Digital PR is the concept of building backlinks from high-authority journalistic publications.
It is the the best way to build links but also the most time-consuming and expensive, process.
I’ve done digital PR link building for many years now. The most common DIY approach is to use Help A Reporter Out (HARO). The main challenge is time. It takes a significant amount of pitches to get a backlink (if you are lucky).
This is why I’ve opted to use 3rd party agencies that offer digital PR as a service. They utilize best practices, have a high success rate to land links, and save me a ton of time.
I break down the best agencies in the market in this article.
Let’s get into it!
The Best Digital PR Service List
Below we offer some details about the best digital PR services around, including what they specialize in and what they are known for.
1. Reboot Online
Reboot Online is an award-winning digital PR agency skilled in helping their clients earn links and coverage from the biggest and best publications online.
The agency has worked with global brands like Takeaway.com, Viator, and JOOR and others within the eCommerce, finance and B2B space.
Reboot Online takes a data-driven approach to their campaigns, utilizing an in-house team of 9 data scientists to ensure that every digital PR campaign that they run is backed by a strong methodology and built on proprietary data.
The agency’s team is made up of 80+ specialists spanning digital PR, outreach, technical SEO, content marketing, graphic design, and web development.
Digital PR Services Offered: Reactive PR, Data-Drive Digital PR Campaigns, International PR, Newsjacking
- Team Size: 82
- Agency Links: Website, Linkedin, Twitter
- Awards: The Drum, Global Content Awards, Digital Impact Awards, Company Culture Awards
2. Distinctly
Distinctly offers digital PR services including reactive PR for brands looking to reach global headlines.
The agency uses surveys and topical research, partnered with their established journalist relationships, to help websites earn highly sought after links and coverage.
As well as reactive PR, they also offer data-led campaigns and content outreach audits to help you identify which content already published on your website could make good outreach candidates.
Digital PR Services Offered: Reactive PR, Data Campaigns, Linkable Content Audits
3. PRLab
PRlab is a global PR agency who apply traditional PR strategies and principles to find success for their clients in the online environment.
They specialize in global digital PR, helping brands like Recruitee and Splashtop earn top-tier online media coverage.
The campaign processes used by PRLab will be familiar to those experienced in more traditional PR, making use of things like editorial content calendars and journalist relationship building to help their clients secure global coverage.
Digital PR Services Offered: Global Digital PR, Internal Comms, Crisis Comms, Media Training
4. Publicize
Publicize provides digital PR services to growth-focused tech startups. They attribute much of their success to a diverse team of PR experts working on client accounts.
Much of their activity focuses on building the reputation of key stakeholders within their clients organizations, like their CEOs and senior leadership team. A mix of activity including guest blogging, interviews, event placements and podcast appearances help them do this.
They pair their PR activity with on-site strategies to align the on-site and the off-site efforts of their clients, resulting in more links and coverage and enhanced SEO visibility.
- Digital PR Services Offered: Thought Leadership, Media Pitching, Media Relations, Press Release Distribution
- Team Size: 100+
- Agency Links: Linkedin, Twitter
5. Ignite Visibility
Ignite Visibility leverages their relationships with the media and online influencers to increase the online visibility of their clients.
The agency has worked with the likes of Tony Robbins, The Knot and Sharp Healthcare, and pride themselves on their bespoke approach to all things digital marketing related.
Alongside their digital and more general PR services, they also offer clients media training and translation services to maximize the results that their PR activity can generate.
An Ignite Visibility campaign will involve a mix of activity, including responding to HARO requests on your behalf and carrying out outreach to convert existing brand mentions into backlinks.
- Digital PR Services Offered: Brand Mention Conversions, HARO Responses, Story & Media Pitching
- Team Size: 110
- Agency Links: Linkedin, Twitter
6. LocalSEOcompany.io
LocalSEOcompany.io has a focus on local digital PR, helping regional businesses earn links and coverage from important websites in their communities.
Their services differ from some of the other agencies included in this list, in that they revolve more around building relationships with specific local journalists who write about business news and information in their area.
The tactics used in their services involve things like planning and organizing local events, partnering with and sponsoring other local organizations, and jumping on relevant local trends to secure their clients’ coverage.
- Digital PR Services Offered: Local PR, Events & Sponsorship Planning, Media Relations
- Team Size: 9
- Agency Links: Website
7. Eric Schwartzman
Eric Schwartzman offers services at the intersection of SEO and PR.
The consultancy helps their clients amplify their content online, manage and improve their reputations, and improve their organic visibility.
Schwartzman takes a firm stance against blackhat SEO, as you will find most digital PR experts do given their focus on organic link earning as opposed to purchasing links from webmasters, and work across a number of different sectors.
- Digital PR Services Offered: Content Amplification, Online Reputation Marketing, Strategic Digital Communications
- Team Size: 1 (Consultancy)
- Agency Links: Linkedin, Twitter
8. Power Digital Marketing
Power Digital Marketing helps clients elevate their brand with a custom digital PR strategy.
The agency leverages real relationships with journalists to promote their clients in positive contexts across the publications that matter the most to their clients’ audiences.
They partner data with creative storytelling to help clients gain coverage and results that will move the needle when it comes to their SEO visibility.
- Digital PR Services Offered: Past Media Placement Audits, Press Release Distribution, Integrated PR Campaigns
- Team Size: 501-1,000 Employees
- Agency Links: Linkedin, Twitter
How To Pick The Best Digital PR Service
Although digital PR has been prevalent for a good few years now, it is still a relatively new strategy when compared to more old school link-building strategies which have been tried and tested over multiple decades. As a result, many business owners struggle to discern between a good digital PR service and a bad one.
There are a few things that a business owner and/or internal marketing teams can do to ensure that they pick and partner with the right digital PR agency for them:
- Ask to see case studies – One of the first things that you should do when looking for a new digital PR agency to partner with is ask to see some of their case studies. Any good agency will have a bank of client case studies which showcase some of their previous success.
- Find out their prices – In the real world, businesses and marketing teams have a set budget. The right digital PR service for you will be one which is both aligned with your internal marketing goals and objectives and which can be delivered within your allocated budget.
- Identify their specialism(s) – Different types of digital PR serve different purposes. If you need links fast, an agency specializing in reactive PR is likely your best option. If you know that there are huge link gaps between you and your competitors however, a larger-scale agency offering a more hybrid strategy may be needed.
- Measure their expertise – Whenever possible try and get on a call with any agency that you are considering investing with. You need to hear more about their processes and how they work to effectively measure how experienced and qualified they are in delivering the kinds of campaigns that you are after.
- Review the contract terms – It is not uncommon for digital PR agencies to insist on 3, 6 or even 12 month contracts. However, not every contract is the same so you should make sure that you fully understand exactly what you’re getting out of the agreed service. Top tip: The best agencies will offer you a break clause, the option to terminate a contract if you are not completely satisfied with their work.
- References and testimonials – The best digital PR agencies will have previous clients singing their praises. Ask if you can speak with any previous or active clients, and find out what impact they saw from investing in the service.
- Reporting and key performance indicators (KPIs) – The agency should identify exactly what results you can expect from their service. Ideally, they will specify how they measure the quality of any links and/or coverage earned by looking at things like ahrefs Domain Rating, organic traffic of the linking websites, and if those websites are genuine publications as opposed to private blog networks or link farms. Remember to also ask if the KPIs relate to follow or nofollow links, since this will heavily impact how useful those links are to you and your SEO efforts. They may even offer bespoke SEO dashboards to aid reporting.
By looking at each of the above areas carefully, you will make sure that you are able to find and partner with vetted and trusted experts who know what they’re doing when it comes to digital PR.
Be wary of any agency who claims to offer digital PR but is unable to share actual examples of the links and coverage that their work has helped earn.
Real digital PR focuses on earning links from the most authoritative websites online, national and industry newspapers and magazines, so any respectable agency will be ready and willing to share examples of their success in doing just that.
Open Questions about Digital PR
What is Digital PR?
Digital PR is a strategy used by marketers to promote their business and enhance the online visibility of their brand. The strategy often involves a focus on earning links back to a target website which will drive SEO growth.
What is Reactive PR & Newsjacking?
Reactive digital PR is all about leveraging client expertise to respond to relevant trending stories and topics to secure more links and coverage for a client.Â
Newsjacking is similar to reactive PR and it isn’t uncommon for the terms to be used interchangeably. In its simplest form, newsjacking is essentially piggybacking on breaking news stories to gain even more media exposure for a client.
An example could be if journalists are actively writing about and interested in a recent celebrity engagement.
A digital PR agency could work with a client in the wedding space to compile some relevant data/ideas about the couple’s upcoming nuptials, and/or about previous notable celebrity engagements, to insert their client into that newscycle.
How Do Digital PR Services Work?
A digital PR service can involve a broad mix of activity, including responding to journalist and media requests and also proactively outreaching stories on your behalf.
Generally a digital PR service will be broken down into a few key steps and stages:
- Discovery and exploration – The service provider will talk with you to identify your key aims and objectives so that they can build a strategy to meet them.
- Ideation and brainstorming – All good digital PR services start with an ideation session to come up with compelling and newsworthy ideas that will help your brand get the attention that you’re looking for.
- Data collection and analysis – Most digital PR campaigns involve a good deal of data collection and analysis. Campaigns can involve anything from carrying out surveys to putting together unique datasets.
- Content creation and data visualization – Whether the campaign requires a simple press release or a bespoke interactive asset, the digital PR agency you’re working with should create any required content for you using their in-house expertise.
- Outreach and relationship building – The final stage of any digital PR service will be actually reaching out to target journalists to make them aware of your content, your data, and/or your brand.
Once a campaign has finished, the agency offering it should report back to you on the work done so far and any notable successes in terms of links and coverage.
How Much Should a Digital PR Service Cost?
The best digital PR services are known to cost a good deal more than your more standard link building campaign. Digital PR usually starts at the $2,000 level and can easily go up to the $10,000/$20,000 per month level for the most ambitious brands.
How Soon Should I See Results From My Digital PR Service?
Exactly when you will start seeing links and coverage coming in will vary for each campaign, but you should expect work to start being carried out on your campaigns immediately. Within a few weeks you would hope to see active outreach being carried out and links going live closely after.
What Makes a Good Digital PR Service?
A good digital PR service will be aligned with your own marketing goals and objectives.
Some brands might simply need to build broad domain authority for their website, in which case the largest-scale digital PR campaign will be useful to earn the highest number of authority links.
Others may be focused on only the most relevant links and coverage, in which case a more targeted and focused service will be required.
In general a good digital PR service will be one which matches your goals and objectives and delivers when it comes to the speed, quantity and quality of the links and coverages that it helps you secure
More Resources
Check out our Vetted SEO marketplace and/or some of our other articles about SEO services:
