Your site’s authority and organic ranking aren’t just measured by what you do on your site, it’s also how your site is viewed by others.  Link building, which is the links that point to your site have a significant effect on your overall digital performance.  You need to leverage your online Public Relations (PR) and partnerships to succeed in your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, a significant part of this is quality link building. 

Omar Kattan, SEO Expert and CSO of Sandstorm Digital joins us in the latest episode of the DiGi Files to discuss how to leverage your PR and partnerships for better SEO results.  

Why Invest in Quality Link building?

Traditional PR, such as press release distribution doesn’t really work for SEO.  We know that Google downgrades any links received from press releases with the understanding that these aren’t earned links but rather a massive press release distribution created by the brand.  For it to be effective for SEO, a backlink is best if it comes from a unique, contextually relevant third-party website.

A backlink is instrumental in building authority of your brand, but it needs to be a quality backlink otherwise it will hurt you and can lead to a downgrade from Google (as a worst-case scenario). 

In the past few years, Google’s algorithm update (Penguin) changed to only reward authoritative backlinks.  Due to this change, SEO experts needed to adapt to this and evolve by using digital public relations and establish partnerships to support their backlink approach to ensure quality and relevance are met. 

Digital Public Relations

Using online PR in your strategy will take your SEO game to the next level. Google’s emphasis on link building means that if done correctly you will see a boost in your domain authority and ranking.  In order for your brand to obtain quality, high authority links from websites that have been established and are trusted, you need to incorporate PR.  

Digital PR involves connecting with bloggers, influencers, emailing relevant partners, journalists, editors, social media, affiliate programs, in order to improve the quality of your backlinks. 

Offline, traditional media should still be part of your overall marketing strategy. The positive part of digital PR is that it is data-driven, and enables you to see how successful your efforts are. 

Develop Partnerships

Link building is not about getting backlinks, but developing relationships. Working in a partnership is key to building quality links. Both parties need to add value in a partnership, ideally, your partner should have a similar audience but not in direct competition.  Partnerships help with long-term strategy but you need to be aligned for it to work effectively. 

Key components of Link Building: 

It’s crucial to remove any harmful, spammy links that dropped your ranking, this can be done by using the Google Disavow Links Tool. While disavowing links is helpful, your backlink strategy  should put focus on the following:

• Links should be strategically targeted or naturally earned.
• Ensure you are linking to a reputable site.
• Relevant to your brand (ie, same industry, niche)
• Produce exclusive, quality content to partners in the form of Guest Posting, Influencer promotion, Interviews, etc. 
• Share quality links with good content.

Link building takes time and effort and needs continuous monitoring, but when done properly your business will see significant growth in organic traffic and revenue.  Digital PR and partnership are crucial components in your SEO strategy.