How to maintain a consistent brand image???
In today’s world, a company’s?image is everything – all it takes is one bad review to shatter your brand’s image (consumers are not very forgiving these days). Online research is now the starting point for more purchases than ever; so, what can you do to drive authority for your website? Link building and digital PR and both key SEO strategies but you need to understand what?they?are. And what they are not.??
????What is Digital PR Strategy?
Using PR strategies to acquire backlinks to aid your SEO strategy is the core of digital PR. It’s all about creating clickable content that gives other websites a reason to link your content to their pages. When other websites talk about your business and link to your content, it not only promotes your business, but it also gives you more authority online.
To succeed in online PR, you must have compelling stories that editors want to publish, and they must contain links to other interesting materials, as this enhances an article’s editorial value. Another approach to creating an interesting piece of content is to produce data-driven investigative articles that display data in the form of infographics, for example.?
????How to put together a Link Building Strategy?
Now that we’ve had an overview of what digital PR involves, let’s get into some more concrete tips.
1. Linkable Assets
Linkable assets are all about creating content that has value – the type of content that everyone would use for reference.?First and foremost, it should not be promotional (a promotional paragraph or two at the end is alright, but don’t write a 1500-word article boasting about your business). Don’t just scratch the surface of the topic either. Instead, discuss it in depth, as long form content is more useful for link building purposes. While current events are important, do maintain a balance with articles that will remain relevant forever and as a general rule, try to stay out of politics as much as possible.
2. Authority
To build authority online, you have to position yourself as an expert in the field. While being relatable is seen in a positive way these days, you cannot establish authority by projecting yourself in an unprofessional manner. You have to remind your?target audience?that the person they are following is a specialist who will not only understand their problem but also help them solve it. You have to be direct, and confident. Begin by showcasing your experience and case studies on your website, and link to them in your day-to-day articles.
3. Industry Experts
I’ve talked about how building authority is extremely important. You can gain more authority by being part of online and offline conferences. A networking event like this will educate people and bring a lot of traffic to your website. You could also look into cold calling businesses for speaking in marketing seminars, summits, and conferences. A good example is TEDx – people approach them?to talk about their product/idea through them, which gives them exposure to a bigger audience. These events are not about competition, but an opportunity for you to collaborate with other experts in your industry. Big media publications look for expert reviews and opinions in various industries, so position yourself in a manner that fulfils their needs.??
4. Outreach?
In an ideal world, you would post an article and journalists would come running to you and write endlessly about your business. However, we live in a very competitive world and to win the race you have to make yourself seen. To make journalists’ jobs easier, reach out to them with your best pieces of content rather than waiting for them to discover you. This is where it is important to use tactics from traditional PR. To increase the reach of your strategy, you have to invest in targeted outreach.
5. Media Lists
Media lists can be a game changer. You need to build a comprehensive list of journalists, media houses, and businesses that you reach out to on a regular basis to share useful content. Now, don’t go reaching out to them with your weekly blogs, but do notify them of any books or research that you are publishing, as well as news about events, awards that you win, and other monumental, noteworthy occurrences.?
领英推荐
6. Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text that your link is embedded within. Google bots will not understand what the content on a link is about if you do not use anchor text properly. In order to determine what your pages may be about, search engines analyse external anchor text, which is the content that other pages use to link to your site.?Google?says, “make sure that the anchor text you use within your own site is useful, descriptive, and relevant.”
7. Get Them Talking
You need to give people a reason to talk about your business. Marketers are always under pressure to do something different and sadly, there is no escape from it. Think of?creative campaigns?that can help you stand out – for example, you can use art in many ways to make a lasting impression. Emotive videos that communicate an important message are another option. Talk about something that nobody likes to acknowledge in your industry and try to look at things from various perspectives.??
8. Original Data Driven Research
One of the best ways to make your content stands out is doing original research in your industry. Statistics are widely used in blogs to demonstrate authority, and conducting your own research gives reporters and other media outlets a source to cite on their website. If you don’t have the time for research, you can employ people from freelance websites to do the work for you. It all comes down to making unique content that contributes something new to your field.?
Digital PR?is not only about online tactics. It’s a mixture of traditional PR and strategies related to Search Engine Optimisation. Building links and enhancing your SEO requires the use of online PR and marketing strategies, and vice versa. Through these practices, you can build a sizable network of media contacts, so it’s absolutely worthwhile.?It can help you improve?brand awareness, and it’s scalable – you just need one big media publication to talk about you and the rest will follow.??
Read more about digital PR and link building on my blog.
Get help ??
If you need any support with your marketing strategy, my team and I can help!?Get in touch to find out more about what we can do to help you!?
Share ??
I hope you found this week’s newsletter insightful. If you did, I'd be really grateful if you could share it with your network and tag your friends & colleagues. I’d love to grow a community of MM readers so we can all learn from each other and deliver our best results.?
ABOUT ME?
I have been helping companies with their marketing from start-ups to global corporates for over 20 years and I’m also the author of 2 best-selling books in the field. Whether it’s growth, branding, performance, content marketing, SEO or many other areas, I have helped companies all over the world to deliver market-leading results. I’m also the CEO of a global marketing agency, and a regular keynote speaker, trainer, consultant and contributor to industry publications.