on the time trial by milliseconds. Shoot for #1 on the leaderboard. Never settle. Do that, and you’ll keep learning, growing, and leveling up for the rest of your career in digital marketing. You have what it takes to do more than just play the game. You have what it takes to conquer the game. Always remember that! 

Congratulations, Intern! You just completed Link Building for Interns: The Game. You may be ready for the sequel. 

A New Game Hits the Shelves – Do You Have What It Takes? Link Building for Digital PR Professionals: The Game. Coming Soon!

Link Building for Interns: The Game is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Mastering the Art of Digital PR: Two Key Steps to Crafting a Killer Outreach Strategy https://gofishdigital.com/blog/crafting-digital-pr-outreach-strategy/ https://gofishdigital.com/blog/crafting-digital-pr-outreach-strategy/#respond Fri, 23 Jun 2023 17:00:34 +0000 https://gofishdigital.com/?p=6484 Developing a bullet-proof outreach strategy is vital for a successful Digital PR link-building campaign. A strong strategy will guide you, your team, and your client to the ultimate end goal: Creating high-quality content that secures backlinks, drives traffic, and strengthens your SEO.  Does that pique your interest? Great. Let me guide you through my two-step […]

Mastering the Art of Digital PR: Two Key Steps to Crafting a Killer Outreach Strategy is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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Developing a bullet-proof outreach strategy is vital for a successful Digital PR link-building campaign. A strong strategy will guide you, your team, and your client to the ultimate end goal: Creating high-quality content that secures backlinks, drives traffic, and strengthens your SEO. 

Does that pique your interest? Great. Let me guide you through my two-step process to crafting a killer outreach strategy that will inform your pitches and PR lists.

Related Articles:

First off, how do we define an outreach strategy?

In essence, the strategy is a plan for pitching developed in the beginning stage of the campaign process in order to inform your pitches and PR list.

The outreach strategy is an important first step in our process because it means we have a clear plan for each campaign that we can communicate to our team and to the client. 

A strong outreach strategy should answer the following: 

  1. Who you’ll be pitching 
  2. How you’ll be pitching them 
  3. What your target outlets will be 
  4. If there are any timely events involved (think: newsjacking, i.e. riding the coattails of a breaking new story by adding a personal twist)

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s begin. 

Step One: Define Your Target Audience

This is the who you’ll be pitching part of the process. Our target audience here is the set of journalists we will be pitching throughout the promotion period of the campaign. 

Before pulling contacts, you’ll want a clear direction of who’s going to be on your list before the waters get muddy. 

Start with the bigger picture. Which beats am I going to pitch to? Who would be interested in this campaign? Where are they located?

A beat is a particular topic or area that a journalist focuses their

coverage on. There are endless different beats, so it’s crucial to limit your contact pool to writers covering the specific beats relevant to your campaign.

While journalists may have multiple beats to cover, it’s unlikely that they will report on subjects outside of their assigned beats.

Let’s use an example.

As part of a summer launch for Joybird, a mid-mod furniture company, I began prepping my materials for a new data study: The Most Expensive Airbnb in Every U.S. State. This campaign used real-time Airbnb data to find each state’s priciest rental. 

As I crafted my outreach strategy, I first zoomed out to the big-picture beat: Local. Anytime we can find key insights or data about a particular state or city, local publications are our go-to contacts. For example, ABC11, a publication based in Raleigh NC, would be a good fit for data specific to Raleigh and surrounding areas.

Then, I brainstormed additional beats to pitch according to the content of this campaign. These included real estate, lifestyle, personal finance, and travel.

Suddenly, I have five avenues to pursue and a wide range of potential contacts. 

Sweet, let’s move on. 

Step Two: Identity Timely Events Around the Campaign 

There’s one question you should always ask yourself before pitching or even creating a campaign: Why should anyone care about this?

Timely events are a great way to find your answer to that question. A journalist should care about your campaign because it fits into the news cycle and it adds to the ongoing news story. 

I repeat: It adds to the story. 

A timely event is any event that is newsworthy and relevant. It can be a singular day, like Election Day, a couple of weeks, like the Olympics, or an entire season, like wedding season. 

Without a timely event to pitch around, a journalist may have no incentive to cover the Digital PR campaign—No matter how unique or interesting it may be. Why should they care unless they can tie it to the news cycle?

Timely events are a great way to encourage journalists to cover your campaign, while also adding value and remaining relevant. Moreover, timely events tell us more about how we are going to structure our pitch. 

Okay, back to The Most Expensive Airbnb in Every U.S. State campaign. Earlier I told you this campaign had a summer launch, so one of my obvious timely events was the upcoming summer travel season. That’s the angle I pitched to lifestyle and travel writers.

Next, Airbnb hosts were getting a lot of flack in the news cycle around that time for taking homes away from potential local buyers and driving up housing prices—And the most outrageously expensive Airbnbs certainly add to that conversation. Great, the real estate beat is covered.

Plus, can no one afford to travel anymore with rising inflation? I mean, seriously, with those ridiculous added fees it’s no wonder we’re staying home. And yes, this was the angle I used for those personal finance writers. 

With my beats defined and my timely events narrowed down (to the best of my ability, the news cycle is an ever-changing beast), I feel confident to create a strong pitch and PR list that is personalized to each beat and any timely events on my radar.

Remember, just like no two Digital PR link-building pieces are the same, each PR list and pitch is unique as well. Ultimately, you want to feel confident that once your piece is ready to pitch, you’ve set yourself up for success ahead of time. 

TLDR; Do your homework! 

Mastering the Art of Digital PR: Two Key Steps to Crafting a Killer Outreach Strategy is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

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