What digital PR link building is.
Link building through digital PR reverses the usual order. Instead of finding sites willing to host a link and filling them with content, we find the story in your business, shape it for a news desk, and let the links arrive as journalists cite the source. The output is the same thing SEO has always wanted, authoritative relevant links, but earned in a way Google's guidelines explicitly reward. Our plain-English guide to digital PR covers the discipline; this page covers the link building process end to end.
The process, end to end.
- Research. We map your backlink profile against the competitors ranking above you and identify the pages where authority is missing.
- Target pages and assets. We agree which pages need links and, where journalists are unlikely to link to them directly, the linkable asset that will carry authority to them internally.
- Story development. Angles from your data, expertise and market, chosen for the desks your customers read.
- Assets. Data pieces, releases and expert comment written to a standard a journalist can lift from.
- Outreach. Named journalists, individually pitched, one useful follow-up, no mass blasts. The craft is described on our media relations page.
- Verification and reporting. Every placement checked live and logged with the publication, URL, anchor, link attribute and target page.
Formats that earn links.
Three formats do most of the work. Data-led stories earn the most durable links, because an index or study keeps getting cited long after publication. Reactive commentary earns the fastest, often in the nationals, and compounds as journalists return to a reliable source. Product features earn the most commercially direct links for consumer brands. A batch mixes them according to your sector and the news calendar, because no single format survives every news cycle.
How it fits with other link building.
Digital PR link building compounds a healthy site; it cannot rescue a broken one. Fix crawlability, thin pages and internal linking first, or the authority you earn has nowhere to go. It also sits well alongside genuine partnerships, resource links and the occasional relevant guest contribution on a real industry title. What it replaces is the paid-placement layer: guest posts on sites built to sell them, niche edits and link networks, which carry policy risk and need disavowing after every update. The comparison guide sets out when each still makes sense.
Timelines and volume.
Reactive comment can publish the same day. A planned data story takes four to eight weeks from agreed idea to coverage. Our batches, five, ten or twenty editorial placements, are targeted for completion within 30 to 45 days of the brief, with any publisher-delayed shortfall carried forward. Authority builds as coverage accumulates, and rankings respond on Google's schedule; the fair review point is the end of the first quarter, judged on coverage quality and pipeline, with search movement weighed fairly from month four.
KPIs and packages.
We report the numbers a board would recognise: placements earned against the batch, new referring domains filtered for relevance, linked versus unlinked coverage, brand search movement and organic visibility on the supported pages. Advertising value equivalents and padded reach figures are left out on purpose. Packages run month to month at £2,500, £4,500 or £8,000 for five, ten or twenty placements, and bespoke programmes are scoped for multi-market or regulated briefs. Send a brief and a consultant replies within one working day.