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SEO for Financial Services: How to Win Trust and Traffic in 2025

9th July 2025

by Amanda Walls Digital PR & Outreach tips Link Building SEO

Introduction

Search engines are now a dominant force in the decision-making process for financial consumers. Whether it’s a consumer choosing a mortgage broker, a retiree researching pension options, or a startup searching for a business loan, nearly all journeys begin with a Google search. According to Google’s own data, over 70% of consumers use search during their decision-making journey in the financial sector.

But for financial services brands, ranking highly isn’t just about technical optimization or keyword stuffing. You’re operating in a “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) space, one of Google’s most scrutinized verticals and that means your SEO efforts must do more than attract clicks, they need to inspire trust, meet compliance standards, and deliver genuinely helpful content.

This comprehensive guide explores how to build a compliant, high-performing SEO strategy tailored for the financial services sector in 2025.

Why SEO Matters in Financial Services

Let’s be clear: SEO is not a “nice to have” in this sector – given the strong YMYL guidance across finance, adhering to guidelines and following these processes plays an important role in ensuring visibility for your brand while also meeting regulatory compliance.

1. Search Is the First Step for Most Customers

Whether it’s “best life insurance UK” or “can I get a mortgage as a contractor,” the first action people take is searching online. If your brand isn’t visible at that moment, you’ve lost the sale often before you knew the prospect existed.

2. Organic Leads Have High ROI

While paid search can deliver leads quickly, SEO compounds over time and delivers leads at a lower cost per acquisition (CPA). In industries like wealth management or insurance, where the customer lifetime value is high, organic leads can be the most profitable over time.

Additionally, paid search traffic in these sectors can often have an incredibly high cost per click, so being able to attract leads organically plays a key role in being able to keep costs down and within control compared to spiralling PPC costs.

3. Trust Is Earned Through Visibility

Ranking high in Google suggests credibility. In a space where trust is everything, consistent organic visibility reinforces that your brand is authoritative, secure, and worth engaging with.

4. Google Prioritises Accuracy in Finance

Because misinformation can have serious consequences in this industry, Google’s algorithms and human quality raters apply stricter standards to financial content. Your SEO efforts must account for these guidelines, or risk invisibility.

Challenges of SEO in Financial Services

The financial industry brings some unique hurdles that marketers in fashion or e-commerce simply don’t face.

A. E-E-A-T Requirements

Google’s emphasis on Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust (E-E-A-T) hits hardest in sectors like finance. If your content lacks expert attribution, verified information, or real-world credibility, it will struggle to rank no matter how well optimized it is. This is often due to the fact that E-E-A-T isn’t just an acronym in these sectors, it’s a way for Google to see that your website is offering genuine value to a user and not putting them in any potential danger.

B. Compliance and Legal Oversight

Financial services content must comply with regulations from bodies like the FCA (in the UK), the SEC (in the US), or other international watchdogs. This creates friction when publishing blog posts, on-page copy, or campaign landing pages. Legal reviews can delay content for weeks, or require fundamental rewrites so it’s important to have a clear understanding of how compliance ties into SEO to make this process as smooth as possible.

C. Longer Content Production Cycles

Because of compliance and internal sign-off requirements, financial brands often have slower, more complex editorial workflows. This makes agility (such as responding to search trends or news) harder which can hinder link-building and content freshness. Experienced SEO agencies in this sector will know what works best from a links perspective and be able to apply this approach to support your business.

D. Difficult Link Building Environment

Google considers backlinks as a signal of authority, but in finance, acquiring these links ethically can be difficult. Many sites are reluctant to link to financial services due to regulatory fears, or they demand high editorial standards, alternately even just getting content in for reactive newsjacking can have a long sign-off process meaning that you can miss the hook. Effective link building in this sector can be a game changer when it comes to performance due to the trickier nature of it.

Core SEO Strategies That Work for Financial Services

Despite the challenges, many financial brands are winning in organic search by focusing on the right strategies.

1. Building E-E-A-T Into Every Page

To rank well in YMYL categories, your website and content must scream trust and authority.

Ways to Strengthen E-E-A-T:

Showcase Authors and Credentials: Every blog post or guide should be written or reviewed by someone with clear financial expertise and their credentials should be visible.
Third-Party Validation: Include awards, media mentions, and Trustpilot reviews to support your credibility.
Secure and Transparent Website: Use HTTPS, display your regulatory information (e.g. FCA license number), and include a clear privacy policy and terms.
Create a Transparent “About Us” Page: This should explain your company’s mission, leadership team, and experience.

Real-World Example:

NerdWallet includes certified financial experts on all of their content and states when it was last reviewed. This type of content hygiene helps Google trust their information and it’s why they rank well for thousands of high-intent financial terms.

2. Keyword Strategy Based on Intent, Not Just Volume

Most financial brands fall into the trap of chasing broad, competitive keywords like “life insurance” or “pension advice.”

Instead, focus on user intent — and break it into three stages:

Awareness Stage:

“What is income protection insurance?”
“How does compound interest work?”

Consideration Stage:

“Best savings accounts for under 30s”
“Credit card vs overdraft: which is cheaper?”

Decision Stage:

“Apply for a fixed-rate mortgage online”
“Open a stocks and shares ISA with no fees”

Tip: Use tools like AnswerThePublic, AlsoAsked, and Google Search Console to discover long-tail and question-based keywords you can realistically rank for.

3. Content Hubs and Topic Clusters

Rather than publishing one-off blogs, build structured content clusters that build topical authority.

Example Cluster: “First-Time Buyers”

Main Pillar: “Complete Guide to Mortgages for First-Time Buyers”
Supporting Blogs:
- “5 Government Schemes for First-Time Buyers in the UK”
- “What Credit Score Do You Need for a Mortgage?”
- “How Much Deposit Do You Really Need?”

Internal linking between these articles tells Google your site is a trusted authority on that topic, improving rankings across the board. You can also then tailor an effective Digital PR strategy to help build deeper links into these pages, building authority and supporting the overall performance of the cluster.

4. Local SEO: A Missed Opportunity for Many

If you offer in-person services even if it’s hybrid or Zoom-based local SEO can help you reach qualified leads.

Must-Have Elements:

Location Pages: e.g. “Independent Financial Advisor in Bristol”
Google Business Profile Optimization: Use categories, respond to reviews, add Q&As, post regularly.
Local Backlinks: Consider local events, get listed in business directories, build partnerships with community organisations.

5. Technical SEO: The Foundation You Can’t Ignore

Financial websites tend to be large and complex with multiple product pages, calculators, forms, and FAQs. Technical SEO ensures all of this is crawlable, indexable, and performant.

Key Areas to Address:

Core Web Vitals: Ensure fast loading, visual stability, and interactivity
Mobile Optimization: Most users now research on mobile, your site must be flawless here
Schema Markup: Use FinancialProduct, FAQPage, and Organization schemas where relevant
XML Sitemaps and Robots.txt: Keep these clean and updated
Duplicate Content: Especially with rates and regulations, ensure content isn’t copied across pages

Digital PR and Ethical Link Building

Earning high-quality backlinks is critical in building authority but you must avoid spammy or black-hat tactics, especially in finance.

Link-Building Strategies That Work:

Data-Led PR Campaigns: Commission or analyse data and pitch stories to journalists (e.g. “Average UK Credit Score by Age Group”)
Expert Commentary: Offer your advisors as expert spokespeople to react to breaking news
Create Free Tools: Mortgage calculators, ISA allowance trackers, or pension age checkers often earn links
Publish Original Research or Whitepapers: Journalists and bloggers love citing original data

Example:

Comparison websites have successfully gained thousands of high-authority links by creating utility comparison tools, consumer affordability studies, and reacting quickly to news stories with expert advice.

Measuring SEO Success in Financial Services

Your SEO reporting should tie back to business outcomes not just traffic.

Key Metrics to Track:

Organic Visibility: Impressions, ranking positions, and share of voice
Engagement Metrics: Time on page, scroll depth, bounce rate
Lead Metrics: Form submissions, quote requests, downloads
Conversion Attribution: Use GA4 and CRM integrations to connect content to customer actions
E-E-A-T Signals: Number of referring domains, quality of backlinks, author profiles built

Tip: Combine data from Google Search Console, GA4, Semrush, and your internal CRM for a full-funnel picture.

Emerging Trends to Watch in 2025

AI Overviews in Search Results: Google’s AI-generated summaries mean more zero-click searches, so optimise content for inclusion in these overviews
Voice and Conversational Search: More people are searching with natural, question-based queries
Search Personalisation: Rankings now vary more by user location, history, and intent local SEO and behavioural data matter more than ever
Topical Authority > Page Authority: Building deep, useful content around a theme will outperform isolated “SEO blog posts”

Conclusion

SEO for financial services in 2025 is about trust, authority, and helpfulness. You’re not just competing for clicks you’re competing to be the most credible option in a high-stakes decision. That means building a search strategy that balances compliance with creativity, data with empathy, and technical structure with user experience.

The Value Of External Link Building In Enhanced E-E-A-T

29th August 2024

by Amanda Walls Digital PR & Outreach tips

Even in 2024, with Google’s algorithm boasting over 400 ranking factors, the concept of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) continues to hold significant weight in the SEO realm. This framework emphasises the importance of content created by experienced sources with demonstrable knowledge and a strong reputation for accuracy. By prioritising E-E-A-T, Google aims to deliver search results that users can confidently rely on for trustworthy and valuable information.

While on-site optimisation is crucial for building E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), its reach extends beyond website elements. Discussions surrounding E-E-A-T often emphasise on-site tactics like testimonials, author profiles, and internal linking. However, for websites in the Your Money Your Life (YMYL) category, leveraging external link building strategies effectively can significantly enhance E-E-A-T. By acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable sources in your niche, you demonstrate your website’s authority and trustworthiness to search engines. This comprehensive approach to E-E-A-T ultimately leads to a stronger SEO foundation.

How Do I Build E-E-A-T Friendly Links?

While building E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) friendly links might seem straightforward, the focus should remain on acquiring high-quality, genuine links through effective digital PR. Digital PR campaigns, when executed well, naturally contribute to E-E-A-T by securing placements on reputable websites that acknowledge your website’s expertise.

However, if your goal is to strategically strengthen your E-E-A-T, particularly when paired with on-site improvements, consider focusing on these specific digital PR tactics:

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is a powerful tool for establishing E-E-A-T. By sharing your expertise externally through insightful content or interviews, you demonstrate your website’s knowledge and credibility. This knowledge-sharing approach effectively builds trust and positions your website as an authority in its field.

Thought leadership initiatives can be implemented in various ways. You can leverage interviews with your clients or internal subject matter experts to showcase their experience and insights. Providing strong biographies highlighting their credentials strengthens their authority in the eyes of journalists. Additionally, staying updated on industry news and proactively seeking opportunities (newsjacking or event participation) increases your chances of securing media placements. This comprehensive approach to thought leadership ultimately contributes to a stronger E-E-A-T foundation for your website.

To find out more about how effective thought leadership can be, check out our case study for client Little Loans where we achieved some great coverage in a traditionally tricky vertical.

Newsjacking

Newsjacking presents a valuable opportunity to build external E-E-A-T for your brand. It involves capitalizing on trending news stories and offering insightful commentary or unique perspectives from your resident experts. This strategy allows you to showcase your website’s expertise on relevant topics while potentially securing placements in high-quality publications.

Newsjacking doesn’t require complex or time-consuming efforts. For instance, we created a successful piece with our client Hayes Garden World, leveraging their resident gardening expert Angela Slater’s knowledge. The piece focused on the impact of lockdown on houseplants, providing a simple yet engaging angle on a trending topic. This approach resulted in acquiring high-quality backlinks, demonstrating the effectiveness of newsjacking for E-E-A-T building.

Data-Led Campaigns

Data-driven campaigns offer an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your E-E-A-T. By analyzing relevant industry data or your own data sets, you can create valuable resources that showcase your expertise and provide journalists with compelling insights. This approach fosters trust and positions your website as an authority within the industry.

Data campaigns can be implemented in various ways. Consider creating data-driven guides or reports addressing industry trends or consumer behavior. A well-executed example could be a guide titled “How Much Energy Do Your Household Appliances Consume?”. This type of informative content, especially when relevant to your industry (e.g., energy providers), establishes your website as a credible source and has the potential to attract long-term backlinks from journalists who reference it repeatedly.

Each of the approaches above will really help you to hone in on building that E-E-A-T through each of your external link acquisition campaigns which, when paired with a solid on-site strategy, will improve your website visibility in no time.

Product Reviews & Placements

If you’re an ecommerce agency, then chances are you will be looking to build external trust through visibility for products. Top 10 lists and product round-ups are a great way to get exposure for your products and brand and they also help to build those all-important external trust signals which are a great way to build key E-E-A-T signals here.

To find out more about how our Digital PR and Link Building service can help your SEO efforts, or to enquire about our white label digital PR services you can contact us here.

Director Amanda On The Main Stage At Brighton SEO

29th April 2024

by Amanda Walls Cedarwood Digital News Digital PR & Outreach tips Link Building Paid Search Paid Social SEO

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.

You can find a link to my full slide deck here: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/amanda-walls-brighton-seo-seo-for-ymyl-websites-9pptx/267570020

Until October!

70 Free Data Sources For Your Digital PR Campaigns (All In One Place!)

12th March 2024

by Amanda Walls Digital PR & Outreach tips SEO

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/)
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS): Data on business sectors, energy, and innovation. (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy)
Department for Education (DfE): Education and skills data at national and regional levels. (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education)
Food Standards Agency (FSA): Data on food safety, diet, and nutrition. (https://www.food.gov.uk/)
Environment Agency: Environmental data on pollution, water quality, and waste. (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency)

Industry Associations & Research Bodies:

Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD): Data on HR practices, workforce trends, and employee engagement. (https://www.cipd.org/en/)
Federation of Small Businesses (FSB): Data on small business demographics, challenges, and growth. (https://www.fsb.org.uk/)
Retail Economics: Retail sales data and insights into consumer spending behavior. (https://www.retaileconomics.co.uk/)
Centre for Cities: Research and data on urban economies and city development. (https://www.centreforcities.org/)
The Work Foundation: Research on work, employment, and the changing nature of jobs. (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/work-foundation/)

Public & Academic Institutions:

Bank of England: Economic data, policy decisions, and financial market analysis. (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/)
Resolution Foundation: Research on living standards, poverty, and inequality. (https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/)
National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR): Independent economic research and forecasting. (https://www.niesr.ac.uk/)
Joseph Rowntree Foundation: Research on poverty, inequality, and social justice. (https://www.jrf.org.uk/)
The Health Foundation: Independent research on health and social care issues. (https://www.health.org.uk/)

Business & Consumer Data Providers:

Statista: Global market research data and statistics on various industries. (https://www.statista.com/)
Euromonitor International: Market research data and insights on consumer trends. (https://www.euromonitor.com/)
Kantar Worldpanel: Consumer behavior and purchase data across various product categories. (https://www.worldpanel.com/)
Nielsen: Market research data on media consumption, advertising, and consumer trends. (https://www.nielsen.com/)
GfK: Market research data on consumer behavior, retail sales, and brand preferences. (https://www.gfk.com/home)

Data Portals & Open Data Initiatives:

Data.gov.uk: Open data platform from the UK government. (https://www.data.gov.uk/)
London Datastore: Open data platform for London. (https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset)
Scotland’s Open Data Platform: Open data platform for Scotland. (https://opendata.scot/)
Open Data Wales: Open data platform for Wales. (https://datamap.gov.wales/)
Northern Ireland Open Data Platform: Open data platform for Northern Ireland. (https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/open-data)

News & Media Resources:

BBC News: News data and statistics from the BBC. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news)
The Guardian: Data journalism and interactive features from The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/)
The Times: News data and analysis from The Times (may require free registration). (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/)
The Telegraph: Data journalism and interactive features from The Telegraph (may require free registration). (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)
Financial Times: Financial data and analysis from the Financial Times (may require free registration). (https://www.ft.com/)
Sky News: News data and statistics from Sky News. (https://news.sky.com/)

Trade Associations & Professional Bodies:

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.
Which?: Consumer research and product reviews from Which?. (https://www.which.co.uk/)
MoneySavingExpert: Consumer finance data, price comparisons, and money-saving tips. (https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/)

Social Media & Online Trends:

Google Trends: Track search trends and see what people are interested in. (https://trends.google.com/)
Sprout Social: Social media analytics and insights (free trial available). (https://sproutsocial.com/)
Brandwatch: Social media listening and analytics platform (free trial available). (https://www.brandwatch.com/)
Buzzsumo: Content marketing insights and influencer identification tool (free trial available). (https://www.buzzsumo.com/)
Talkwalker: Social media monitoring and analytics platform (free trial available). (https://www.talkwalker.com/)

Sustainability & Environmental Data:

Committee on Climate Change (CCC): Independent advice on tackling climate change in the UK. (https://www.theccc.org.uk/)
Met Office: Weather data, climate change information, and environmental data. (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/)
UK Green Building Council (UKGBC): Data on sustainable construction and green building trends. (https://www.ukgbc.org/)

Health & Wellbeing Data:

The King’s Fund: Independent health research and analysis. (https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/)
NHS Digital: Health data and statistics from the National Health Service. (https://digital.nhs.uk/)
Mental Health Foundation: Data on mental health and wellbeing in the UK.
Cancer Research UK: Cancer statistics and research data. (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/)

Education & Skills Data:

Department for Education – Education & Training Statistics: Education and training statistics from the Department for Education.
Ofqual: Data on qualifications, assessment, and regulation in education. (https://www.ofqual.gov.uk/)
The Sutton Trust: Research on social mobility and education. (https://www.suttontrust.com/)
The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI): Research and analysis on higher education policy. (https://www.hepi.ac.uk/)

Transport & Travel Data:

Department for Transport (DfT): Transport statistics and data on roads, railways, and aviation. (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport)
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA): Data on air travel, airports, and aviation safety. (https://www.caa.org.uk/)
National Highways: Data on traffic flow and road conditions on motorways and major A roads in England. (https://www.nationalhighways.co.uk/)

Culture & Entertainment Data:

Office for National Statistics – Culture, Media & Sport: Data on cultural participation, leisure activities, and the creative industries.
Arts Council England: Data on arts funding, cultural participation, and the creative economy. (https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/)
Barbican Centre: Data on audience engagement and trends in performing arts. (https://www.barbican.org.uk/)
British Film Institute (BFI): Data on the UK film industry, cinema attendance, and audience preferences. (https://www.bfi.org.uk/)

Public Opinion & Polling Data:

YouGov: Polling data on public opinion and social attitudes (free basic account available). (https://yougov.co.uk/)
Ipsos MORI: Polling data on public opinion, social issues, and political attitudes. ([invalid URL removed])
NatCen Social Research: Social research data on a wide range of topics (some free data available). (https://www.natcen.ac.uk/)
The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): Public relations industry surveys and reports. (https://www.cipr.co.uk/)

Want to you know more about what Digital PR can do for your business? Get In Touch!

[blog] [northern digital awards] [blog picture]

Cedarwood Take Home 4 Northern Digital Awards!

30th January 2024

by Amanda Walls Cedarwood Digital News Digital PR & Outreach tips SEO

We’re delighted to share our success at the Northern Digital Awards last week!

We attended the awards ceremony here in Manchester on Thursday and were awarded:

🏅Search Agency Of The Year

🏅Best SEO Campaign (Patient Claim Line)

🏅Best Digital Marketing Campaign – B2C (Little Loans)

🏅Best Digital Marketing Campaign – Finance (Cash Lady)

We are so pleased with this outcome, especially given the tough competition from a host of esteemed agencies. It’s really exciting to see our hard work this year recognised through such respected awards.

Here’s what the judges had to say:

Thank you to our clients for another successful year, and a huge well done to the team for their efforts!

Five Key Tips To Create An Effective Digital PR Campaign

27th June 2023

by Amanda Walls Digital PR & Outreach tips SEO

Digital PR has been a buzzword in the world of online marketing for quite a while now and it’s a popular marketing approach for businesses who are looking to grow their online profile while also landing important links back to their website.

Here at Cedarwood, digital PR has always been an important part of our service offering, not just for the visibility that it garners for our clients, but also for the positive impact it can have on SEO campaigns and as a result we have a lot of experience (over seven years direct experience in fact!) in rolling out effective digital PR campaigns.

Although it is one of the more popular approaches within the SEO mix, digital PR is something which if not done properly can fail to have the desired impact – so below we’ve included some top tips on how you can go about creating an effective digital PR campaign.

The importance of Digital PR

Before we dive into five key tips to creating an effective digital PR campaign, let’s first look at why digital PR is important and how it can help you to achieve your goals across both SEO and also improving overall awareness.

Digital PR is important because it can help businesses achieve a number of goals, including:

➡️ Increase brand awareness: When your brand is featured in high-quality, relevant publications, it can help to raise awareness of your company and its products or services. This can lead to increased traffic to your website, more leads, and ultimately, more sales.

➡️ Generate leads: A well-executed digital PR campaign can also help to generate leads for your business. When journalists and other influencers write about your company, they often include a call to action, such as a link to your website or a way to sign up for your email list. This can help you to capture the contact information of potential customers who are interested in learning more about what you have to offer.

➡️ Improve SEO: When your brand is mentioned in high-quality, relevant publications, it can help to improve your website’s search engine ranking. This is because search engines take into account the number and quality of backlinks to a website when ranking it in search results.

➡️ Build relationships with journalists and influencers: Digital PR can also help you to build relationships with journalists and other influencers in your industry. These relationships can be valuable assets for your business, as they can help you to get your company featured in the media and reach a wider audience.

There’s a lot of value that you can add to your overall marketing mix with digital PR but it’s important to understand how it fits in with a broader marketing mix, so that you can understand how to utilise it effectively.

Five Key Tips

Start With Your Strategy

Strategy plays a key role within your digital PR campaigns and understanding your client’s audience, the current landscape and the type of content that will resonate with your audience (and journalists!) is important to driving success.

So let’s start off with some key considerations and questions to ask around your digital PR strategy:

➡️ Your target audience: Who are you trying to reach with your digital PR campaign? What are their interests? What are their pain points?

➡️ Your goals: What do you want to achieve with your digital PR campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Improve SEO?

➡️ Your key messages: What are the key messages you want to communicate with your digital PR campaign? What do you want journalists and influencers to take away from your story?

➡️Your content: What type of content will you create for your digital PR campaign? Will you write blog posts? Create infographics? Produce videos?

➡️Your distribution strategy: How will you distribute your content? Will you share it on social media? Submit it to media outlets? Pitch it to influencers?

➡️ Your measurement strategy: How will you measure the success of your digital PR campaign? Will you track website traffic? Leads generated? SEO ranking?

It might seem like a lot, but putting time into understanding your target audience, goals and distribution strategy will save you a lot of time further down the line so invest the time early on to ensure you are driving maximum efficiency through your campaigns.

2. Do You Research

Undertaking research at the start of a digital PR campaign is another way to ensure you save time further down the line, don’t repeat stories which have already been covered and really maximise your outreach capacity and capabilities.

When you’re doing your research for a digital PR campaign, there are a few key things to keep in mind:

➡️ Identify your target audience: Who are you trying to reach with your campaign? What are their interests? What publications do they read? What influencers do they follow?

➡️ Identify the right publications and influencers: Once you know who your target audience is, you can start to identify the right publications and influencers to reach out to. Consider the following factors when making your selection:

➡️ Relevance: The publication or influencer should be relevant to your target audience.

➡️ Reach: The publication or influencer should have a large enough audience to reach your target audience.

➡️ Credibility: The publication or influencer should be credible and respected by your target audience.

➡️Find out what they’ve written about in the past: Take a look at the publications and influencers you’ve identified and see what they’ve written about in the past. This will give you a good idea of their style, their interests, and the types of stories they’re interested in.

➡️ Find out how to contact them: Once you’ve identified the right publications and influencers, you need to find out how to contact them. This may involve finding their email address, phone number, or social media profiles.

By doing your research, you can increase your chances of success with your digital PR campaign.

Here are some additional tips for doing your research:

➡️ Use online tools: There are a number of online tools that can help you with your research, such as Google News, Cision, and Meltwater. These tools can help you to find relevant publications, influencers, and stories.

➡️ Talk to people in your industry: Talk to people in your industry who are familiar with digital PR. They can share their insights and advice with you.

➡️ Attend industry events: Attending industry events is a great way to meet journalists and influencers and learn more about their needs.

Taking additional time to thoroughly research all of the above and build your contact list can really help when it comes to outreaching the campaigns, so make sure you put the groundwork in before you start building the campaigns to maximise the success.

3. Create High Quality Content

If you want journalists to link to your website then you need to generate great content which gives them a reason to link to it. So whether it’s a data piece, a piece of thought leadership or just something of genuine interest to the user, make sure that the content you create is relevant, up to date and most importantly, within the user interest.

Great content for Digital PR comes in a number of different formats and can include:

➡️ Data-driven content: This type of content uses data and statistics to tell a story. It can be very persuasive and can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. For example, you could create a blog post that analyzes industry trends or a report that provides insights into your target audience.

➡️ Compelling visuals: Images, infographics, and videos can be very effective at engaging your audience and driving traffic to your website. Make sure your visuals are high-quality and relevant to your content.

➡️ Interviews and thought leadership pieces: Interviews with experts in your industry can be a great way to generate backlinks and establish yourself as a thought leader. You could also write thought leadership pieces that share your insights on industry trends or best practices.

➡️ Case studies: Case studies can be a great way to demonstrate the value of your products or services. They can also help you generate leads and build relationships with potential customers.

➡️ Trendjacking: Trendjacking is the practice of capitalizing on current trends to create content that is relevant and timely. This can be a great way to generate buzz for your brand and attract new customers.

Undertaking the first two steps will help you to better understand the audience and it’s important to keep this in mind when creating high quality content to ensure that when you outreach it to journalists it’s going to be relevant to both their audience and yours.

4. Promote Your Content

In the simplest terms promoting your content is essentially outreaching it – getting it in front of journalists to ensure that you get the right level of coverage for your client, at the right time. The promotion of the content is almost as important as the quality of the content if not more so, as it doesn’t matter how great your content is, if no one sees it then it will have no impact on your overall marketing efforts!

When outreaching to journalists the first step is to create an effective media list – remember – you don’t have to include everyone on your media list, rather focus on the contacts that count, people who are likely to cover your story or who have a genuine interest in what you are doing.

Here are some top tips to land coverage with journalists:

➡️ Do your research. Before you reach out to any journalists, take the time to learn about their work and their audience. What kind of stories do they typically write? What are their interests? Once you have a good understanding of their needs, you can tailor your pitch accordingly.

➡️ Make a great first impression. Your subject line is the first thing a journalist will see, so make sure it’s clear, concise, and attention-grabbing. The body of your email should also be well-written and engaging. Get to the point quickly and clearly, and make sure your pitch is relevant to the journalist’s interests.

➡️ Be helpful and responsive. If a journalist is interested in your story, be prepared to provide them with all the information they need. This includes high-quality images, videos, and other supporting materials. Be responsive to their questions and requests, and make sure they have everything they need to move forward with the story.

➡️ Be patient. It takes time to build relationships with journalists. Don’t expect to get a response from every pitch you send out. Just keep pitching good stories, and eventually you’ll start to get results.

You won’t always get it right first time, but taking your time to build out media lists & prepare them effectively will play a key role in ensuring that you are maximising the most of your opportunity.

It’s also important to stand out – in a crowded area where journalists receive hundreds of PR pitches each day, how do you make sure that you stand out from the crowd?

➡️ Personalize your pitches. Don’t just send out a generic email to a list of journalists. Take the time to address each journalist by name and tailor your pitch to their specific interests.

➡️ Offer exclusive content. If you can offer journalists exclusive content, they’ll be more likely to take a look at your pitch. This could be a press release, a white paper, or even an interview with an expert.

➡️Be persistent. If you don’t hear back from a journalist right away, don’t give up. Follow up with them a few days later to see if they have any questions.

Timing is also key – ensuring that you outreach at the right time to the right person plays a key role in getting the coverage that you are looking for.

5. Measure Results

Measuring results and evaluating your digital PR campaigns plays a key role in ensuring that you get the most out of them and that you can take learnings to continue to evolve and improve your offering. Digital PR is constantly changing and evolving, so staying on top of your game is key and ensuring that your clients understand the value of what you are offering plays a key role in ensuring that you’re showcasing the value that you are bringing.

To start with, you need to be clear about what you want to measure, approaches here include:

➡️ Set clear goals: Before you launch your campaign, set clear goals for what you want to achieve. This will help you track your progress and measure your success.

➡️ Use a variety of metrics: Don’t rely on just one metric to measure the impact of your campaign. Use a variety of metrics to get a more complete picture of your results.

➡️Track your results over time: Don’t just measure the impact of your campaign at the end. Track your results over time to see how your campaign is performing.

➡️Make adjustments as needed: If you’re not seeing the results you want, make adjustments to your campaign strategy.

Don’t be afraid to make updates and changes as you need – this will help you to ensure you keep firmly fixed on the overall goal of delivering value to your clients and the reach/coverage that they want.

You can use a number of different ways to measure from a metric perspective, but here are some of the most common metrics:

➡️ Media coverage: This is the most basic metric, and it simply measures the number of articles, blog posts, and other pieces of media that mention your brand.

➡️ Link building: This metric measures the number of links to your website from other websites. Links are important for SEO, so this metric can give you an idea of how well your campaign is helping to improve your website’s search engine ranking.

➡️Social media engagement: This metric measures the number of likes, shares, and comments on your social media posts. It’s a good way to measure how well your campaign is resonating with your target audience.

➡️Brand awareness: This metric measures how well people know your brand. You can measure brand awareness through surveys, polls, and social media analytics.

➡️Website traffic: This metric measures the number of people who visit your website. It’s a good way to measure the overall impact of your campaign, as more traffic means more people are learning about your brand.

Whichever you use, it’s important to remember that you always need to be linking it back to revenue and results for your client – these are there key business metrics, so make sure to keep in mind how it closely links back to what your client is looking to achieve.

Final Thoughts

In addition to everything that we have mentioned above, at the end of the day an effective digital PR campaign all comes down to whether the user consumes it, engages with it and feels something for it – after all we are trying to create something which sits within the human interest angle.

Keeping this in mind, additional elements which will play in to the success of your campaigns include:

The quality of your relationships with journalists
Your ability to generate buzz and excitement around your content
Your ability to adapt your strategy as the campaign progresses.

Each of these play their own important role in ensuring that your campaigns get off the ground, so in addition to some great planning and activation make sure you take the time to build the relationships and research the impact of your content – this is essential to gaining that all important coverage!

To find out more about how we can help you with your digital PR campaigns, get in touch!

Case Study: How we earnt 121 links for one Digital PR campaign

27th April 2021

by Amber Charnley Digital PR & Outreach tips

Overview

The client: Patient Claim Line

The campaign: Survey data uncovers how NHS delays are affecting Brits

The results:

127 pieces of coverage
121 links
Average DR 56.67

Background and objectives

Patient Claim Line is the UK’s highest-rated medical negligence Solicitors, who currently deal with one in 10 of all medical negligence claims in England and Wales.

They needed a PR campaign to earn them coverage in UK publications, in turn generating links to their website to improve it’s authority. We were particularly focused on gaining links from new domains to broaden their link profile and improve their overall SEO.

In terms of the content of the campaign, we had four main aims:

Create content related to the medical negligence field which the client can back up with their legal expertise
Collect new and informative data that could used by journalists, and is relevant and therefore usable for months to come
Ensure that the content is helpful to the British public and is sensitive to the current climate and difficult times within the medical sphere
Make sure that the content can be reworked to have a number of different angles, and therefore can appeal to medical, national and regional publications

Strategy

After brainstorming and researching current topics related to medical negligence, we decided to delve into a subject that had gained some media discussion but was lacking hard statistics – the effect of NHS delays on the British public over the past twelve months.

To source new and reliable data, we worked with a survey provider to collect information on how patients feel like the pandemic has impacted or delayed their NHS treatment.

We analysed the data from a national perspective, as well as split regionally to see which areas of the UK were impacted more than others.

A survey report was created detailing all of the findings including regional splits, and also offered legal advice from Patient Claim Line’s experts on patient rights if their treatment has been delayed. This informative guide was published on Patient Claim Line’s website as a useful hub for journalists to refer back to.

That’s the beauty of this content – it will be of use to journalists for months to come because it isn’t too time sensitive.

The content

We found some brilliant statistics that we knew journalists would love, including:

Half of Brits have had their medical treatment delayed by the NHS since the pandemic started and 45% have seen their condition get worse as a result.
Almost a third of the population have opted to delay their own medical treatment since the pandemic started
Half of those who delayed their own treatment have also seen their condition worsen
53% delayed their treatment due to fears of catching COVID, followed by 52% who don’t want to put a strain on the NHS
78% of the UK appreciate the NHS more than they did before the pandemic

We created multiple press releases with different angles to target journalists in a variety of fields. We also coupled the data with expert comments from Patient Claim Line to make the content more helpful to the reader if they’ve been affected by NHS delays.

The results

The results were fantastic.

We achieved 127 pieces of coverage from predominantly new domains for the client. 121 of the pieces of coverage included a link back to the website, and these links were from sites with an average DR of 56.67 (compared to the client’s current DR of 27).

Some examples of the variety of coverage include:

The content was extremely relevant to the Patient Claim Line, helpful to the reader and even brought in leads through the website of those looking to make a medical negligence claim. We smashed all of our objectives, and the client was thrilled.

Check out another one of our client case studies in our blog ‘Backlinks and Brainteasers: a marriage made in SEO’ or find out more about linkbuiling on our Digital PR services page.

Why are links important for SEO, and how can I get them?

1st March 2020

by Amber Charnley Digital PR & Outreach tips home page Link Building SEO

If you’re in the digital marketing world, you’ve undoubtedly heard that getting backlinks from other websites is crucial for SEO. It’s important to utilise anything that can help to boost your website’s search ranking, so we’ll shed some light on why links are so important and teach you how to build them yourself.

Why are links important for SEO?

Building backlinks to your website (getting other websites to link back to yours) sends out a trust signal to Google that your website has good authority, and therefore should be ranked higher. However, this depends on the type and quality of the website that posts the link. Essentially, if a quality website which Google trusts links back to your site, Google determines that you too are a quality website, so should be ranked higher. You can work out the quality of a website by checking its domain rating on websites such as Ahrefs or Moz: the higher score the better.

However, Google can also penalise for backlinks which it sees as unnatural. For example, spamming forums, creating tonnes of directory listings, paying bloggers on fiver to link to your website are unnatural ways to build links, which in turn will lower your position on Google. It is far better for SEO to secure a few strong links a month than to build hundreds of low-quality backlinks in a short space of time.

Hence, you should always ensure that links have a natural connection to your business, which you can achieve with the following techniques.

Brand reclamation

It’s always great exposure when a publisher features your brand in their article, though sometimes they will mention a brand without linking back to the brand’s website. Whilst this can be frustrating, it’s easy to maximise this opportunity and secure a link from a high-quality website. Most of the hard work has already been done because a journalist has already noticed and written about your brand. Simply drop them an email thanking them for featuring your business and request a link to your website be added to the page in case their readers want to find out more.

Tracking brand mentions online is very easy to set up so that you don’t miss these opportunities. There are several web-monitoring tools that help you do this, such as Google Alerts (free), Ahrefs alerts and Gorkana. Some publications may have editorial policies not to include external links, but it’s always best to email and check.

Media tools

Now that GDPR is in place, media databases with opted-in contact details of journalists are more important than ever for sourcing good quality PR opportunities and contacts. There are a variety of tools you can pay for, as well as free databases that scrape public email addresses from across the web.

One relatively cost-effective way to find feature opportunities is through journalist alerts. These are email alerts that journalists send out to source contacts or information for the features that they are writing. You can then respond to queries that are relevant to your brand, offering information, images, product reviews or quotes. Not only do these tools allow you to effectively build links in a natural way, but they also allow you to develop relationships with key journalists in your market without the need of a pricey media database. Building your own database of journalists that you have successfully worked with makes it easier to work with them again in the future, as you can either contact them with valuable content or they may contact you with relevant upcoming features to you.

Local links

Big-budget content campaigns can bring in a lot of high quality links, but exploring your local link opportunities can also be a good cost-effective way to build links on a smaller scale. Investigate whether you have any current connections that you could source a link from. Is your Managing Director an alumni of a prestigious university? If so, perhaps they could make a donation or share their business expertise on their website. Is there a local charity you could work with? Or a local group linked to your industry? Explore current connections that your staff and management have to see if there are any natural links that could be secured by sending an email.

Competitor analysis

If a key competitor outranks you for several of your keywords, performing an analysis of where their links are coming from is a great way to see what kind of outreach work they are undertaking. Tools such as Ahrefs enable you to identify which publications your competitors are receiving links from, as well as spark ideas for potential outreach content.

Are there any high quality review websites that your competitor has a link on? If they do and your brand doesn’t, then this can be an area to explore. Do they have any links from high quality bloggers? Again, if they do then you can contact the blogger who wrote the article to introduce your brand and highlight what you can offer them, should they be planning any articles which you could contribute to.