You know that your public-relations efforts build your credibility and help build bridges with the communities you serve. That’s a big part of why you do it! What you might not know, though, is that the PR you do can be leveraged to both bring in high-quality backlinks for your website and improve your reach online. It’s a win-win because you’re boosting your brand authentically and giving people a real taste of who you are and what you do.
Proactive Ways to Turn PR Into Stellar Backlinks
Are you ready to start bringing in better backlinks through your PR efforts? There are a lot of ways to do it, and the path to the goal is unique to every business. To make the most of it, you might have to put in some legwork and apply a little creativity to the task. Our marketing experts are always discovering interesting, ethical, and creative ways to make it happen for our clients. Here are nine inspiring ideas we can share to help you get started.
1. Harness Existing Relationships
The easiest way to leverage existing PR efforts is to simply and politely ask for backlinks when you know you’ll be participating. It’s even easier if you make backlink inquiries a part of your planning and follow-up process. For example, if you’re doing an upcoming talk at a law school, find out if the hosts will be publishing any content about the event. If they are, ask for a link back to your website in that content. If not, plan to cover the event in your own content. Don’t forget to mention schools and organizations by name, which can go a long way toward attracting backlinks.
2. Try a Quick Charity Linking Audit
If you’re excited about getting started right away, here’s a technique that is so simple that it feels like cheating—but it’s not. Many of the charities and organizations your business has sponsored may already link back to you on their sponsors page or in other content on their websites. Read through our step-by-step guide to performing a charity linking audit for your business. With this quick method, you could easily earn multiple high-quality backlinks for just a few hours’ work.
3. Create New PR Opportunities
You might need to do some outreach to generate new opportunities and backlinks, but the effort is worth it. Look for sponsorships related to your industry, or choose a cause relevant to your community. For example, a personal injury attorney might get involved in MADD events, or a family law attorney might look into local family advocacy groups.
You can also create short-term PR opportunities on your own. For example, one of our clients offered free taxi rides during the holidays to prevent drunk driving. Another client gave away children’s bikes for Christmas. Others have started small scholarships related to their causes. These are incredible outreach opportunities that often generate a lot of press.
4. Branded Alerts and the DSS Social Media Management Tool
Branded alerts tell you when your name or your law firm is brought up in the news or mentioned online. Once you’ve been notified, you can follow up with the source and inquire about backlinks and other opportunities. This is a built-in feature of our DSS Social Media Management Tool, and the alerts are easy to set up. You can also subscribe to industry RSS feeds or set up alerts that help you find and share relevant content with your readers.
If you’re looking for new PR opportunities, you can use the Twitter listening function in the Social Media Tool to monitor for keywords like “interview lawyer” or “find personal injury lawyer interview.” And, of course, the Tool makes it easy to create messages on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites to let people know that you’re getting involved.
5. Promote Educational Content
If you are really engaged with a particular charity or issue that is relevant to what you do, considering creating some content or infographics on the topic. You can promote these pieces of content as educational resources, which can be strong backlink bait. This lets you reach more people with your message, and it often generates high-quality links back to your website. For example, we posted some content about the high rate of attorney suicides and how to get help. It’s an issue that we feel strongly about, and it’s been the source of a number of inquiries and quality backlinks over time.
6. Use Press Releases to Promote Your Efforts
Create your own press release or a co-branded press release to announce your events, community efforts, and sponsorships. Press releases put you out there where you could be picked up by other media sources, and they’re fairly simple to publish. Although press releases generally generate non-follow links, they still create opportunities for news writers to find and contact you.
7. Reach Out to Writers and Media Sources
Search for articles about topics you’re interested in, and reach out to the writer when you find something relevant that you really like. Do you have more current content about the topic? Can you offer relevant content or something else that might make a good piece for the writer? You might be surprised at how open they are to your ideas for new or updated content.
You can also connect with journalists that are looking for experts to interview through a number of websites and online communities, including:
- HARO (one of the most popular free services)
- Muck Rack (paid service)
- Gorkana (paid service)
- Source Bottle (free service)
- #JournoRequest (Twitter hashtag used by journalists)
- #PRrequest (Twitter hashtag used by journalists)
8. Offer to Be a Resource
If you’re already producing strong content, you can search for keywords related to what you do and offer your content as a resource. For example, do a search for “Georgia personal injury lawyer” plus “resources” or “resource page.” Skip over any hits for other attorneys’ websites. Do a broken link check on the non-attorney resources you do find, and see if any broken links relate to content you’re already putting out. If so, reach out to the webmaster for the page. Let them know the link is broken and that you have a resource that might fit.
9. Do a Competitive Link Analysis
Perform a competitive link analysis by comparing your links with the top-performing law firms in your area. Looking at the kinds of backlinks and PR opportunities your competitors are getting will give you a better idea of what’s working and what to look for. Learn more about how to look at your competitors and strengthen your own marketing strategy.
Better Backlinks With a Little Help From Your Friends
Need help coming up with ideas? Have a plan but need guidance on how to make it happen? Talk with our marketing experts today about building a backlink and PR strategy that will boost your visibility and showcase you as an authority in your field.
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