{"id":144042,"date":"2022-08-17T07:58:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T07:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/?p=144042"},"modified":"2022-08-25T12:19:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T12:19:40","slug":"data-speaks-link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2022\/08\/17\/data-speaks-link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"Data speaks: Link relevancy trumps volume for SEO"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"well\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-144047\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-1024x273.jpg\" alt=\"Data speaks Link relevancy trumps volume for SEO\" width=\"640\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-1024x273.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-300x80.jpg 300w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-768x205.jpg 768w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-scaled.jpg 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>30-second summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Earned media coverage is more valuable than ever for your website<\/li>\n<li>Digital PR is just as important as technical SEO<\/li>\n<li>A large volume of links is the goal, what\u2019s stopping someone from picking the most newsworthy idea, even if it has nothing to do with your client?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>In 2022, it\u2019s impossible to deny the benefit that digital PR as a tactic has on an organic growth strategy. Earned media coverage is more valuable than ever for your website. You could be doing everything right for SEO, but if you&#8217;re not building links, you\u2019re still missing out on the increased search visibility, organic traffic, and brand awareness that backlinks bring to your business.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu\/status\/1352967238442229762?s=20&amp;t=uAa6NI_1uVD0SyvMhHWUCA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Mueller finally weighed in<\/a> on digital PR as a tactic and confirmed what we\u2019ve all known for a while now: that it\u2019s just as important \u2014 if not more \u2014 as technical SEO.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I love some of the things I see from digital pr, it&#39;s a shame it often gets bucketed with the spammy kind of link building. It&#39;s just as critical as tech SEO, probably more so in many cases.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; John \ud83e\uddc0 &#8230; \ud83e\uddc0 (@JohnMu) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu\/status\/1352967238442229762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 23, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>As digital PR is still a relatively \u201cyoung industry\u201d that\u2019s only just sprouted up in the past 10 years, many PR pros have relied on \u201cviral\u201d campaigns to boost the backlink portfolio of their clients. These viral campaigns are often celebrated but are often created with little regard to how relevant, or \u201con-brand\u201d those ideas really are.<\/p>\n<p>After all, if a large volume of links is the goal, what\u2019s stopping someone from picking the most newsworthy idea, even if it has nothing to do with your client?<\/p>\n<h2>In 2022, link volume is no longer the goal (or shouldn&#8217;t be)<\/h2>\n<p>While many PR pros\u2019 were evaluating their success around this one key metric (link volume) others in the industry have suspected for a while now that <strong>the relevance<\/strong> of linking coverage is a key factor Google looks at when assigning \u201cvalue\u201d to links.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu\/status\/1363518543413866498?s=20&amp;t=uAa6NI_1uVD0SyvMhHWUCA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Mueller has settled the debate<\/a> about link volume vs link relevance,\u00a0 coming out in 2021 and saying that \u2018the total number of links&#8217; doesn\u2019t matter at all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu\/status\/1363518543413866498?s=20&#038;t=uAa6NI_1uVD0SyvMhHWUCA\">https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu\/status\/1363518543413866498?s=20&amp;t=uAa6NI_1uVD0SyvMhHWUCA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This clarity has helped refocus the digital PR industry and forced PR pros to re-evaluate what metrics and KPIs we need to be focusing on to drive true organic growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s no longer enough to be \u2018popular\u2019 you also need to be relevant. <\/strong>Not just in terms of the publications you are targeting, but the keywords you want to rank for,\u00a0 audience interest, and most importantly, brand alignment to the story you are pitching in.<\/p>\n<p>Google is continuously looking to become more intelligent through its use of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It wants to understand web content as a human, and therefore through its use of natural language understanding, it is likely to not just be looking at the anchor text of links in third-party articles, but it is also wanting to understand the wider context of the article that a brand is placed in.<\/p>\n<h2>How to ensure your link-building activity is relevant to your brand<\/h2>\n<p>The first steps to coming up with relevant content ideas for your digital PR campaign are to:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\u00a0understand your client, and<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0understand your client\u2019s audience and their needs.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Every good idea will flow from these two pillars.<\/p>\n<p>If Google\u2019s main objective is to show the best content to users through search, then your job is to create content that either supports your client&#8217;s product or service or supports their customers.<\/p>\n<p>It is more important than ever to not only create relevant and on-brand content in the written form but also ensure that any supporting assets created (video, images, audio) are also relevant to the target keywords and services or products that the brand sells.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, it\u2019s important to create <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2020\/04\/27\/why-content-campaigns-need-to-be-surprising-to-earn-top-tier-press\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">content that engages people<\/a>, to drive further buzz and positive sentiment around the brand, all of which contribute to greater brand awareness and affinity among your potential customers.<\/p>\n<h2>How to measure the relevancy of your backlink profile<\/h2>\n<p>We now have the technology available to us to be able to understand and assign quantifiable metrics to the relevance of linking coverage (or indeed the relevance of any text-based content) &#8211; which allows us to be much more data-driven and targeted when developing digital PR, link creation activity and competitor and marketplace analysis.<\/p>\n<p>For example, natural language understanding tools like <a href=\"http:\/\/salient.journeyfurther.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Salient<\/a>, measure the relevancy of both off-page and on-page content. Tools like this help to understand how a search engine is viewing a brand\u2019s content, it not only enables us to identify the gaps in our client\u2019s backlink profile.<\/p>\n<p>At Journey Further, we use this proprietary tool to measure the relevancy of both off-page and on-page content for our clients.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-144045 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image2.png\" alt=\"Measuring the relevancy of your backlink profile\" width=\"870\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image2.png 870w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image2-300x207.png 300w, https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image2-768x529.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 870px) 100vw, 870px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We can use this tool to understand how a search engine is viewing a brand\u2019s content, it not only enables us to identify the gaps in our client\u2019s backlink profile but also aids us in optimizing its content on-site. The outcome of which &#8211; is a much more focused, effective, and measurable digital PR activity that is better aligned to SEO objectives and that delivers better ROI for clients.<\/p>\n<h2>Looking ahead to 2023<\/h2>\n<p>Looking ahead to 2023 and beyond, it\u2019s likely that <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2021\/03\/10\/is-google-moving-towards-greater-search-equity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google will only continue to develop better technology<\/a> to understand web content.<\/p>\n<p>All digital PR campaigns should reflect this, and where possible, be multi-faceted, not just relying on a single press release to get cut through. We need to be thinking as marketers, not just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.overthetopseo.com\/seo-services\/\">SEO services<\/a> practitioners, and ensure we are driving as much ROI as possible. Taking a brand plus performance approach to SEO and digital PR will therefore be key.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Beth Nunnington is the VP of Digital PR and Content Marketing at <a href=\"http:\/\/journeyfurther.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Journey Further<\/a>, leading Digital PR strategy for the world\u2019s leading brands. Her work has been featured in The Drum, PR Moment, and Prolific North. Find Beth on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BethNunnington\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@BethNunnington<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Subscribe to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/#newsletter-modal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Search Engine Watch newsletter<\/a><\/strong><strong>\u00a0for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Join the conversation with us on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/groups\/61126\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sewatch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High-quality, relevant coverage and links drive so much more than just SEO rankings and bring better ROI from your marketing budget<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":144047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[27849,27268,22,28083],"content_type":[],"class_list":["post-144042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo","tag-backlink-analysis","tag-digital-pr","tag-seo","tag-seo-and-pr"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":"Independent","tad_content_format":"Expert commentary"},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Data-speaks-Link-relevancy-trumps-volume-for-SEO-scaled.jpg","category":"SEO","timeago":"3y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144042"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=144042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}