Since the very beginning of SEO , the follow vs nofollow links debate has been getting a lot of airtime. Are nofollow links brought into the ranking equation at all? Is a nofollow link from a high DR valuable? Are all nofollow links entirely useless for SEO and therefore not an important PR metric? These are questions raised and debated on a constant cycle in the world of SEO. And, with nofollow links recently becoming more and more common, we thought we’d chip in our two pence.
This blog will firstly take it back to the basics, explaining what nofollow and follow link are, and how they came to be. We’ll then get into the juicy stuff – how they differ in terms of SEO and overall value. But if you don’t have all day, here’s the whole blog nicely summarised in 3 takeaways:
➡️The difference between nofollow and follow links lies in the message they’re giving to Google. Follow links pass link equity and tell Google to crawl the page, whilst nofollow links are a way of saying it’s not very important.
➡️Despite this, nofollow links are still valuable for SEO and should not be overlooked! Search engines value a natural backlink profile with a mix of dofollow and nofollow links. You should aim for a ratio of roughly 80/20.
➡️Nofollow links can also directly improve your sales by bringing in relevant traffic and improving brand awareness – especially when found on a reputable website.
So what’s a nofollow link?
A nofollow hyperlink has “nofollow” in its HTML code, which tells Google not to crawl the linked page.
So, to put it simply, a nofollow link is a way of telling search engines to ignore a link on your website. You’re essentially saying it’s not very important and not recommending it for search ranking purposes.
They were introduced in 2005 with the aim to combat a dodgy practice where sites were attempting to manipulate rankings by acquiring lots of irrelevant links.
And what are dofollow links?
As the name would suggest, ‘dofollow’ or ‘follow’ links are the opposite! They’re the standard type of hyperlink on websites and tell search engines to follow and rank the attached page. With this, you’re saying to Google that the linked site is relevant to your content and providing valuable information – it’s like a vote of confidence.
How to know if a link is nofollow or dofollow
I see you now scrambling to check your links, and luckily for you, it’s very easy to find out if the link in question is follow or nofollow. Simply hover over the link, right-click it, and choose “Inspect.” You’ll then be able to view the source code and have a look for that ‘nofollow’ tag.
How do they differ for SEO?
Follow links have a direct impact on SEO; acquiring high-quality follow links from relevant sites will have a significant impact on your rankings for related keywords. This is because follow links pass on link equity, boosting the page they link to.
Nofollow links on the other hand are more of a grey area. Some believe they cannot directly impact search ranking and, after all, they were created with the intention of telling search engines not to follow the link and pass ranking powder to the page. However, there’s some evidence to the contrary.
Matt Cutts, a former Google engineer, has acknowledged that nofollow links might be used as a signal in a ‘complex way’. What he’s possibly referring to here is that some studies suggest search engines consider nofollow links in a couple of situations:
If a nofollow link comes from a trustworthy and relevant website, this might still hold some weight in Google’s eyes
Search engines will often look at the whole link profile of a website, including both follow and nofollow links, to get a good sense of its reputation. And the evidence suggests that a diverse backlink profile is valuable for SEO, but more on that later.
But whether or not nofollow links can pass link equity, to say they have no value for SEO would be short sighted. Here’s why…
Why you shouldn’t dismiss nofollow links
🔗Referral Traffic
Despite not necessarily passing on link equity, nofollow links can be a powerful tool for driving referral traffic, especially if the linking site is relevant to your niche, with a wide established audience. Their audience can click through this link, land on your website, and be exposed to your content – this increases your traffic and potential conversions!
🔗Brand awareness
Getting linked to, even with nofollow, is great for brand awareness. If your website gets linked to on a popular industry blog or high-traffic news outlet, your business is exposed to a huge new audience who may not have known about you before.
Being linked to by reputable websites reflects positively on your brand. Users aren’t checking the code for each link they see, they’re taking it for face value as a signpost that you’re as much of a trustworthy source as the site linking to you.
Increased brand awareness from nofollow links can also trigger a domino effect. As more people discover your content and find it valuable, they might go on to link to your site themselves – and these could even be dofollow links this time around.
🔗Backlink Profile Diversity
Search engines want to see a diverse backlink profile; what this means is a profile including a mix of link types, anchor texts, and crucially, follow and nofollow links.
This is because a website with only follow links could appear unnatural for search engines. Having a few nofollow links in there too shows that your site is not suspicious and instead, shows that it has grown organically.
This being said, the ideal backlink profile does lean towards follow links. Search Engine Journal recommends a ratio of 80/20 or 70/30 in favour of follow links.
You can find out your site’s ratio by using tools like the Ahrefs backlink checker. Here’s ours:
So there we have it, our defence of nofollow links. Enough of the hate and leaving them out of your reports – they’re probably benefitting you far more than you know!
Who are we? Cedarwood Digital is a link-building agency based in Manchester, with a track record of landing businesses a healthy mix of follow and no-follow links, all from top tier sites. Contact us today to have a chat about your Digital PR strategy.
In the dynamic world of digital marketing, the crossover between SEO and Digital PR is becoming increasingly vital. SEO and Digital PR are both crucial if you are looking to increase your brand visibility and online presence, and even though they can be viewed as separate roles, collaboration is absolutely essential. By collaborating your SEO and Digital PR strategies, you can successfully achieve brand awareness, increased visibility and more sales.
In the past, Digital PR and SEO have been seen as completely separate entities, both completed by separate teams with no involvement. However, as high quality links and brand reputation have become more important for improving organic search results, collaboration between SEO and DPR is now extremely valuable. By integrating the two, both elements work together to increase each other’s impact.
Why Is Integrating SEO And Digital PR Essential?
➡️ Enhanced Online Visibility
SEO and Digital PR both aim to increase a brand’s online visibility. While SEO efforts focus on on-page efforts, DPR focuses on off-site but both can have a massive impact on driving more organic traffic to a website. When SEO and DPR teams work together, they can target the same areas of a website, and produce on-site and off-site content to increase rankings and visibility.
When SEO and Digital PR teams work together, they can identify high-value opportunities and target these together to increase visibility. Quality backlinks from Digital PR efforts can enhance domain authority, making it easier for SEO initiatives to achieve better results in the SERPs, alongside on-site optimisations, this can have a huge impact on SEO performance.
Successful Digital PR strategies can also drive targeted traffic to your website and this is a great opportunity for SEO teams to provide Digital PR teams with information about high intent traffic which will be valuable for the brand and the Digital PR team can then use this data to inform their strategies and create campaigns that will attract the right type of traffic. This collaboration can work really well and generate high intent users for your website. Product placements are an example where this can be extremely effective.
➡️ High Quality Content
Combining SEO’s data driven approach to keyword research with PR’s storytelling expertise can result in content that ranks well and engages readers. Both teams can ensure that the content is interesting for users, but also optimised for search engines, and this can also make it compelling enough to attract media attention. Sometimes, you don’t even need to outreach your Digital PR work, you can make the journalists come to you – by targeting relevant keywords and providing data hubs within your content, you can gain natural backlinks without the need for any contact with journalists. However, in order for this to work successfully, it is absolutely imperative that the SEO and Digital PR experts are working together. You can read more about this reverse digital pr strategy in our blog talking all about reverse Digital PR and how it works.
High quality content is a must for SEO and Digital PR, and by working together, you can create content that is fit for both SEO and Digital PR purposes.
➡️ Building Brand Authority And Trust
Building brand authority and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust) signals is essential for organic performance and one of the many ways to do this and potentially one of the most direct crossovers between SEO and Digital PR is link building. Gaining high quality backlinks from reputable sites is key for SEO performance – it will make the brand more trustworthy in the eyes of search engines and consumers and it can significantly boost the website’s authority and online visibility. This therefore makes Digital PR an essential part of all modern SEO strategies and when both teams work together seamlessly, it can make this process much more effective.
➡️ Measuring Success
Having a unified approach between SEO and Digital PR will also allow for a more comprehensive set of metrics to measure campaign success. By combining SEO and Digital PR data and analytics, you can gain deeper insights into how both efforts are performing together and adjust your strategies accordingly.
Overall, incorporating your SEO and Digital PR strategies goes much further than immediate online visibility but it helps build a strong foundation for long term success in the online space. By understanding these benefits, you can effectively collaborate your SEO and DIgital PR efforts to create an extremely strong online presence.
How Can Digital PR And SEO Teams Collaborate?
➡️ Align Strategies
The first step when Digital PR and SEO teams are collaborating on any project or account is to start working together from the very beginning. Both teams should align their objectives and these can be increasing organic traffic, enhancing brand awareness and visibility, or boosting engagement – whatever the goals and objectives are, it is important that both teams are on the same page so that all strategies and projects moving forwards are focused on the same outcomes.
➡️ Share Keyword Research and Insights
SEO teams should consistently share keyword research and insights with the Digital PR team so that they can be aware of topics that are newsworthy and have a high search potential. This can help to inform strategy for Digital PR campaigns and ensure they are relevant, but it can also help ensure that all Digital PR content is optimised for SEO from the outset so that it can be uploaded to the website for SEO purposes as well as outreached for Digital PR.
➡️ Coordinate Content Creation
High quality content takes time to write, and with both SEO and Digital PR teams having expertise in content creation, these teams should definitely be sharing their content with each other. Digital PR teams will often be creating data hubs of content that would be absolutely perfect for the website, by sharing this content, the SEO team can ensure it is targeting the right keywords and once this has been uploaded to the website, it can attract traffic and potentially even receive natural backlinks – a win win situation which would have potentially have been missed if there was no crossover between the two teams. Likewise, SEO teams will also be creating highly targeted content that the Digital PR team can utilise for their benefit as well.
➡️ Cross Team Collaboration
Overall, creating collaboration between SEO and Digital PR teams needs to focus on consistent communication and teamwork between both teams. This can be achieved through joint training sessions, regular check-ins, collaborative brainstorming and shared tracking tools to ensure everyone is at the same stage throughout the whole strategy.
Summary
For any business looking to enhance their online presence, it is absolutely essential that Digital PR and SEO teams are working together. When these two teams collaborate, they can create a cohesive strategy that will amplify the impact of both efforts. High quality backlinks from reputable media sources can significantly impact SEO results, and SEO insights can guide DPR efforts to target topics that will drive high intent traffic and engagement.
The synergy between Digital PR and SEO will not only maximise brand exposure and authority, but will also ensure a strategic approach to content creation and online marketing, ultimately leading to increased visibility, traffic and conversions for the business.
At Cedarwood Digital, our SEO and Digital PR teams are constantly working together to drive online visibility for a range of businesses. If you are looking to boost the online presence of your business through Digital PR and SEO, make sure to get in touch with us today.
There’s no question that e-commerce is thriving; e-commerce sales are forecasted to make up a huge 23% of global retail sales by 2027. We’re seeing social media platforms increasingly integrating shopping features and live shopping experiences gaining traction on platforms like TikTok. We’re certainly in a new era of e-commerce but how can traditional e-commerce sites still ensure they’re getting seen? The answer is link-building. It’s an absolute necessity for e-commerce businesses aiming for growth and brand recognition.
This guide is going to explain exactly what you’re missing out on if digital PR isn’t yet part of your e-commerce strategy and give you the techniques our experts can’t live without.
Why your e-commerce site needs digital PR
In this saturated market, customers now, more than ever, need to really trust a brand to want to purchase from them. In fact, according to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, Gen Z exhibits the highest need for brand trust, with 79% saying it is more important to trust the brands they buy today than in the past. Digital PR is the key to building that trust and establishing your brand as an authority.
But alongside this, digital PR helps strengthen your brand image, attract relevant traffic and boost your organic search ranking for competitive keywords. When high-quality external sites link to your e-commerce store, search engines perceive your website as more authoritative and trustworthy. This translates to improved rankings for relevant keywords in search engine results pages – bingo.
A well-crafted digital PR strategy will secure backlinks not just to your homepage, but also to product and category pages. This “deeper link building” helps you rank higher for specific products and high-intent pages in the SERPs.
If your e-commerce site has physical stores, digital PR will also work in your favour. Press releases can be outreached to specifically target local publications, building brand awareness in your local community.
Plus, the benefits of digital PR extend to your paid campaigns too, enhancing their performance and maximising your return on investment. This is because digital PR can generate positive brand mentions and reviews online and, by incorporating reviews into your landing pages, you add social proof and enhance the credibility of your paid ads.
Whilst things like brand awareness and credibility are important, what we’re all ultimately after in e-commerce is a boost in sales. Digital PR goes beyond vanity metrics – each link, brand mention, and boost in authority helps an e-commerce site outrank their competitors, and get customers on their side. In other words, you significantly increase your conversions!
How to do digital PR for e-commerce: our tips
🧷Product placements
On the topic of trust, product placements are your golden ticket. If a trusted reviewer (say GQ or Vogue) features your new sandal range in their ‘22024 summer holiday must-haves’ list, that’s a powerful way to earn trust and stand out – in a natural way. These high-authority platforms have thousands of readers, and therefore, just as many potential customers for your products.
Focus on reaching out to publications and review websites that resonate with your brand values. And remember that product placement isn’t just a transaction – you want to build a relationship. Offer journalists early access to new products, and provide valuable industry insights alongside your product details.
We leveraged this technique successfully with our garden furniture client, Hayes Garden World. We used a mixture of media monitoring, and proactive outreach to get our products featured. With this approach, we landed over 65 linked product placements in a year, with £47,000 in referral sales generated! Told you product placements work. Make sure to have a Dropbox file of high-resolution images ready to go, so you can jump on trends and turn a product placement around quickly.
🧷Internal data
Due to the online interactions on an e-commerce site, they have a far bigger pool of internal data compared to traditional stores. This is because e-commerce sites can track every click, search and product interaction, which provides heaps of insight into browsing habits and product preferences. Additionally, e-commerce platforms often collect customer information like their demographics and purchase history.
Why does this matter? Sales data and customer behaviour patterns can be the foundation for compelling digital PR stories that will stand out in journalists’ inboxes and secure you those valuable links. This is completely unique data and analysis that only you have access to and will attract outlets looking for fresh, data-driven content. It’s also worth analysing customer data anyway to help you tailor your digital PR messaging. Internal data can help you understand your audience’s wants, needs and pain points, which will inform more effective campaigns.
🧷Content marketing
Great content is a magnet for backlinks and serves as a relatively low-maintenance technique to help attract customers and journalists to your site. We call this approach ‘reverse digital PR’ and here’s how it works:
Start by analysing your website to identify areas where you could establish yourself as a data hub. This could be through informative blog posts, buying guides, in-depth industry reports, or even infographics. Consider what information your target audience is after and what content gaps exist within your niche.
Whilst not essential, incorporating data into your content will boost its authority and newsworthiness. You can leverage internal sales data, customer behavior patterns, or commission external surveys, all to produce content that’s unique and engaging.
Present this information in a clear and visually appealing way, then optimise your content with keywords to ensure it ranks well in the SERPs. If it isn’t ranking, how are journalists and customers going to find it!
Now, you can sit back and watch as you attract backlinks naturally, without the need for constant outreach. Journalists and other websites looking for insightful information to add credibility to their articles, will come across your data and (hopefully) link back, boosting your site’s authority and visibility.
🧷Guest-posting
Guest posting allows you to share your expertise and build valuable backlinks to your e-commerce site. The way this works is you contribute an informative article to relevant industry publications with larger audiences. You’ll then ideally receive a do-follow backlink within the guest post, which acts as a vote of confidence, boosting your site’s authority and ranking. Equally, guest posting exposes your brand and products to a wider audience, and this increased visibility leads to more traffic and potential sales.
🧷Keep your eye out for unlinked mentions
Even mentions of your brand that don’t link to you are valuable – identifying them using a tool like Google Alerts allows you to then reach out to the site owner or article author. Offer additional information or propose a content collaboration, and this could potentially lead to a backlink. Even if you don’t secure a link, this mention is still increasing your brand awareness by getting your name in front of a new audience, so don’t discount it!
Whether you sell dog bowls, windshields, or Bakewell tarts, you’re setting yourself up for success by following the steps in this guide. In 2024, prioritising digital PR within your e-commerce digital marketing strategy is a need and a must. Without it, you’re missing out on valuable links, traffic, and most importantly, paying customers!
Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning digital PR agency specialising in landing reputable links and coverage for e-commerce businesses. If you’re looking for a hand with your digital PR, go ahead and drop us a message – we’d love to hear from you.
At Cedarwood, we use a tried and tested technique to build links and drive site traffic without the need for any outreach at all. Yep, you heard that right – we like to call it Reverse Digital PR and it’s our secret to low-maintenance link-building. Stay tuned for a run-down of what exactly reverse PR is, why it’s so valuable and a couple of case studies where we’ve used it successfully.
So, what is Reverse Digital PR?
As PRs we spend most of our time crafting content we think journalists will love, outreaching it and hoping for the best. But, with reverse digital PR we’re inviting the journalists to come to us. With this strategy, you create a data piece for your website, with the intention that journalists find it when looking for a resource, and link back to it. This works because journalists often search for data and statistics online to back up their articles and add credibility. It flips the traditional PR approach on its head; instead of chasing journalists, you create valuable data hubs that attract them to your content. The benefits are countless, it saves you time and energy, whilst being a great way to organically attract links, drive links, and boost E-E-A-T signals.
How does it work?
Well it sounds good in principle, but how does reverse digital PR actually work in practice?
🔗First, identify areas of your brand where you’re hoping to gain additional visibility and where you could feasibly create a high-quality data hub of facts or stats. For example, if your company is a travel agency and you’re hoping to increase search engine visibility for accommodation pages, a data hub comparing the average accommodation costs across popular destinations could be an effective reverse digital PR strategy.
🔗The next step is to then make the hub! You can gather the data in a few ways. To make your piece unique and fresh, so that journalists couldn’t find this information elsewhere, it can be a good idea to gather your own internal data. This can be done by:
>>Commissioning surveys, although an additional cost will come with this
>>Analysing your own sales data to identify customer trends or popular products
>>Using tools like Google Analytics to determine user demographics or conversion rates in your customer base
>>Analysing the social media data to understand how audiences are interacting with your brand
You can also gather external data from various public data sources online. Take a look at Statista, ONS, Centre for Cities and NHS digital for free data.
🔗Once you’ve sourced the data, now’s time to present it in the best way possible. You want the piece to be easily digestible, laid out in a clever format, and also optimised for search engines – a lot to ask I know. But this is all crucial to ensure you rank well so that the journalists can actually find the page!
Why is Reverse Digital PR so valuable?
You should have gathered by now that reverse digital pr is a pretty good idea. But what are the specific advantages it offers in comparison to traditional methods like newsjacking?
📈 Instead of constantly chasing down journalists, reverse digital PR lets your content do the heavy lifting. By providing valuable data journalists actively seek out, you attract coverage organically.
📈A well-crafted data piece on your website can generate ongoing value. Unlike a one-time press release, this content continues to attract journalists and relevant traffic over time.
📈A good piece of reverse digital PR will also work wonders for the good old E-E-A-T signals. Presenting original research or analysis solidifies your expertise, and is made more credible by the data or statistics. To make extra sure that the page contributes to E-E-A-T, ensure your data comes from credible sources, and is presented clearly. Also, it’s a good idea to update the information regularly to keep it relevant and accurate.
A couple of examples
1)Using Reverse Digital PR to naturally attract links to Patient Claim Line’s website
Patient Claim Line is a leader in the medical negligence field, which is increasingly competitive and sitting within the Your Money, Your Life category. Within these verticals, it’s especially important to display E-E-A-T signals so we decided to create a valuable data hub on their website. We focused on cosmetic surgery statistics as this was an area of the site we were looking to boost visibility for. Previously, we’d relied on creating journalist-friendly content and outreaching it as a traditional campaign, but here, the plan was to simply create a hub and wait for the journalists to find us.
The page was designed to inform the user of information and up to date statistics around cosmetic surgery in 2022. We included fresh data from our own survey to ensure the information was as useful and unique as possible. Then, we presented it in a user-friendly format and optimised it to rank well.
As a result, the page ranked in position #3 for “cosmetic surgery data”, and has attracted thousands of visitors since its inception. We keep it updated regularly and receive a number of great links, from publications we wouldn’t usually reach.
2)Using the same strategy to drive links to our own website
Back in Valentines 2020, we created a hub of seasonal trend data. We included data around valentines day keywords, compared different types of searches e.g. ‘gift for boyfriend’ vs. ‘gift for girlfriend’ and fun facts like the increase in searches for ‘bridget jones’ on valentines’ day.
The aim was to create a hub of information that users and journalists might be searching for, but for it to also be an article of genuine interest around the when and how of user search intent. The idea was that journalists might be keen to pick it up as a topical interest article – and even now, four years later, we still attract seasonal traffic to the page at the same time of year.
All that’s needed is to refresh the content each year and the page continues to bring in traffic and links, with very little maintenance required. This same concept can then be applied to other seasonal trends, for example we produced a similar hub in March looking at the most popular easter eggs.
Cedarwood Digital is an award-winning digital marketing agency based in Manchester. If you like the sound of a reverse digital PR strategy, why not get in touch with us to find out how we can help get you media coverage for your business. Fill in our quick form here.
I’m sure we can all agree that a solid media list is by far the most important part of any digital PR campaign. It’s the difference between the success or failure of your outreach, and will often take up the bulk of a PR’s time. If you’re new to digital PR, you may be wondering if you need a media list and how to build one that’ll work. This guide will answer all your questions and help you to create a valuable press list that gets the results you’re after – with tips that’ll be useful to PR pros too.
What’s a media list?
Let’s begin by taking it back to the basics – what even is a media list? It does what it says on the tin – an organised list of your media contacts, and additional info like their contact details and news outlet. This may include journalists, bloggers, influencers etc. and is normally collated into a big spreadsheet for easy reference.
Essentially, it’s a collection of relevant people that might be interested in covering your story. Media lists are usually created for each individual campaign you’re outreaching, and targeted for that specific industry / and or location. It’s key for efficient digital PR as it allows you to approach the right journalists, and get a wider media pickup.
Why is it so important?
You might have gathered by now that a good media list is the real foundation of your strategy. But why exactly is that, and how is a media list better than alternative techniques?
🔗A media list goes beyond just identifying journalists, it helps you research their interests, define your target audience, and cultivate lasting relationships with relevant contacts – all in one place.
🔗Previously, sending out blanket press releases to a huge list of contact was a popular method, but that technique could damage your reputation and alienate journalists who aren’t interested in your story. Building genuine relationships with the right media contacts through a well-crafted media list will see you get far better results.
🔗Buying pre-built media lists is tempting, but short-sighted. These generic lists will often contain outdated information or irrelevant contacts. Creating your own list from scratch will mean you find journalists who cover your exact niche, increasing your chances of coverage.
A step-by-step guide to creating a media list
1.
Begin by setting up a spreadsheet and adding your chosen focus areas. As a basic starting point, start with the journalist’s name, ‘email’, ‘publication’ and ‘primary niche as columns. Other useful columns could include: links to social media accounts, topics covered, writing style etc and you can build this to be more detailed the more you do
2.
You’ll want to find journalists who’ve covered similar topics to your story; start by searching the title of campaigns similar to what you’re working on in Google News and filter by ‘past year’. Then, take relevant journalists’ names and copy them into the sheet. Avoid publications that do their own research, like ‘YouGov’, and play around with the terminology of the search to find all relevant results.
The key is to be super honed in on relevancy here. If you are writing a story about backpacking for students, there’s no point targeting all journalists who write about backpacking – writers on backpacking for retired couples wouldn’t be interested for example.
💡An additional tip is to look for sites that like to reference Digital PR links and data.
3.
Next, find a similar story from your competitor and input them into a backlink checker. See which publications and journalists are linking to this story, and add these names to your list.
Wondering where to find competitor campaigns? Email newsletters are a good starting point to find successful, recent competitor campaigns. The PR Insider and The Grapevine are conveniently organised by category, making it nice and easy for you to locate stories in the same vein as the release you’re working on. It’s also worth looking at Twitter and LinkedIn because one thing PRs love is a humble brag about a campaign that’s done well.
4.
Once you’ve got a decent amount of names, go back and fill in the ‘name’ and ‘email’ column for each link. Journalists will sometimes have their email on their online author profile, or you can use a tool like Vuelio, or Prowly to find their details.
5.
Finally, download and export the file into an outreach tool like Buzzstream or CisionOne, and that’s good to go.
It’s important to remember that a media list is never really completed! The most effective lists are actively maintained and updated with new contacts, and updated contact information.
Guarantee media coverage for your business with Cedarwood Digital
We’re Cedarwood Digital, a digital PR agency based in Manchester, with a proven track record of delivering earned links for brands – even those in the trickiest verticals! We’re proud to say that we don’t buy a single link and you can see the coverage we’ve landed in our case studies here. If you’re looking for a hand with your digital PR strategy, go ahead and get in touch with us today, we’d love to hear from you.
Newsjacking has been a buzzword in the digital PR space for a while now and I often think of it as akin to E-E-A-T in the SEO space – it’s something that everyone knows about and if you get it right it can have a significant impact on your client’s results. Knowing where to start with newsjacking can be tricky especially if you’re doing it for the first time so let’s take a look at how we approach newsjacking and what we need to do to ensure that we get the best results for our clients and land those all-important placements.
So What Is Newsjacking?
Chances are you are probably already familiar with the term newsjacking as it’s a pretty common term that gets used in day-to-day language but for those who aren’t familiar, the concept of newsjacking involves jumping on a trend or something that is topical in the news and adding to the conversation that might be through adding an expert comment or sending over some data that’s relevant to the conversation and can add value to a piece that a journalist might be currently covering.
The reason newsjacking is such an effective digital PR technique is that combines two of the most important elements that go into a great story, that is relevancy for the journalist – you’re jumping on something that’s happening right now, and also adding value to the conversation through data or expert opinion, you’re adding real value to a story that journalists already writing and that’s a surefire way to get coverage for your client.
Newsjacking comes in two formats, that’s proactive and reactive depending on when in the story you add your comment or expertise, both can be really effective from a link acquisition perspective and if you’re prepared, then chances are that it can be quite a quick turnaround project. So let’s take a look at how we can approach newsjacking to ensure that we get the best results for our clients and land some great placements and coverage across the board.
Preparation
Preparation is absolutely key when it comes to newsjacking as you want to be able to jump on a trend as quickly as you possibly can. This means putting some time in to gather images that they might want to use, look at areas of expertise and understanding who the best person to be the spokesperson is, and also any additional resources that they have available which you might be able to use to supplement their comments.
Stockpiling all of this information beforehand can help to make your newsjacking experience a lot smoother – we recommend having a sit down with your client to run through the newsjacking process and gather this information before you start your outreach – this will help you to improve your turnaround times and make sure that you’re able to jump on that emerging story as quickly as you possibly can.
News Listening
One of the most important elements of an effective newsjacking campaign is understanding what is topical and trending, finding topics that journalists are likely to cover – this means looking at what’s trending in the news and finding something that’s relevant to your client that you can add value to.
There are a number of different ways that you can conduct news listening but we’ve included some of the most popular options to get you started:
X (Twitter)
X is a great place to start when you’re looking for new ideas and the trending hashtags are a great place to get your inspiration from. This can give you a good idea of topical issues that people are talking about, topics that are trending across the UK and also internationally, in addition to topics that people like to talk about and are maybe in the public interest.
X has a “trending” section where you can understand what people are talking about – this can also be broken into areas such as “News”, “Sports” and also for your local area. Additionally, if you are looking to research into a specific area, you can research specific hashtag data to understand how many people are talking about a specific topic.
X is a great way to get a feel for what people are talking about – and also what is topical in the news – so it’s worth keeping this open throughout your day. Additionally, using hashtags like #journorequest and #prrequest can help you keep on top of what journalists are looking for – another great way to get an idea of relevant topics you might want to cover.
2. TikTok
TikTok is another great way to find out what is topical and trending and you can trendjack really quickly with the user generated content – getting a great idea of topical stories that are in the public interest by also looking through engagement metrics.
If you have a TikTok Business account then you will also have access to some of great hashtag data and trends information that is available and you can find this across two main dashboards to help your news research – the first one is the general trending dashboard which goes through all of the trends from the last seven days:
You can also drill down into further detail around each of these specific hashtags to understand where they are trending and with which audiences (as well as their related interests which is great for helping you to build your media lists!). This information can give you great regional insights as well as tell you more about their age range and demographic information:
You can also just use TikTok generally to research data around a given topic by monitoring hashtag data and getting an idea of how people are approaching the topic / what they find of most interest. This is particularly valuable if you are looking to create content that targets Gen-Z who are usually avid TikTok users.
3. Google Alerts
Google Alerts provides a great way to stay on top of topics that are trending around your client and have them delivered straight to your inbox. By setting up notifications within Google Alerts it will email you every time there is news around a particular topic, your client name or something that is related to. This is a great way to stay on top of breaking issues that are topical to or related to the services or products that your clients sell.
It’s relatively easy to set Google Alerts up, but we would recommend setting them up in a subfolder of your email inbox to avoid being inundated with alerts as they are coming in throughout the day. Set these up separately and spend some time running through them to see if they are relevant for your client, over time you’ll become accustomed to the types of news that this is pulling out and you can adjust your filtering to make this more relevant as you need to. This is a great way to jump on something that is topically relevant for your client without having to sift through an entire news site to find the information.
4. Upcoming Reports
Upcoming reports can be a great way to get ideas for newsjacking particularly if it’s proactive. there are a wide range of industry bodies who published reports on a regular basis ranging from weekly through to daily, and jumping on these reports and putting your client into the centre of the conversation, is a great way to newsjack and really add that element of expertise and relevancy to the links you are building through to the website.
If you aren’t sure where to start with reports then try some popular industry bodies – places such as the NHS and the ONS are frequently reporting on a wide range of topics and you can easily find a way to link please through to your clients. In many situations these bodies will also have a calendar that you can access which showcases the types of reports that are coming up, this allows you to plan in advance so that you can support to ensure that you’re able to quickly jump on this trend once the report comes out.
Reports are really effective way to newsjack because they’re topical and they’re data-led – something which journalists love, so if you’re looking for ideas for your newsjacking then have a look at relevant industry bodies that are related to your client and the types of reports that they have coming up to see if there’s somewhere that you can add expert commentary and topical value.
5. Event Calendars
Event calendars are a great way to undertake proactive newsjacking and we often find that many publications publish their upcoming calendars for the year in advance,so this is a great way for us to prepare for upcoming events and to plan ahead some ideas for proactive newsjacking.
Keep up to date with your favourite publications and don’t be afraid to reach out to editors to ask them if they have a publication calendar in advance, this can help to give you an idea of the topics that they are looking to cover and the type of content that they might be more likely to include within their pieces.
As a result it is valuable to use this to guide your newsjacking because it already gives you an idea of what journalists think is relevant and what readers are likely to engage with, therefore making it more likely for your content to be picked up if it is relevant to this topic
6. Colleagues
Often in Digital PR we find ourselves the victims of trying to come up with all of the ideas ourselves and it’s hard for everyone to always be on top of what’s in the news and what is a trending topic – so why not use your colleagues? We set up a group chat where we encourage our colleagues to post something that they’ve read that is newsworthy or trending – that could have been something that they’ve read in the newspaper that morning or something they’ve seen on TikTok or read on X.
By encouraging our colleagues to contribute in this way we are getting a much bigger pool of information that we can use to take ideas from and chances are that many of us are reading different publications or fall into different TikTok algorithms, so this can be a great way to get a wide range of newsjacking options.
Research
Once you have undertaken your news listening it’s important to thoroughly research an idea before you start as you want to make sure that the idea hasn’t been done before and that someone else isn’t currently working on it. You also need to ensure that any information you are bringing to the table is offering a new opinion or something that hasn’t been published before, after all, that’s what journalists are looking for – a new angle on an existing story.
The research is important to ensure that you’re bringing something fresh to the story – so how do we go about undertaking research to understand topics and areas that journalists have covered before? Here are a couple of ideas for tools that can help you:
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a great way to get an understanding of topics that are covered recently or topics that are popular with the press. You can use this tool to understand the types of content that journalists have covered recently, which journalists have covered which types of content and also in what volume so you can really start to understand how many people are covering a particular topic and therefore a) has it been done before and b) is it likely to be picked up by a particular journalist.
One of the other important metrics that was talking give you if social shares and while this isn’t a direct impact on SEO performance, what it can help to show you is how engaged a particular article is and therefore potentially how many people are likely to read that article and how much it is in the public interest – this is a valuable analysis before you start investing your time into creating content around that topic.
Using tools like Buzzsumo allows you to understand how well your content is likely to land as well as to ensure that hasn’t been covered before and therefore that you’re not wasting your time.
Google News Search
Google News search is another great way to understand how content is landing and this can give you an idea again of topics that have been covered before, the types of journalists that are likely to cover your content and also any angles that you could potentially pursue that haven’t already been done.
We often use Google News to understand what is topically trending when we pitch to new digital PR clients – that helps to give us a overview of the market and understand what types of stories have been covered in recent times, but as a client you can also use this to understand if a topic has been done to death, even a bit or if there is opportunity to add a new angle into a pre-existing trending topic.
Use External Tools
In addition to Google alerts and external tools that you can also use to help with your research. One example of this is semrush and you can use this tool to understand topics which are trending and also at the types of search volumes around specific keywords or topics that you might be looking to cover.
You can also use tools like the Topic Research tool to understand popular trending topics and how they are evolving over time. This allows you to type in a particular keyword/topic and evaluate topics around this that are currently being covered/talked about – this is another great way to check that your topic hasn’t already been covered, or to help analyse a new angle or approach.
Research is key to ensure that you don’t waste your time undertaking a campaign which has already been done and that you are able to bring a fresh angle and approach to the story.
Ideation & Creation
The ideation and creation stage plays an important role in any newsjacking campaign and this is where you pull everything together. So you take the information you found within your research, you take anything that’s topical and trending and relevant to your client and you can bind it all together to create a great story, piece of data or angle that delivers great coverage for your client and also insightful information to a trending topic.
The ideation stage has a number of different parts to it and this includes:
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is when you put your heads together and come up with some great ideas as to how you can get your client coverage in a story. Brainstorming can take a number of different formats but it’s a great idea to get the whole team together. If the client has time this is also a great opportunity to get them involved so that they can lend their expertise and showcase this.
Try and come up with a number of different ideas and angles and run them past your client to see what they are comfortable with and which best showcases their expertise and their data. Once you have a couple of ideas, start to narrow them down until you’ve selected the options that you want to go for.
Identifying Your Angle
An idea is nothing without an angle that adds value to the article or the story – this is often more important than anything else, you need to bring something fresh to the article, so identifying your angle and making this clear early on is important to getting coverage.
Look at what has already been done and hone in on the value that your data or expertise can add – do you have something new to bring to the conversation? Do you have data that showcases an additional angle on a regional/international level? Identifying your angle plays a key role in ensuring that journalists feel that your content adds value to their article.
Tapping In On Expertise
Make sure to tap into the expertise of your clients if possible, this will of course give you a great angle when you’re approaching a story and will help you to identify how you can add value very quickly.
Feel free to sit down with your clients to really understand the areas of expertise or to conduct an interview with the spokesperson to understand the types of angles that you could look for, tapping in on the expertise will really help you to showcase this through the content that you’re creating and also to add real value to the article.
Creating The Right Content
Creating the right type of contact is also really important whether this comes in quote format, whether it’s a piece of data or whether it’s simply a couple of lines having a new angle to an existing story.
Having a look at the types of content that journalists are covering and the format this is in will help you to identify how to best approach the content that you want to create, to ensure it’s the right type of content that the journalist would like to cover. Having the right content and the right angle will help to get your content placed and is an important part of the newsjacking process.
Creating The Right Format
Creating the right format for your content is also very important, this means how you display the content and the type of content that you’re sending to journalists.Make sure to include any assets that will help support the story this could be high resolution images or associated data tables and always remember to clearly state your methodology for any data analysis pieces that you’re doing this is important to ensure that the journalist is comfortable to cover your content and also that you explain where you’ve got the data from and at what time.
Outreach
Once you have the idea and you’ve pulled it together into a press release with the supporting information now comes one of the most important parts – the outreach. Using the right tagline, contacting the right journalists and creating a killer press release are all important parts of this process and to ensure that you get your coverage landed we’d recommend the following steps:
Research Your Journalists
Researching your journalists is super important to ensuring that you are sending your content to people who are likely to cover it and who have a genuine reason to cover it/interest in the topic. There’s a number of different ways that you can research journalists and these include:
Using tools like Buzzsumo to understand which journalists are covering similar content or similar topical areas
Researching on X – most journalists announce moves on X, make a note of these and start to follow these journalists – they will often do a shoutout if they are looking for a specific type of content to cover
Manual research through Google News – looking through Google News and other web indexes to understand journalists who have covered the topic recently and any articles where you could reach out and add a new angle
Look at specific topic journalists i.e. journalists who cover soaps, finance, travel etc… add these to your list for the topical coverage
By researching journalists in advance you are more likely to build a list of journalists who are more engaged with your content, therefore leading to better overall results and avoiding sending unrelated content to journalists who may find this annoying.
Build An Effective Media List
An effective media list plays a key role in ensuring that you’re giving your content the best chance of getting covered, so taking time to build your media list is time well spent. When pulling the list together, call on your journalist research to understand which journalists you want to include on your list, you can then follow this up by using a journalist database tool (we use Vuelio) to source relevant emails and start to build out your list. Remember that relevancy here is key so you need just enough journalists to ensure you get a good reach, while at the same time you don’t want to flood journalists who aren’t interested in your content.
Monitor Opens & Trends
Data plays an important role in an effective newsjacking campaign so make sure that you monitor your opens and trends to understand how journalists are engaging with your content. Using tools which allow you to track open rate will help you to understand how journalists are engaging with your content, over time this will help you to understand which journalists engage with which type of content and will naturally make your content more effective – using data in this way can help you to streamline your outreach is very effective.
Follow Up
It’s important to follow up your content and press releases – don’t just do one push, always follow up with a couple of different pushes at different times. It might be that you caught a journalist when they were particularly busy, or that they already have a full news roster for the day, by doing follow ups you can ensure that you’re continuing to push your story out and you may find that in many instances it lands on the second or third push.
It’s also valuable to follow up when something particularly relevant has landed in the press – send your press release along with some updated comments or information on something which is trending topically, this can be a great way to get it included in a news round up or timely news story.
Rework Content Where Needed
Don’t be afraid to rework your content where you need to. You might find that you actually need it in a different format, that it’s a little outdated or that you need to use a new angle. You always have the opportunity to update your content, so don’t be afraid to launch it at different times of the year with new, up to date information, or a slightly more relevant/different angle – reworking content can often be a great way to land content which perhaps didn’t place the first time round.
Review
Once we’ve completed the outreach process, it doesn’t end there and the review stage is perhaps one of the most important stages – this is where we analyse what went well, what type of content was covered and how we could leverage this for future campaigns. Key areas that we review and look into include:
Open Rate
Open rate plays a key role in our reviews as it gives us a great idea of how journalists have engaged with our content – who has engaged with it and at what rate. Over time this becomes a very valuable metric and one that we can use to understand which journalists are likely to engage with which content, to better inform our outreach process
Publications Covered
Reviewing which publications have covered our content also plays an important role in informing our outreach strategy moving forwards. It’s important to review who has covered what type of content and when, which journalist has covered the content and how it has been covered – these are all vital pieces of data to understand how we can best tailor our newsjacking efforts to the right publications.
Journalist Feedback
This is also a good time to review any feedback that you’ve received from journalists, this could include journalists asking you to remove them from your mailing list, or alternatively journalists who have fed back on what they liked about an article, or what could have been improved/what they needed to support the article. All of this information is super valuable and should be noted to improve the outreach process moving forwards.
Conclusion
Newsjacking isn’t just a buzzword, it’s an important facet of any effective Digital PR campaign and it’s a great way to get your clients at the forefront of the conversation, quickly. To find out more about how newsjacking works, check out our Digital PR services or case studies.
Having attended Brighton SEO for over a decade now, I can safely say that it’s one of the best, if not the best SEO conference in the world, so I was absolutely delighted when asked to speak on the main stage this year covering the topic “SEO For YMYL Websites”
For those of you that don’t know what YMYL is, it stands for “Your Money Your Life” and it’s a term that was coined by Google to cover websites that can have an impact on someone’s money or life. At Cedarwood, we specialise in working with companies like this and with years of experience building links in particularly tricky industries i.e. gaming, vaping, medical, legal so it was great to be able to share some knowledge about this with the community.
So what were some of the key takeaways from the talk?
User intent is key – matching user intent plays a huge role in the YMYL space and it’s really important that we are keeping this in mind. This ties in really well with the idea of creating a “satisfying amount of content” – that is the right amount of content for a user, not a certain number of words, to answer the questions/queries they might have and allow them to make an informed decision
Reputation is important – in particular your external reputation. Google yourself – see what people are saying about you and make sure that you work to build your reputation with effective Digital PR – this will go a long way to helping what people have to say about you and also what Google are seeing being said about you
Showcase your trust signals – whether it’s through industry accreditations or simply by telling people why they should trust you, showcasing this on your website and on external websites plays an important role on building those all important E-E-A-T signals
And on the topic of E-E-A-T, making sure that it shines through in everything that you do. Google have openly stated that for YMYL websites they place a heavier weight on E-E-A-T signals so it’s important that those are showcased at every opportunity
Finally, making sure that the look and feel of your content matches the expertise of it – there’s no point having great content only for it to look “amateurish” – take time to consider the way content is displayed and that it matches the expertise you are showcasing.
I had a great time in Brighton, got to meet some fantastic people and hear from some thought leaders across the industry.
As a small or start up-business, gaining media attention is important for growth and gives your SEO a significant boost. But, it can often feel like a daunting, nay impossible task. Where do you even begin? And do you need a big budget to make a difference?
At Cedarwood Digital, we work with clients of all shapes and sizes, with a variety of budgets. So, we know first-hand that you can make an impact, regardless of size or budget.
We’ve rounded up our top tips and broken down the process of landing coverage for your business, so you can start a media storm.
1. Understand what journalists want to see
When creating a press release, keep in mind that journalists receive countless similar emails each day. Focus on providing something valuable that they can’t get elsewhere! Create fresh content that either supports established ideas with research or challenges them with new data. Surveys that provide journalists with interesting and topical statistics are a great way to get your business featured in the press. Whilst there are companies that will run surveys for you, these can be costly, so SMEs can benefit from using their own customer databases to conduct surveys and research.
Images are also crucial for a strong press release, as we live in an increasingly visual world. Including a few good images to support your press release saves journalists time and could be the difference between your story getting picked up and falling flat.
2. Know your target audience
Craft a unique angle that makes your story resonate with the publications you’re looking to target. Try not to generalise content and send it across all genres of media – this will be obvious to the journalist and appear lazy. It’s best to brainstorm and research topical news, upcoming events and media trends relevant to your brand to ensure your content hits the right mark. Don’t neglect regional press, as a local angle can also be a great hook. Though regional publications may have a smaller audience than nationals, they offer the chance to showcase news on a local scale and can be easier to land features in than the bigger publications. If you’re offering research and statistics that cover the whole of the UK, try breaking your research down into key city demographics so that it is more relevant to regional publications.
3. Build a comprehensive media list
Whilst you may already be familiar with some key publications you would like to target, it’s useful to go beyond the obvious and expand your horizons to more niche publications as well. It’s a good idea to think about your ideal customer, and then pinpoint the media outlets they would be using for their news. There are numerous online tools to help you build out a thorough media list – with everything from trade journals to nationals. Tools like Roxhill Media, Muckrack, and Cision offer subscriptions, allowing you access to media databases. Or for those with smaller budgets, websites like Hunter.io allow a limited number of free searches for journalist contacts. Both X (Twitter) and LinkedIn can also be good places to start building connections. Monitor #journorequest and #prrequest on X (Twitter) to find relevant feature opportunities and connect with journalists on LinkedIn.
We recommend keeping your media list nice and organised. Categorise the publications by type, size, and geographic reach to make your life easier when you get to the outreach stage.
4. Research the targeted journalist
Once you’ve built your media list, double check that the journalist specialises in your topic. Ensure you’ve got accurate contact details noted as first impressions count and you don’t want to come across as unprofessional!
Make sure to stay on top of deadlines and publication dates to ensure timely outreach and avoid interrupting journalists when they’re working against the clock. There’s no problem in getting in touch to ask if a certain topic is of interest, but don’t harass them. If you’ve followed up twice via email and have still not had a response, then unfortunately the journalist may just not be interested in your pitch.
5. Design your press release to make an impression
Structure press releases in a way that makes them easily digestible to busy journalists. Generally, try to stick to the following rules:
➡️Use a snappy and attention-grabbing headline; assume the journalist is in a rush and reading it on their phone, it needs to grab them!
➡️It can be useful to think about your press release as an inverted pyramid. Immediately summarise the gist of the content in the first paragraph, making sure to answer the 5 Ws (who, what, where, when, why). Then, bring in your additional context below with the information becoming less vital as you move down the page.
➡️Avoid technical terms which aren’t accessible.
➡️Support your story with evidence or data where possible. In particular, including a shocking statistic in the headline is a good technique to get your release noticed and show journalists that it’s news.
➡️Include your contact information at the end of the press release, and make sure to be available for follow up calls.
➡️A ‘Notes to the Editor’ section at the bottom of the release is always useful. This is where you can include relevant background information that does not feature in your press release, such as an overview of your business’ services, how you conducted your research or a brief history of your business.
➡️Then you’re ready to press send!
6. Add supporting information & special extras to the press release
To give your press release a bit more zest, it’s worth considering what extra support you could provide to each journalist. Publications often want to get unique angles on stories to avoid duplicated articles, so think about offering a case study, interview or photograph to sweeten the deal.
If you have a larger publication in mind that you are eager to work with, then you could offer them the exclusive on the story first; being featured in one large publication with a significant audience could be more worthwhile than coverage in multiple smaller publications.
7. Build relationships with journalists
To establish long-term media relationships, provide journalists with a steady stream of good content, stick to deadlines, and be readily available for interviews and commentary. This way, you’ll create a great reputation for yourself as a useful contact and build a lasting relationship with the press.
Land media coverage with the help of professionals
With these tips under your belt, you should now be in the best position to get out there and secure coverage for your business. Need a hand getting started? Our digital PR team here at Cedarwood Digital have a proven track record. We deliver campaigns that land you 100% earned links and coverage from top publications because we know what the journalists want to see, and how to execute it.
We’ve achieved excellent results for both SMEs and large international clients alike. Get in touch today to get your brand in front of its target audience.
In the ever-competitive online landscape, prioritising digital PR within your SEO strategy will ensure you don’t fall behind. The benefits go much deeper than just backlinks. Using digital PR to support your SEO efforts will increase your brand awareness and visibility, drive referral traffic, boost E-E-A-T signals, and ultimately increase revenue – the stuff that matters!
Before getting into the value of digital PR, we’ll remind you of the four key pillars of a successful SEO strategy:
On-page SEO: This focuses on optimising your website’s content and HTML code to be search engine friendly.
Technical SEO: Ensures your website is structured in a way that search engines can easily crawl and index your content.
Content: Creating useful and relevant answers to the questions your target audience is searching for.
Off-page SEO: This is where digital PR comes in – building your website’s authority through backlinks and other external signals.
While the simplest way of measuring digital PR activity is by the number of pieces of coverage and backlinks you achieve, the potential SEO benefits go much further:
The benefits of digital PR for SEO
Bring in better quality links than old-school link building methods
Unlike outdated link building methods that might focus on quantity over quality, digital PR excels at acquiring high-authority, relevant backlinks. Backlinks act like votes of confidence for search engines. The bigger and more established the brand or website linking to you, the stronger the positive impact on your website’s ranking in the SERPs. Digital PR secures these valuable links naturally by forging relationships with journalists and creating genuinely insightful content that they want to share! This focus on link-earning (rather than buying) ensures you get the most relevant and authoritative links that Google values the most.
Improve DR/DA/TF
Securing high-quality links through digital PR in turn improves your website’s Domain Ranking (or similar metrics like Domain Authority or Trust Flow).
As an example, we increased our loan agency client’s DR from 38 to 48 through landing links in high tier publications. Recognising the media’s appetite for money-saving hacks, a topic directly relevant to our client, we identified “insta-mums” keen to share tips on extending the lifespan of school uniforms. This angle resonated with journalists, earning linked coverage in key dailies like The Sun and The Echo. Given the high authority these publications hold in Google’s eyes, these votes of confidence significantly boosted our client’s ranking.
Increase brand awareness and online visibility
By securing placements in relevant publications and online outlets, you’re putting your brand in front of a targeted audience who actively engages with those sources. This exposure fuels brand awareness, resulting in your target market gaining familiarity with your name and services. Every piece of brand name anchor text, and every mention in the news and on social media, acts as a brand signal – reinforcing brand identity and playing a part in Google’s measurement of ‘brand authority’.
Boost E-E-A-T signals
Most SEOs and PRs will know all about this acronym and its importance, but if E-E-A-T is new to you – it’s a concept that’s included in Google’s Quality Raters Guidelines. These guidelines are essentially a roadmap for the human raters who evaluate the quality and relevance of search results and for websites aiming for top positions, building strong E-E-A-T signals is crucial.
Digital PR secures placements in reputable news outlets, showcasing your expertise on relevant topics and demonstrating the trust these publications have placed in your brands. This is especially the case when the campaigns utilise expert commentary. Coverage of your business’ experts lends credibility and directly contributes to your E-E-A-T signals. They’re particularly important for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) industries – pages that cover topics with the potential to impact a user’s happiness, health, financial stability or safety.
At Cedarwood, we specialise in helping YMYL businesses to boost their E-E-A-T and consequential site traffic, through digital PR efforts. For instance, we used thought leadership initiatives to improve the SEO of a medical negligence client. Since they fall squarely within the YMYL category, we collaborated with their in-house experts to share informative expertise around medical symptoms and amplify their expertise and authority signals in the process. We outreached these comments in line with specific awareness days and the approach proved a huge success – generating over 100 pieces of linked coverage pointing back to the client’s website!
Generate referral traffic
Digital PR generates a wave of targeted referral traffic by securing links in media outlets frequented by your ideal audience. It attracts the right kind of traffic: consumers already interested in your industry. These clicks not only translate to new website visitors, but can also nurture existing leads further down the line. The more high-quality links you build in relevant publications, and the higher you rank in search results, the greater your visibility becomes – attracting a steady stream of potential customers.
Boost leads, sales & revenue through growing traffic and improving visibility
So, why does this all matter? Well digital PR isn’t just about links and website traffic; what’s most important is the sales and revenue growth this drives. Digital PR increases your prominence in search results. This then increases the opportunities you have to capture qualified leads and convert them into paying customers.
Think about it this way, you’ll be outreaching your PR to only the most relevant publications, read by your ideal customer. This targeted traffic is far more likely to convert than a generic website visitor who stumbles across one of your pages. Plus, these customers are that little bit more likely to press ‘buy’ because they’ve seen your brand in a respected publication, featured alongside other trust-worthy sources. That additional trust is so important to give users the confidence to purchase.
Improve your SEO results with Cedarwood Digital
At Cedarwood Digital, we’re experts in crafting targeted digital PR campaigns that generate high-quality backlinks, establish your brand as a thought leader, and ultimately help you reach your SEO goals. We understand the intricate connection between digital PR and SEO, and use this to drive traffic, and boost your business’ conversions.
Reactive digital PR, or newsjacking, can be a simple, effective and low budget way to generate high quality coverage and backlinks for your brand. Done correctly, it can help boost your SEO performance, as well as impacting brand awareness and allowing you to ‘own’ your chosen space within the media.
It’s all about capitalising on trending topics and news cycles to land valuable backlinks and media coverage. Unlike the larger, meticulously planned “hero” PR campaigns, reactive PR allows you to create quick, impactful content that resonates with journalists and your target audience. While long-term strategic PR remains crucial, incorporating reactive campaigns helps you secure consistent coverage throughout the year, keeping your brand relevant by ensuring you’re always a part of the conversation.
This post will explain what reactive digital PR is and the benefits it offers, as well as helpful tips on how to successfully introduce it to your marketing strategy. We’ll also look at proactive digital PR, how it differs, and what it can offer for your strategy.
What is Reactive Digital PR:
Put simply, reactive digital pr involves reacting to current events with either expert comments or useful data. With reactive, you’re keeping a close eye on news, waiting for the moment where a story relevant to your brand’s niche breaks. It relies on identifying the perfect moments to interject with valuable commentary. The key lies in expertise: if your client has unique data or in-house specialists, their insights can be valuable contributions to the conversation sparked by the news story.
Reactive PR plays a crucial role in steadily building your online presence over time and bridging the gaps between larger, planned campaigns.
Let’s illustrate this with a real-world scenario. We recently executed a successful reactive campaign for our client specialising in medical negligence. When news emerged about Chas Dingle’s breast cancer diagnosis in Emmerdale, we saw a chance to raise awareness about the importance of early detection. We promptly secured expert commentary from one of our client’s internal healthcare professionals on the topic of recognisable symptoms. This resulted in valuable coverage from various publications, positioning our client as a trusted source of information.
What about Proactive Digital PR:
While very similar, the key difference between reactive and proactive digital PR is in the name. Reactive digital PR is unplanned, reacting to the latest news, while proactive digital PR can be planned in advance. Admittedly, predicting the exact news cycle is impossible – however, we can anticipate potential areas of interest. An effective strategy is to analyse the previous year’s news headlines to identify recurring themes and events.
This would usually be based around key dates coming up in the calendar, for example:
Holidays: Easter, Valentine’s, Christmas etc.
Seasonality: Daylight savings, extreme weather, spring/summer etc.
Financial: Government budget, inflation rates, tax returns etc.
Pop Culture: Awards season, TV & movie release dates etc.
Sport: Olympics, World Cup, Superbowl, Premier League season etc.
That being said, jumping on every fleeting trend isn’t the answer. The key is to strategically select opportunities that align with your brand and resonate with their target audience.
What are the benefits of Reactive Digital PR:
Reactive digital PR offers unique advantages and should certainly be a significant part of your overall strategy. Here’s why:
Low-cost
Reactive digital PR leverages existing news stories, minimising the need to put substantial resources towards your own data collection or content creation. This makes it much more cost-effective than some other approaches to digital PR.
Quick turnaround
The beauty of reactive digital PR is that, by capitalising on current events, you can secure links in a quick time frame. Due to the time-sensitive nature of newsjacking, you can receive media placements more immediately than in a longer-term campaign where results often require patience.
Boost SEO performance
Links earned through reactive PR placements in high-authority publications send strong signals to search engines about your website’s experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). This can significantly boost your website’s ranking in search results, leading to increased organic traffic and brand visibility.
Amplified brand awareness
Reactive digital PR ensures your brand is consistently appearing in the media. This exposure significantly increases brand awareness and recognition, keeping your company at the forefront of your target audience’s mind.
Builds your reputation as experts
When you frequently provide valuable commentary or data tied to trending news stories, you establish your brand as a trusted authority within your niche. Journalists take notice, and this can lead to a snowball effect. They’re more likely to reach out directly in the future for your expert opinions for upcoming stories, further solidifying your reputation as a thought-leader in your field.
How to spot opportunities for Reactive Digital PR
Wondering how to spot those golden opportunities for reactive digital PR? Here are our secrets:
Monitor the news
Develop a habit of consuming news content regularly, both within your specific industry and across broader topics. Subscribe to industry-specific publications and follow relevant journalists on social media. The more content you consume, the more chance you have of spotting opportunities
Set up alerts
Use tools like Google Alerts and Talkwalker Alerts to stay on top of keywords and topics relevant to your brand. You’ll receive real-time notifications whenever these keywords appear online, allowing you to react quickly to breaking news and trending stories.
Sign up to journo request services
Platforms like ResponseSource & HARO connect journalists with PRs; by actively monitoring these platforms, you can identify opportunities to provide insightful commentary and secure media placements.
Keep an eye on relevant hashtags
Twitter is a goldmine for journalists seeking expert opinions. Monitor hashtags like #journorequest and you’ll be able to seize prime opportunities for reactive PR.
Our top tips:
We’ll finish by doing you a favour and giving you our ultimate top tips for a successful reactive PR campaign.
Remember, speed is key
Competition is fiercer than ever and journalists’ inboxes overflow with pitches on the same trending topics. Ensure you have a streamlined sign-off process in place which allows you to respond as quickly as possible to opportunities; if you take too long someone will beat you to it, or the story will become old and irrelevant.
Make use of internal spokespeople
Your expertise is your biggest strength and the key to a winning story may be right under your nose! If possible, build a bank of usable quotes in advance for speedy responses. Secure commentary from key spokespeople on a variety of topics commonly covered in the news. Then, when a reactive opportunity strikes, you can quickly tailor these existing quotes to fit the specific story, saving valuable time.
Utilise existing content where possible
Mine your blog and other on-site resources for material that could be repurposed for reactive PR opportunities. Even just slightly revamping existing content can significantly improve its chances. Reactive campaigns offer a chance to revisit and potentially breathe new life into past content and this has the plus of saving you time and effort down the line.
Build detailed data hubs on your site
Data hubs can house industry reports and stats relevant to your niche – becoming your go-to resource for reactive stories. These hubs, when optimised with relevant keywords, also have the potential to rank organically in search results. This will attract qualified traffic to your website, further establishing you as a thought leader.
Pick your battles
You want to make sure that the stories you’re reacting to are relevant for your brand. Don’t try to shoehorn your way into every story you see – you need to make sure you’re actually adding value to the story. It’s also a good idea to discuss brand-sensitive topics with your client beforehand to avoid potential missteps.
It’s not for everyone
Reactive PR needs speed. If you lack the internal resources to quickly generate responses and secure approvals, or aren’t willing to have an opinion on trending topics, this might not be the strategy for you.
A winning digital PR Strategy from Cedarwood Digital
At Cedarwood Digital, we’ve got years of experience utilising reactive digital PR strategies to get our clients in front of their audience. We have access to advanced tools, allowing us to identify upcoming trends and put a brand at the centre of the conversation.
If you’d like to find out more about how our digital PR team can drive coverage for your business, please get in touch today.
Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Creating Low Cost High Return Digital PR campaigns – but in order to do that, knowing where to go for free data is a huge bonus!
Below we’ve compiled a quick list of 70 great (free) data sources that you can use for your Digital PR campaigns, so if you are looking for inspiration for your next piece of data analysis, look no further!
Government Agencies:
Office for National Statistics (ONS): Extensive economic, social, and demographic data. (https://www.ons.gov.uk/)
Confederation of British Industry (CBI): Business surveys and economic forecasts. (https://www.cbi.org.uk/)
Institute of Directors (IoD): Data on director attitudes and business decision-making. (https://www.iod.com/)
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM): Data on marketing trends, consumer behavior, and advertising effectiveness. (https://www.cim.org/)
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW): Data on financial reporting, accounting practices, and business confidence. (https://www.icaew.com/)
Law Society of England and Wales: Data on legal trends, access to justice, and the legal profession. (https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/)
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS): Data on property prices, housing market trends, and construction activity. (https://www.rics.org/)
The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT): Data on logistics, transport, and supply chain management. (https://www.ciltuk.org.uk/)
Retail & Consumer Insights:
British Retail Consortium (BRC): Retail sales data and insights into consumer spending trends. (https://www.brc.org.uk/)
Office for National Statistics – Retail Sales:
IMRG Capgemini Online Retail Index: Data on online retail sales and e-commerce trends.
Stuck in a digital PR rut? Struggling to brainstorm fresh ideas that will resonate with your audience? There’s no denying that the brainstorm is one of the most important parts of any digital PR campaign. After all, great brainstorms produce great ideas which generate great results. But what makes a great brainstorm?
This blog will provide practical tips to fuel your next brainstorming session and generate effective campaign ideas. We’ll explain exactly what to do before, during and after a brainstorm to make it as productive as possible.
Before Your Brainstorm
Research, research, research
The more research you do prior to the brainstorm, the better your chance of success (as the saying goes – if you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail). Research your brand, as well as the wider market you’re part of. Your ideas, and eventual campaign, will need to deeply resonate with your brand’s messaging and the values of your audience.
Explore the media landscape – what publications are you hoping to feature in and what sort of content do they publish? Analyse their audience demographics and dive deep into understanding their content to ensure your campaign and outreach is tailored effectively.
Research your competition and assess the sort of content they’re producing. Keep tabs on digital PR Twitter, LinkedIn and industry blogs and newsletters to see what is working well. Competitor research can be used to spark original ideas – look for recurring themes and identify insights to inform your own strategy.
It’s also important to carry out a review of all the sources already available on your topic; your campaign needs to be adding value to the data and expertise already out there. Examine the existing data and studies published on the subject, and perhaps research experts on the topic that you may be looking to work with. Scout out how people have been tackling this topic and identify opportunities to explore new territory beyond what others may have already covered.
Choose your participants wisely
Don’t overlook the brains behind the operation! Choosing the right people for the job is key to success and we’d recommend thinking outside the box. Don’t just limit yourself to the digital PR team, consider bringing in people from other parts of your business, as they might be able to provide new insights into the brand, or provide a fresh perspective.
A member of the SEO department may be able to provide useful intel on search trends relating to your campaign topic. Equally, your PPC team could be harbouring demographic knowledge that could help refine your PR strategy to reach the target audience.
Provide a detailed brief
It’s a good idea to share a brief with the participants before a brainstorm. This will ensure that everyone in the session will be able to sufficiently prepare, or at least begin to start getting some ideas flowing. Send your brief a week before the brainstorm to allow everyone to fully absorb the details and come prepared.
What should you look to include in a briefing document? Here’s our checklist:
☑️Outline the brand
☑️Include details on the target audience & publications
☑️Highlights from your research
☑️Guidance on what you’re hoping to achieve with this campaign (point out key products or focus areas)
☑️Specific areas you can/can’t discuss
☑️A couple of points of inspiration (campaigns and topics that are working in this space)
☑️Perhaps some preliminary ideas to get the ball rolling
During Your Brainstorm
Icebreakers
Before jumping straight into the ideation, we recommend leading a couple of icebreakers to loosen people up and get them feeling creative. Don’t overlook how nerve racking it can be to share ideas in a group of people, especially for newer team members. Creative warm-ups can help everyone relax and let their guard down to make sure you have the most effective session.
Another tip is to use AI to help you with these icebreakers. Include details in the prompt on how long you’d like to spend on the warm-ups and core topics you’ll be covering in the brainstorm. You’ll receive a list of fun icebreaker ideas tailored around the subject of your brainstorm to help generate a relaxed and creative space at the start of your meeting.
A couple of our go-to icebreakers are:
Alternative Uses: Give each member of your brainstorm a different item and challenge them to come up with as many alternative uses for that item as possible within 3 minutes e.g. a charging cable could become a bracelet, a measuring tool, a cat toy or even an organiser to other cables!
Two Handed Drawing: Give each member of your brainstorm 2 pieces of paper and 2 pens or pencils. Then ask them all to either write a certain word, or draw a certain image. The challenge is that they have to do the same thing with both hands, at the same time! The idea behind this warm-up is to engage both the left and right sides of your brain.
Share sources of inspiration
Ask your team to bring along some examples of relevant, successful campaigns they particularly like. Ahrefs’ content explorer tool is great for diving into topics and reviewing the pieces that have gained the most links. You can also use Buzzsumo to track content across social channels; enter a topic to discover the content people have been talking about the most. The reality is that some of the most effective campaigns stem from ideas found elsewhere and repurposed.
Competitors can also provide great inspiration. No one likes a copycat but keeping an eye on the content competitors have had success with is a good idea. Ahrefs again comes in really handy here. After you’ve entered a domain into the Site Explorer tool, you can sort by ‘Best by links’, which shows you the resources and content the website has published which has gained it most of its backlinks. Examine each of these, reviewing the sources that linked to these pages and the specific aspects they highlighted about the content.
Log everything!
There are no bad ideas (at this point) – make a list of everything that is discussed and don’t discount anything at this stage. Have someone note everything down on a whiteboard. Or, if the brainstorm is held remotely, you can use shared worksheets like Excel or Google Sheets to ensure nothing is lost.
After Your Brainstorm
Now is the time to go through everything and pick out the best ideas. To give our campaigns the best chance of success, there is a rigorous process we put all of our ideas through, asking the following questions:
Simplicity: Journalists need to ‘get’ the story quickly and easily. Can you explain it in a couple of sentences?
Newsworthiness: Why should a journalist write about this now? Are people already talking about this, or a similar topic?
Emotive: What emotions would this story make a journalist and their readers feel? Stories which elicit an emotional response are more likely to get clicked, read and shared.
Timing: Does this idea all revolve around one date, or will it have a more evergreen appeal? How will the timing impact our production and sign-off processes?
Broad appeal: Will this idea provide us with a variety of different angles for outreach, allowing us to target journalists in multiple different press verticals?
Originality: Has this story been told before? If so, do we have something new to add to the conversation?
Data: What data does this story need to make it a success? Where will we get it from? Is the source credible?
Relevance: What is the link between this story and the brand? Does it make sense for them to be talking about this topic?
Execution: Where will the content sit, and what does it need to bring it to life?
Budget: It’s important to make sure that the campaign idea you’re deciding on is within your ball-park. You’ll need to consider what methodology you’re going to need.. Are you going to need tools or equipment to develop your campaign? Do you need a survey platform as part of your research?
If you’ve landed on a promising idea, remind yourself of the original brief and goals and double check that it will deliver the required KPIs. At this stage it can also be useful to seek additional perspectives from experts in the wider team. They may be able to provide some data or an extra angle to turn a good idea into a great idea.
Land Links And Coverage With Cedarwood Digital
At Cedarwood, our team of PRs has decades of experience under their belts; they know exactly how to take an idea from conception to tangible results for your business.
You can take a look at our success stories here or, better still, contact us today to find out how we can help you spark high-impact ideas.
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