Digital PR earns coverage from publications your buyers read. Here is how it differs from link building.
Digital PR is the work of earning coverage in online publications, and the links and brand mentions that come with it. It borrows the methods of traditional PR and aims them at outcomes search engines and AI assistants can see.
How it differs from link building
Link building starts with the link and works backwards to a reason for it. Digital PR starts with a story a journalist would want and accepts the link as a byproduct. The difference shows up in the quality of what you end up on. If you work in financial services, see how we handle this for regulated firms on our fintech SEO page.
A guest post on a site nobody reads passes a link and nothing else. Coverage in a trade title your buyers actually read passes a link, puts your name in front of the right audience, and gives AI assistants a credible independent source that mentions you. That last point has become the strongest argument for doing it properly. For businesses with long sales cycles, this is a core part of B2B SEO, where one good lead can be worth a year of traffic.
What a campaign involves
- An angle. Original data, a survey, an expert view on something in the news, or a story from inside the business. Without one, there’s nothing to pitch.
- An asset. The page the coverage points to. It has to justify the link on its own once a reader lands.
- A media list. Named journalists who cover this beat, not a bought list of generic addresses.
- The pitch. Short, specific, and sent to people who might genuinely use it.
- Follow through. Reactive commentary keeps a campaign alive well past the launch week.
What to measure
Count links if you must, but the better measures are the quality of the titles you landed, whether the coverage reached the audience you sell to, and what happened to branded search volume afterwards. A campaign that produced forty links from irrelevant sites has failed even though the number looks good.
We run this as part of authority work rather than as a standalone service, because coverage without a site worth landing on wastes the coverage.
Common questions
Is digital PR the same as link building?
Link building is a tactic aimed at acquiring links. Digital PR is a discipline aimed at earning coverage, which usually produces links as well. The overlap is real, but the standards and the outputs differ.
How long does a campaign take?
Four to six weeks from brief to coverage is typical for a data-led campaign. Reactive commentary can land the same day if you have the relationships and a spokesperson who answers quickly.
Do nofollow links from press coverage count?
Most major publications mark links nofollow or sponsored, and the coverage is still worth having. Google treats these as hints rather than instructions; the brand mention carries weight regardless, and AI assistants reading the page do not check the attribute.
How much does digital PR cost?
UK retainers usually start around £2,000 a month for a campaign cadence of one a quarter, rising with the ambition of the research behind each one. Paying per link is a warning sign.
The one-paragraph version sits in our glossary entry for digital PR.
