How digital PR can benefit your SEO with Jenny Abouobaia
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Show notes
In this week's episode, Jack Chambers-Ward is joined by Jenny Abouobaia, SEO consultant of the year 2021 in the Middle East & North Africa. Jack and Jenny discuss all things digital PR including:
- The different types of link building
- How digital PR can boost your SEO and brand awareness
- Is digital PR more or less important than it was 5 years ago?
- How digital PR can increase your digital footprint and improve your EAT
Links:
Jenny's articles on digital PR:
- Digital PR: The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Brand Unmissable
- Ultimate Guide to Digital PR [2022] | Session Media
- What Are Backlinks: Why Linkbuilding Is So Important For SEO
Transcript
Intro:
Jack: Welcome to episode 36 of Season Two of the Search with Candour podcast. I am your host this week, Jack Chambers-Ward, and I am joined by Jenny Abouobaia, the SEO Consultant of the year 2021 for the Middle East and North Africa. Jenny is my very special guest this week and we will be diving into all things Digital PR, this week. It's something I had a lot of questions about and essentially we're going to talk about Jenny's career so far, her journey into Digital PR, and how Digital PR can benefit your SEO efforts. So, if like me, you're more of an SEO generalist and don't know much about Digital PR and want to learn a bit more, this is the podcast episode for you.
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How digital PR can benefit your SEO
And without any further ado, welcome to the show, Jenny Abouobaia. Hello.
Jenny: Hello. Lovely to be here.
Jack: How are you?
Jenny: I'm very good, thank you. How are you?
Jack: I'm all right, thank you. I appreciate you asking me back, that's always nice. Always the sign of an experienced podcast guest, right there.
Jenny: Well, that's it. I mean come on, you've got to ask how the host is doing. It's rude not to, wouldn't it?
Jack: You can tell you've done this before, mate. You can tell you've done this before. So. If the listeners don't know who you are, please do give a little quick intro and we'll dive into your career and history so far, before we get into the main topic of the show.
Jenny: Well, my name's Jenny Abouobaia. I have been an SEO for a number of years now. I'll not give it away too much because then I might be given away my age as well. So I'll talk about the fact that I did other things before I jumped into SEO. Basically started out as a writer, got into SEO through working on affiliate sites, and things like that so I'd understand how other things went along with the content. Just got really into it. Worked with clients for a number of years, worked specifically in affiliate for a number of years. Probably in the last year or so, I shifted all the more on the B2B, working with B2B and SMEs and things like this. As we're going to talk about today, I have a lot of experience working in Digital PR, specifically for SEO. That's pretty much me. I contribute to lots of SEO blogs, Deepcrawl, Ahrefs, things like that. So you can probably find me talking about how you can do Digital PR on one of those platforms as well. It's something I'm really passionate about. So that's me in a little elevator pitch there, I suppose.
Jack: It was really cool, because I sent out the tweet looking for new people on the show I've not talked to before, and all that kind of stuff. Specifically wanted to highlight people who are female identifying, or people of color, people in the LGBTQ community, all that kind of stuff. Had a lot of people, including some of the guests coming up and some of the guests I've already had on and you replied to me and I was like, "Yeah, I know exactly who you are. I've read some of your blog posts." I'd already read your own Ahrefs and stuff like that so I was like, "Excellent, that sounds good to me."
Jenny: So do you know what it is though, it's so funny, because it's weird, because I know I'm putting these things out and hopefully people do read them, but you think that people don't. You're just writing about something you know about and you like sharing the information. Many years ago I used to be a teacher, so I think I've still got that. It's deep rooted within us. I love doing webinars and sharing information and stuff, because I love teaching. I always forget it and I've had people say, "Oh yeah, I've seen what you've written on here or what you've written on there." Then I was like, "Oh really? Okay, that's cool." You forget that people are doing that and I'm like, "Oh, okay."
And it's funny when people actually reach out to you as well, they'll say, "Oh I just read your article on such and such." And you're like, "Did you? You must be the only one." I get a little bit excited still, but it's great to be able to come and have an actual chat rather than hiding behind an article or whatever, just being a face in the corner as the author. I'm a little bit of a chinwag about it.
Jack: Exactly. I will pre-warn you listeners, Jenny and I were just chatting, we've been chatting for about 20 minutes before we even started recording, so this may be a long one. I know I've said that a lot recently with a lot of the guests I've had on. We've had a few long episodes, but as a pre-warning, we are very chatty.
Jenny: You've got two people who can talk talking to each other, so that could be a long one.
Jack: Exactly.
Jenny: We'll try not to. I'll try and get to the point.
Jack: Exactly. Well should we dive into, as you said... Something you are really passionate about, we'll talk about some Digital PR. So you mentioned how you first got into Digital PR. What was that transition like for you? You said, coming from not working in SEO, and being more of the writer side of things... And then eventually working more in Digital PR and now again, like you said, transitioning more towards the consultancy side for businesses and things like that as well? That's quite a different section of your career there... So how has that transitioned?
Jenny: When I think about backwards. Well, I mean obviously I think you already know. I used to be a professional dancer and a choreographer, so I was going all over the world. And then when I had my daughter, I needed something that I could do online and somebody was like, "Oh, you can write and edit and stuff like this, they just need native English speakers." As part of my dance career, I had actually done my personal training qualification, so I was like, "Oh well, it makes sense to type and write for some fitness websites. Sure I could do that, that would be great."
So I actually had quite a bit of success doing that, built up some clients and people thought I was obviously doing an all right job, on the writing side. And fell into writing for one of the affiliate sites. So as part of that they were using that site, as a lot of us do, to test some different things, as things were changing and seeing what was working. And that actually drove my interest, because I was doing the writing side, but then I started doing... Writing the size for it, and content for outreach and things like that.
And once you know those things, it's like, "Oh okay, how does that side work then?" And that's where that kind of thing came from. Obviously as I got more into SEO, I was working a lot with affiliate sites and I think that's where my side as more of a strategist came from. Because, especially when you're working on an affiliate... Whether it be your own or... Even if you're working on a client base, a lot of the time, especially for me, I love working with people who are just building up a business. I love to help people. So for me, if I can work with someone who this is their side hustle, and give them some advice and things like that. I think it's one of those things where you've got to be able to look at how all the different parts go together, and that's where the strategy comes in. And to be honest, I think that's where the pay off side of things came in, because I was coming from a writing background. I'm now looking at different forms of link building and how we can do that, and how this is going to push these metrics and so on. And using that from a strategy point of view. And PR just fits into that really, really well in the sense of... Especially if you're doing PR, you've got to be able to come up with ideas that journalists are going to like, that's similar coming up with ideas for topics for your content and things like this, you're looking at different keywords as to... You're looking at different sites that maybe you want to target, what kind of things are in the media right now.
Hot topics, which is very similar to doing the content side of things. If you're coming up with new ideas for blog posts and things like that. You've got to be able to write well, for journalists who want to pick up what you're writing, essentially. And then you've also got the link building side of... You're trying to target certain websites, you're trying to target certain metrics that are going to move the needle on your side. So it all fits together quite nicely when you incorporate it with the SEO. So I think to be honest, that's probably what piqued my interest. I like learning different things all the time. I'm one of those people... Well, you can probably tell from the fact that I've had multiple careers in totally different things. I'm one of these people who is a bit of a forever learner. So kind of saying, doing my own tests and seeing how things work together and how I can expand that, and how it pushes the needle with maybe metrics that you didn't think it would... How all these things fit together, is just... It's a constant puzzle, which I think a lot of us as SEOs love. We love anything that we can do that's different, that-
Jack: A lot of problem solving stuff.
Jenny: ... how is this going to affect what I was doing. Would love it, so I think that's pretty much how I got into it, but... Look I... See, talking the hind legs off a donkey, I told you.
Jack: I guess we can start there and we're going to bounce around a bit and talk about a few different sides of Digital PR. But my main plan for this episode, but with what Jenny and I is... Talking about... If you are experienced in SEO or you're just starting an SEO, and you want to learn a bit more about Digital PR and how that connects to SEO specifically, and how that can bolster your efforts, whether that's... As you said, working on your own sites, working for clients, working in-house, whatever it is... Then we can discuss how those tie together and how Digital PR can support maybe your on page stuff, your other link building efforts, and all that stuff and tie it all together.
I guess should we start with... Where Digital PR is now in 2022? And my question to you, from your experience over the last few years is... Do you think it's more important now than it was two, three, five years ago? Or do you think it's plateaued a bit? And other things are coming through and emerging as more dynamic link building efforts? What's your, I guess the state of link building in 2022? Where is Digital PR now?
Jenny: I mean, I think so a 100%. I think if you look at something... When people think about Digital PR, into, as an SEO... Most people think about it as link building. Obviously we'll probably talk about that it doesn't just benefit your link building whatsoever... But it is a big part of it. When we talk about link building specifically, I mean we've said before, people talk about white hat, black hat... All of this malarkey. And it is the truest form of white hat, if you're going to use that term, in terms of what Google deems okay, to be able to get links. The only way really you should get links essentially is... If I'm writing an article about SEO and I want to quote something that you've said, then obviously I'm going to link back to you. This is essentially the white hat version of linking, which really when you think about is... Things like reactive PR and earned media.
That's exactly what that is. It's me as an expert giving a journalist a quote that they're not an expert in, that they're putting me as the source, and that's how we earn that link. So I mean obviously it's been used for a number of years now... When you think of something like Help A Reporter Out, or HARO as a platform. A lot of people have been using that for many years... I've been on HARO for years now. But especially if you think... I mean, what was it this time last year ish? We had a spam update from Google. So when you're thinking about the updates that we're having, a lot of... They've been to do with spam links, they've been to do with... Obviously we had the reviews update, we've had ones around E-A-T and all of that. So there is a focus on how people are being presented as experts in the content that they're putting out.
Essentially, whether I'm writing a review that's telling you, you should buy a product, or I'm giving you advice... Google wants to make sure that anything they're putting forward to their users is from an expert, who was being truthful, who was given factual information that someone's not going to take, and it's going to ruin their life in some way. So obviously to be able to use Digital PR, to be able to utilize it, to build those links to put yourself forward is... Yes, I am an expert, here's the proof, here's the digital footprint that shows that I'm an expert. This is not only white hat links and talking about the authority of the website you can earn those links from... But also, like I said, just being able to counteract future updates is the way I look at it.
I mean, when I look at trying to... When I look at Google updates and you always say, we've got a lot now we've just had the health of content, and then literally, yesterday or something that they're talking about releasing the September one. Just because they don't want to give us a break.
I mean, who needs a break? So why not pump out all these updates? A lot of times SEOs want to analyze what's already happened. For me, I would rather be ahead of what's going to happen, and I want to make sure that especially if I'm working with a client or even on my own website... You want make sure you're not hit by an update. So it's trying to preempt where are... Right, the ones that we've had... Where does it look like we're going with those? And honestly I genuinely believe, I've been saying this for a few years now, I genuinely believe at some point we're going to see an update like the Medic update where... Obviously we had the Medic update in... What? 2018 or something? Where all of these health sites were hit, because you had to be health site or whoever it would be, to be able to give that kind of advice.
You had to be a medical professional and all of this kind of stuff. I genuinely think we'll say that across all niches, not only just your money, your life. But if you're giving someone advice regardless of what that's on... Then you should be an expert and be able to give that advice. So you've got to start now, showing both your site users and search engines that you are an expert, and that is the best, for me, the best way to do it is to utilize Digital PR.
Jack: I think gathering authoritative links from authoritative sites is such a key point there as well. But something we touched on before we started recording is also brand awareness. It's not just the SEO element of that PR, right? PR before it was Digital PR was entirely about brand awareness and being-
Jenny: 100%.
Jack: ... more visible to potential customers. Whether that's footfall on interviewing people, or in a way I'm doing PR right now, interviewing you for a podcast and stuff. That's a form of PR as well-
Jenny: Exactly. Exactly.
Jack: And thinking about how that... I think a lot of people come at it from that maybe an old fashioned point of view, or as you said, come at it from a very SEO point of view, and forget that they're the same thing and it all works together in one big connection, if you will.
Jenny: Doesn't really matter which way you're looking at it. Whether your first focus is building your brand, yes 100% PR does that... And that's what we want, we want to build that brand awareness. But then you're going to have the secondary benefits of the SEO side of things. And similarly, if you're an SEO and you are like... I want it utilized as Digital PR, in order to boost my SEO effort... You're still going to get that brand building as a secondary benefit. They go together literally like peas and carrots, if you like. So you can't essentially have one without the other. And that's, I think, the beautiful thing about for us as SEOs, I mean what better can you do for your clients? Not only are you trying to hit those KPIs and using PR to boost that... But you're also getting the secondary benefit of... You're helping them build that brand, even if that's not necessarily your job or your role.
I mean everybody wants to be able to deliver as much as they can, especially for clients, if you're doing client work. You want to be able to get... You want to be able to build relationships with clients that are going to last for years, and if you can go above and beyond to do your job, and they're going to get secondary benefits on top of the SEO... That then work together and also boosts the SEO... That's how you're going to build that long-term relationship. And it's the same with site users as well. Site users, we all have our websites that will love that are our go to source of information on a certain topic. So obviously if you're building that brand awareness, and you're also building that authority and you're that top authority source within your niche... You're going to build that repeat traffic. You're going to have people coming back to your website, not only bringing in new traffic, you want to keep the traffic that you've got. Have those people coming back to your website and build new traffic, on top of that.
So it builds trust from both the user side of things to the search engine side of things. And like I say, especially if you're an SEO who works with clients, you're also building that trust with your client, because it is a lot of trust for someone. If I don't know anything and I want to build a business, even if it's a little side hustle business or whatever, and I really don't know SEO, there's so many people out there that are literally selling... Digital Del boys as I like to call them, selling their SOE services out the boot of their virtual car. So to me, if you can go above and beyond to do your job and help all of those different marketing channels work together, and boost the effort on all different sides, then that's going to build those relationships that last forever, essentially. There's just no way it doesn't work together, it doesn't help what you're doing as an SEO, essentially.
Jack: So tying into that, I think... One of the questions I'd written down earlier and I was thinking about, I think there's a few different ways to come at it from a strategic point of view. And like you said, they work together so well... Do you think Digital PR... Say you're working on a campaign for a client, and you also know that they've got some on page SEO work happening so they're updating a particular... Say they want to expand a particular product range, or one of the services they provide, is going to be their focus for their business. So that's the KPI we need to drive... More inquiries for this particular service or more revenue from this range of products or whatever it is.
Do you think there is value in there to really focus in and have the Digital PR, and the on page stuff all happening at once in the same place? Or should you wait for the on page stuff to happen first... Say, if you're creating new content or whatever it is? And then do the PR afterwards?
Jenny: Yeah.
Jack: Is there a balance there? Should you target other parts of the site to make sure they're still all signal dancing? Thinking about it from that... Like you said long-term strategy, right? That's coming at it from that point of view.
Jenny: Well that's the thing it is it about thinking long-term. Even when talk to clients or anything like this, if I'm thinking of strategy, I always think of the SEO in the same way as you would think of putting... If you are building a business, you're going to say where do you want to be in three years? Where do you want to be in five years? And I think of SEO like that as well, when I look at a website. And so I'm not just thinking about right now thinking about... What's your goal going to be long-term, once we'll do this, what's going to be next? What's going to be next? And then I can have it in the back of my mind, right... This is how we're going to lay things out. Now the best thing to do from a Digital PR perspective is, for me anyway, is to be running usually two separate goals at the same time.
So all of the time, whether it be utilizing Digital Reactive PR, that earned media side of things. Like HARO and Terkel and all of that kind of stuff. You want to be building up the overall authority of both the website and the people behind it. So usually that can be the CEO, can be the founder, can be the Marketing Manager, whoever you want. You want to be getting a digital footprint for those all of the time, because that's always going to help you. Both from the search engine perspective, but also from the user perspective, because, obviously if I google a company, I expect their website to come up top, but I don't necessarily expect the next one to be Forbes and the next one to be The Telegraph. So that builds that trust that way, and that's what you want to be doing in the background all the time.
Then on top of that you can be doing your very specific PR campaigns based around that individual KPI. So like you say, obviously, if we'll want to target a new product range or something like that... It does... I'm going to use the SEO term. It depends, essentially on what that kind of is... If it is a case of you're going to put new content together, then you might want to utilize press releases and things like that afterwards... Being like, "Oh look, we've just launched this, here's a press release about it." Kind of thing. Or if it is something like products or something like this where you want to build the buzz as they're coming out... Then you might want to do a proactive campaign or some news jacking or something like this, at the same time. So it just very much depends on obviously what it is exactly that you're doing, in terms of your timing. But like I say, obviously if you're launching something, usually you do the launch and then maybe you'll do the PR afterwards. But if you're taking something like I say... A product line or something like this that's going to come out over a period of time, you can do that in synergy. And do those things together, so you're building that buzz as it's happening... It's building a little bit of anticipation. So depending on what it is that you're actually launching, you can be doing... You can figure out whether it's something you want to build anticipation around, or you want to use the PR to announce essentially, that this has happened to that, here we are. But for me, always having that underlying and continuous growth of the reactive side as well, is massively important, because just like the PR is boosting the SEO, the different types of PR are helping boost each other, on top of that as well.
So that's the way I would normally go about it, is that we've always got to have that base strategy of what we're trying to do... Reach any opportunity we can, to say this person who runs this company is fantastic, they're so knowledgeable, they're the expert... And that could be different people as well, I think that's why people fall down a lot of the time when they all do things like reactive PR... Is that they will just focus on having a face of the company if you like. So that might be the CEO. But actually if you are looking for expert commentary, you can be... If you've got a business, you might have a social media manager, you might have an HR manager and they can give expert commentary in their particular area of expertise. Doesn't just have to be the founder. The founder can talk about business, can talk about entrepreneurship, as well as obviously talk about the niche itself.
But then like I say, you can have... Especially with a lot of the businesses today, online business. Maybe you've got your Editor, who is the person who gets their hands so deep in the content, and they're the expert voice on your website, on your blog. They can speak very niche specific about the topic that they're talking about, and like I say, you can have... Now, there's a Marketing Manager, an HR Manager, who can jump in and do that commentary as well. So you're having that whole rounded... Because at the end of the day, I think in this day and age, websites can't just be faceless entities anymore... Businesses-
Jack: I agree.
Jenny: ... even just purely online businesses, they can't just be faceless entities. We have to have... People want to know who's behind it. Is it a real business? Is there really people working there? I think being able to do that, is continuously building it's the domain authority, topical authority, authority in a sense that people are... Got that expertise to speak on a topic... And then like I say, then you can use very targeted campaigns to work on... You want your product project launched? Or you want to announce something new in the business, then they can work side by side.
Jack: I was talking to Alex Hickson about breaking out of your brand bubble and like you said... Not getting stuck in that element of just, "Oh only the Marketing Manager can answer the questions, don't bother the HR manager, don't talk to the CEO." Actually no, if there is a business opportunity, like you said, the CEO or the founder of the company could have something interesting to say from a business perspective, that maybe the Marketing Manager might not have that, relevant to that topic.
And something else I also talked about with Olga from SEOSLY, again episode out in a couple of weeks, I'm recording a lot this week listeners, so it might be all over the place! But talking about how her transition to being CEO and founder of SEOSLY and putting her face on her website and being the face of SEOSLY and coming from working in agency stuff, you don't tend to have that outside of... As you said, the about page, maybe you'll see the meet the team page or something like that... But suddenly, "Hello, I am an SEO consultant and you have the exact same thing on seowithjenny.com right? You have your face there, this is who I am.
As much as it is building that authority, it's also welcoming to new users. You land on a page and it's not just a blank logo and all kinds of stuff and SEO with Jenny... Who's Jenny? Straight away, you go on your website, everybody will know straight away who you are, what you do, your experience, all that stuff. And I think that becomes such a big part of brand building that then also turns into that building that authority. You suddenly... I don't know... See somebody around, you're flicking through your news on your phone in the morning, it's like, "Oh yeah I do. That's the HR Manager from that company. Oh, that's the Marketing Manager from that company, the CEO of that company and, oh, they've got a little link in there as well, there you go." That's how those two things are merging together.
Jenny: Do you know what it is? I think it's a lot of big... Especially bigger companies as well, do have a large team and they have managers for each department and teams under those managers... They don't really think about that in light... In the last year I've worked with a lot of, even more SEO specific companies that are... To have clients and things like this, to build up their own PR as well as offer PR as a service, and consultants on that. There was one company I was working with specifically, and that was something that I talked about was the fact that they had a very good brand presence, but it was all CEO founder, CEO founder. But here's the thing... When their clients come to them, they don't work with the CEO founder. The CEO or the founder. They work with the link building manager or the content manager or the head of SEO or whatever... And you need to let those people also have a presence, and let those people also be able to share their expertise.
Because if I've seen this company everywhere, it looks great, I really want to work with them, fantastic. Okay, now he has such and such who we've never heard of, you can lose that trust instantly. Do you know what I mean? Where, if it's a case of... Oh yeah, well the CEO founder has got his own podcasts and they've got fantastic presence, but also who's been on that podcast... Well the head of SEO... Oh, you're going to work with the head of SEO? I know who they are, I've heard them speak and well they've clearly got great experience. I feel comfortable now. You know what I mean? You've got to think of it in that way as well as your potential clients, the people that you want to target. And I think a lot of people fall down with Digital PR specifically, especially when they're all using it for SEO, because I think as SEO we get caught with a lot of metrics, and a lot of the time people focus on the wrong metrics.
It's the problem... Especially when you think of it in terms of link building. I can't tell you the amount of people that, when you just want, sometimes just want to put your head in your hands and you're just like, "Oh, no." Because you'll have people who would say I want to use digital payoff or just for link building, and I want websites that are on your DR 60 plus, and all do follow links, and you're just like... You don't really understand the value of what you're getting, and they're so focused on these vanity metrics, and what somebody on a YouTube video somewhere has told them their vanity metrics will do on their websites. Rather than-
Jack: Here's 15 SEO tips you didn't know.
Jenny: You know what I mean.
Jack: All the load of rubbish you see on TikTok and stuff like that, God.
Jenny: All of this kind of stuff and its people get it stuck in their head, because... With the best intentions because they want to do well, and they're trying to have a little bit of involvement in what they're getting. So you do have people come to you, they're like, "This is what I want." And it's trying to make people understand that, that's not the important side. When you think about it, if... I've had people literally say, "Oh I wouldn't want a link on Forbes, if it's a NoFollow. And you're just like, "Oh mate, come on, man." Do you know what I mean? It's one of those things where, to me, people don't get it. For example, if you've got... Say you've got a cybersecurity company and you're wanting JUICE, it's like a SAS brand and you want to do cybersecurity, for big name brands, out there. The people you're targeting are the CEOs, the founders, the C-suite level, employees. Getting the link on cybersecurityweekly.com, that might be DR 62 on Ahrefs has... No, 326 hits a button, because it's a dual follow up, it's not going to do the same for you. Not only from in terms of building the authority of your website is getting a link on Forbes, or Business Insider or dot com is a NoFollow, which by the way is going to have significantly more clout, than the little ones from cybersecurity weekly. But also gets you in front of the right people. Those are the publications that the CEOs, the C-suite levels, are going to be reading. It's about... I think people get caught up in presenting the wrong people sometimes... Like I say, only focusing on the top level person and not people who are actually going to be dealing with their ideal customers, every day. But also things like topic relevance rather than being relevant to your audience. Certainly in SEO we are very heavy on, we want topic relevance, we want Google to understand what our website's about and yes that is the case... But at the same time you can drive topic relevance without being on a very niche specific site, in terms of getting a link from there. I could be talking about SEO on Forbes. I don't need to look at... And to me if it's a website that I don't need to look at the Ahrefs, to know that it's got a high authority. Those are the kind of sites you want links from no matter what. You don't-
Jack: Is it a household name you've heard of straight away? Probably good to have a link from it.
Jenny: 100%. I don't need to think, "Oh let's go to Ahrefs and see what DR Forbes has got. It's one of those things where getting caught up in the wrong metrics is going to put you off on the wrong foot, straight away. And I think that's where a lot of people slip up, especially when they are using pay offer, SEO. And a lot of the time that's probably why they don't have longevity and success, because it's like anything in SEO, people tend to give up if it doesn't show results. But if you've got the wrong metrics and things like that that you're focusing on, you're not going to get the results you need, and you're not really going to see how much you can literally skyrocket what you're doing on the SEO side. Just by getting the right link from the right website, that is putting you in front of the right people.
Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what your business is, 99.9% of the time, the KPIs, whether it be from a client or for your own business... The KPIs have got something to do with leads in sales. That's the end result. We all want leads, we all want sales, that's the end of it. So what is the point in getting a link to a certain metric site, with no traffic that... All right it might boost your... Might boost your DR on the interest, by one point, for example. Or getting a link on something that makes everybody sad and go, "Oh, haven't heard of them before... Who are they?" And suddenly starts driving traffic to your website, suddenly starts getting the inquiries through. Do you know, even if those leads don't turn into sales, but that has significantly more value than a certain metric that someone said once, "We'll do so fabulous for your website."
Jack: I think there's a counter side to that as well. Like you said, you get people who get stuck into that DR, I don't want anything less than a 60, there's no point, pointless. But on the other side of that, maybe there are some incredibly specific things where it is the right audience for you, and you would get an engaged audience who... Say you get 500 people coming from, like you said, cybersecurity weekly or whatever it is, and you get 10,000 coming from Forbes. But maybe for you and your specific niche, cybersecurity weekly is exactly the right thing, and you could actually potentially get more conversions, more customers from there. So it's balancing that, right?
Jenny: That's the thing. 100%.
Jack: That's why you don't want to just lean on one metric or another. It's understanding everything in context and how it all works together and the relationship between the growing of the SEO, the PR, and like you said... We're all here to make money at the end of the day, we're in computer marketing whether it's digital marketing or not, at the end of the day it's marketing, and we're here to help our sites, or our client sites or whatever it is, make more money.
Jenny: Well that's the thing, I mean to me, I say to people all aside, even when it comes to traffic, if that traffic doesn't give you any result, it's still a vanity metric. I can get a million people coming to my website every month... If I don't get one lead, it's not qualified.
If it doesn't convert anything then it's just, "Oh look I got a million traffic last month." "Great, how many sales did you get?" "None." Oh, well it's not qualified traffic then it's not, it's still a vanity metric. So that tends to be the issue, is people focusing on vanity metrics as I like to call them, and like I say... That can be anything if it doesn't give me the end result that it needs. Like you say, you could get a link on a fantastic site, but if it's not going to drive qualified traffic, then maybe that smaller site... It is going to be better for you, because if 100% of those leads convert, versus having 10,000 leads where one converts, then that makes the difference.
So it's being able to look at all of those things like you say, and trying to use that as a strategy is right.... What you would do here, for... And there's so many different things. I mean we're talking about link building, but there are so many different ways that it works for SEO. So, what you would do to target this particular thing that we want to boost our incomes here in, to target the link side of things that we want it boosted... And all of that. It's being able to look at it from a bird's eye view if you like, and see-
Jack: The bigger picture, right?
Jenny: ... where can it benefit those different things that are going to really hit those KPIs, if you like.
Jack: Yeah, definitely. So we've touched on a couple of different techniques and variations there, so let's dive into them in a little bit more detail. You mentioned HARO and that stuff and the more reactive things. How would you approach building a strategy for a client? Let's say we're working with a new client and they've come to you for a Digital PR strategy, and to help them build these things. Would you have those reactive stuff bubbling away in the background? While you're working on a bigger long-term campaign? Can those things work together simultaneously? Or would you tend to focus on one certain reaction, or then shift over the next month or in the next six months to work on a longer campaign? What's the strategy from your perspective there?
Jenny: Usually for me, and I mean obviously this would depend on the size of your client and how well established they are and all the rest of it.
Jack: Of course.
Jenny: For me specifically I tend to work with usually younger sites, so people who are just building their businesses up, they don't have a brand presence and things like this. So for me what we tend to do is, there's always reactive stuff going on. From the get go, from the very beginning and with that reactive stuff as well... Like I said before, this is not just CEO or founder. So I need at least four people that would input forward for different things. We want here a HR Manager, we want your Chief Operating Officer, a Marketing Manager as well as your CEO founder. So CEO and founder, they're going to target everything from business queries, entrepreneurship, how you're starting businesses, all of that kind of thing. We're going to have a Marketing Manager who's going to talk about... Hit anything that's market related essentially, but there's lots of queries all the time about how you can use social media for your business and all of this kind of thing. We'll usually have a Chief Operating set up to do very niche specific. So if they're looking for something that they have expertise in... And then like I said, an HR or someone who can give comments beyond... Especially in the last couple of years there's been loads of stuff around remote working, and how you deal with your staff. How you can make your staff feel inclusive even in a remote or hybrid environment. And we want to be able to target as much as we possibly can to build up, like I said, the authority of the brand itself, but also the people behind it, to give that whole kind of sphere there. And then alongside that we usually look at some proactive campaign usually on a 90 day basis. So a lot of the ones that I do, tend to be very data driven. So I might do... I did one recently for a client that was in the HR niche actually, and we come up with the idea of... Right, since Covid, since everybody's applying for jobs online, a lot of those interviews are via Zoom, and things like this. It's very different to how it used to be. Are people lying on their CV? Because I was like, "Well, I'm sure, very sure, people are lying." Because a lot of people lost their jobs and they had to suddenly find other work that... Maybe they'd worked in Morrison's for 35 years and it's... Now I need to do something. But all I've ever done is work in Morrison's for 35 years. So how am I going to get a job today, in an office environment for example, online and things like this. So, that was my thinking around it. So did a big... In the UK specifically... Did a big poll on it, with Pollfish, over 2000 people and it was actually really astounding to find... That we found results of lots of people had been lying on their CVs, specifically to boost that experience because they didn't have experience in other things. A lot of those people still had the job and had never been caught out and things like this. So we built two campaigns around that. We built... We did basically a full piece of content on the results with a nice lovely infographic breaking down the data sets, and things like this. And then we ran two campaigns. So we ran them from... One from the employee perspective, and one from the employer's perspective.
Jack: Oh, nice.
Jenny: So as an employer, as the HR department or whatever... What should you be doing to increase your checks and things like this is you're-
Jack: Keep an eye out for that sort of thing.
Jenny: ... going through. Because obviously, especially in the UK, hiring people is expensive, if you're a company. So can lose money by hiring the wrong people. So we've done this poll, we've found out people are lying. What additional checks can you be making if you're doing these things remotely? But then also from the employees perspective... Are we really faking it until we make it? Apparently we are. So we're able to run those two different campaigns and target totally different media outlets by running those two different campaigns. And those campaigns got picked up naturally by sites like Yahoo, MSN, as well as some of the big HR websites, and things like this. As well as some of the local news sites like Telegraph and Metro and things like that. So being able to come up with campaigns that you can have maybe a dual perspective on, is really good, and it does take a little bit longer. Like I say, you tend to run one of those, maybe every 90 days. By the time you're coming up with the idea and you're putting everything together, you're running the poll, you're collecting that data in, you're coming up with the headlines, you're putting together your content around that, and then you're putting out press releases, and you're reaching out to different media outlets to share it. Things like this, it does take a little bit more time. So, usually doing those kind of ones and then like I say... Having that reactive and media side of things bubbling away all the time is really complimentary, and it means that something's always going on. You're always getting links from different places, you're always being featured so you know you're popping up left, right and center with a digital footprint.
Jack: I think that's an interesting thing to have that bubbling away, because I often feel so many people... The example I gave in the beginning, I guessed where you were going to go with it or always have that bubbling away in the background. But I think a lot of people, as we say, focus on one thing and then suddenly switch over to one thing like... I've done my initial SEO technical stuff, and that's all cleared up on the site. Now I move on to linked building for six months and then I'll move on to one page stuff. And the same is true even within that link building side of it where, I think you'll get some people who really focus on that reactive stuff so they just answer HARO and Terkel, and all that stuff but don't actually build those long-term campaigns. And then you get the other side where people build long-term campaigns but then ignore HARO and all that other stuff as well. So I think it's a really good idea to tackle it from both sides. And as you said, you are always then at the forefront, whether that's from smaller sites, bigger sites, whatever it is, you're getting that consistent basis coming through. Again, if you are measuring KPIs and stuff, it's like, "Oh how many links have you built for me this week?" To your client, and all that kind of stuff. There's always numbers behind it.
Jenny: Well this is the thing with the reactives that I think a lot of people don't think about as well, is the fact that... If I'm doing reactive PR for a client, I tell them first and foremost, don't expect to see anything for six to eight weeks. Because what you've got to remember is, if you're using a platform like Terkel or HARO or any of the other ones that are out there, be they're paid or free... You've got to remember if I'm a journalist, I'm putting that in now, I'm going to give a deadline of when I can get all of these query responses. I've then got to sift through all of those, which I mean are hundreds of thousands probably.
Jack: I really don't envy journalists on the end of these things.
Jenny: I don't at all. So you've got to get through all of those to find... And to be honest, the easiest, especially HARO, it's so saturated. They must have to wade through so much crap to... It's literally a needle in a haystack. So got to get through all of those, then it's got to get on the content calendar, they've got to get it written out, and then once it's written, it'll be edited and then it'll go into a publication line. So it's quite easy two months before the query answered, is actually published. I mean I literally had one published today that I wrote in May. It's easily done, and when you've been doing this a long time, you do... I mean what I did over the years and I've got friends who do PR who've done the same thing, and we help each other out so often, we've built up data bases. So we've got databases of the websites, who the journalist is. What's the turnaround time? Because you do have some that are quick wins, they're going to bash them out like this... I want the response by Friday, it's going to be on the website by Monday, this kind of thing. You have the ones that take months and months cause they're doing their content calendars way in advance. And you build up that kind of database like that. It does help you to navigate where you can have your quick wins. So if you've got a new plan, you might want to put in a couple of those quick wins, just to show them you're getting some results back. Because obviously, you're wanting to build those one with longevity as well, and when you're doing that, you can use something like Ahrefs, they'll be taking out the traffic. They'll be making sure that they don't look dodgy, they don't have dodgy backing profiles, because pretty much anybody can post on HARO.
I could post on HARO tomorrow, that I'm looking for people and that. I can write anything up. You'll get cheeky ones, little cheeky so and so's that'll put on a query and you'll spend your time and they'll say... Got 10 questions for you. Can you answer these next please? You'll spend a good hour putting these questions together and you'll not even get a... You'll not get mentioned. They'll just use that to write their heart out. So you've got to take your time, you've got to remember these things happen as well. And even the best of all, the people have been at this for years. I mean the highest turnaround rate I've had is about one in three, one in four. So I'm having... I have to send four pitches to get one win. So you have to have it bubbling away all of the time. I've seen too many people over the years where they've done... They've wanted HARO done on their website and they've let it go for a month.
Oh, well I didn't get any offers, they come back to you within two months, "Oh well I had 12 links come up after that, on really good website." So you have to take all of those things into consideration that if you are doing it and you really do want to get those results of really being able to access some of the biggest websites, with some of the highest authority within your niche, within a business nation. Things like that, you have to put that effort in all the time. It has to have longevity, because it's not something you can do for two months and expect to get great results. I mean, you might get results, you might get the odd one, but the good thing about utilizing the earned media side of things is... Especially now, this is a bit of an insider tip I suppose, but now HARO especially, is very, very saturated.
You've got lots of companies in India and places like this, where... Putting out a hundred pitches a day, doesn't matter, it's relevant, it's not relevant. Now imagine being a journalist, for that. So journalists are trying to find their own sources through those means. And I honestly think that Coral will either go to being something that is paid... It's not going to be free anymore, or it'll die a death. Because journalists don't want to be just hammered with pitches that are totally not relevant, so you need to make sure... A, that your pitches are relevant, you're only pitching things, don't just fling stuff at a wall and see what sticks. Really take your time to pitch things that you think you can win, because you are the expert on that. Because journalists are blacklisting people... If they get... You've got to think... A lot of these journalists work from maybe three, four publications then not just for one.
So if they see my name come up six times for different queries and none of them is relevant, they're just going to say, "Thank you so much, I don't want to hear from you again." So I'm going to miss out on that opportunity when something does come up that is relevant. And at the same time... I had one today that pitched for WebMD, the journalist came back and now they've said to me, "Can I just come directly to you from now on?"
Jack: Oh, wow.
Jenny: And that's a big website. So they're trying to filter in that way, because it's so much easier for journalists to use HARO or whatever for a couple of months. Find these people who are really relevant, are genuine experts, can answer the questions that they're putting out there and just say, "Do you know what it is? Those answers were great, can I just come back to you again next time when I've got something?" So it's definitely worth sticking in there for the long game because if you do, the chances are... I mean I've got a friend, I'll not say what Nisha said, but she's been working for a client for quite a while now and she's literally built hers up to the point where, because it is very niche specific, she went after all those really niche specific ones on really big websites, and now she doesn't even have to use HARO or anything, she's spending her time literally just responding to the journalists that are coming directly to her.
Jack: Wow.
Jenny: So, that makes all the difference. Yes, you've got to put the time in to do that. You've got to spend the time pitching the right journalist, pitching the right queries, being able to portray yourself as an expert. And a lot of the time now, especially in HARO, you'll find those ones are ones where the journalists will say, "I want you to answer 10 questions." Because I tell you what. So someone in India who's taking 20 cents a pitch is not going to spend that time, spend an hour responding to something that's 10 questions. So this is the way that journalists can try and filter people out who aren't relevant, who are working as an agency or whatever, if you like. Another way they're doing it is they're putting the queries in the morning edition and saying they need them answered by the end of the day, that day. Because they know people on the other side of the world are probably asleep at that time. So by the time they get it, they're not actually going to, they won't have time to respond. So you've got to look outside these little tricks that the journalists are trying to do to filter out irrelevant responses. Which, I don't blame them one iota-
Jack: No, not at all.
Jenny: ... because I tell you what... Oh my goodness, I can't imagine having... I mean it's just so... I can't imagine anything more frustrating when I open every... Not relevant. And you can easily spend a good few hours opening responses that not one of them has been relevant.
Not one of them has been worth putting in their article, which just must be incredibly frustrating. So it is worth doing the long game essentially, but just be careful how you do it, do it the right way. Like I say, don't try and pitch everything. Make sure you've got different people... Personas of people who you can pitch for, like I say, who are relevant. And then only go for the things that you think are winnable. If I spend an hour answering these 10 questions, is it likely that that's going to get used? If the answer is yes, go for it 100%. And like I say, if the journalist loves it, they're likely to come back in and say, "Hi, that was great, would you mind responding to something else? I'll just reach out to you directly?" "I'd love to, flower, no problem." Do you know what I mean?
So it is really worth it, because you just never know what you're going to get. I mean I've had once recently on things like Zapier and stuff like that, working off of HARO. There's a few different platforms I think that are coming out of the woodwork, I think people are realizing that HARO is a bit oversaturated. And I think that's... I don't know if that's where Terkel came from, but Terkel is one of those alternatives that does have different queries, it's not just pulling them from HARO. And you're getting journalists saying, "Right, well maybe I'll try this one, because maybe I'm not going to get bombarded. So I'll try putting it on here instead and you can get fantastic ones. One I've been working with is a little exclusive, it's called Help A B2B Writer, 300% comes to your email every day.
And these are B2B businesses, genuine businesses that want CEOs, founders, experts from other businesses, to comment for their blog and things like that.
Jack: Right.
Jenny: So you are getting really big name websites a big... You've got things like monday.com posting on there, and say Zapier has... And those kinds of websites, which, if you're a SAS brand for example, and you get a link on oneday.com, as long as your SAS isn't essentially competing with theirs, it's hugely relevant and it's hugely a big authority website. So it's one of those things where, like I say... You can do so well with it, but you have to go about it the right way and you really do have to be in for the long game. And sometimes, especially if you're working with clients, being able to convince them of that, is not always the easiest thing in the world, because like most things in life these days, people like instant gratification. So if someone's paying you money to do a job that they're not seeing results for the first two months, that can be difficult to get over where the benefit is.
Jack: Story of SEO, right?
Jenny: Yeah, essentially. At least I think obviously when you're looking at any other part of SEO, if you're doing an audit, you can show them what you've done from the audit and you've got reports and we've got tools nowadays. That at least tends... They can show whether you've had an increase in traffic or even if it's marginal to show that you are getting some optics somewhere. Where obviously with reactive PR it can be difficult, but it's definitely worth it when you can turn round a client go “Right... I'm just getting you as a go to expert on WebMD” for example. They're going to be happy with that, at the end of it... Or I've just had you featured on entrepreneur.com or whatever.
Those are the things that they couldn't have done themselves. So it is definitely worth it. Especially from the link building side. Unless you're willing to pay through the nose, but someone give you a guest host or whatever on one of those websites. You're not really naturally going to obtain those links, unless it's through some form of Digital PR or whether that be a proactive campaign that really takes off, and goes viral or whatever. Or from the reactive side. There's just no way you can replicate that other than using those methods in a more traditional link building sense, if you like.
Jack: That perfectly leads on to my next question. Which was about the different types of link building techniques. You mentioned doing guest posting there and how that, it differs to Digital PR. So the ones I made a note of in my show host eye, that I thought of where different examples, so thinking of things like unlinked mentions, reciprocal links, having a look at competitor gap analysis and stuff like that. How much of that goes into the planning of Digital PR? And what do you think were the advantages and disadvantages are there for... You mentioned straight away you're more likely to get those into a higher authority publication, without having to pay through the nose for a guest post, by doing it through Digital PR, and coming through that way. So what do you think are some of the common advantages and disadvantages for those different types compared to Digital PR?
Jenny: I mean to be honest, Digital PR now, is really broad and should be shoulder to shoulder with... I mean we used to say that because a lot of the reactive stuff, for example, previously, especially if you're doing it through HARO, you would only build links to the root domain. So you'd only build links to the home page of the website. You wouldn't be able to build links to specific pages, which... That's where your niche or that's your guest post and things like this would comment. But now, because there's so many different platforms that do compete with HARO and especially in the paid platforms as well... Which, a lot of them aren't huge costs. I mean there's a one that I use specifically for link building called Pressbooks, which is about 40 quid a month or something like this. It's not a huge cost, but those ones you can actually link to individual pages. You just tell them what link you want to put on there, so that might be to your about page, it might be if you're looking specifically to boost the authority of your staff and things like that. Or it can be to specific pages you're looking to boost, domain authority and things like that, a specific page. So in that sense, to be honest, most of the time now Digital PR is the only thing I do. I don't look to do guest posts or anything like that anymore. Just because there's just not the need, I can get better links... Other than the cost of your time and the effort that it takes to get those links, obviously that is a cost, but there's not, even if you're doing a guest post, you've got that side of it as well.
Jack: You still got to write it, you still got to research it. Exactly.
Jenny: You've got to do the research, you've got to do the outreach, you've got to do all of that, if you're doing it the right way. But then the webmaster is going to want an administration fee for their time of putting that on... Cough, cough, Google. And to be honest, that administration fee is going to be significantly high for the websites that you get through using Digital PR tactics where... So, to me... The thing is we can get a deeper conversation as well about the longevity of those links... Do those links live forever? And things like that, where if you are targeting the right sites or with Digital PR, you're going to get significantly more longevity from those links. You're not going to get link decay, that you're more likely to get with things like guest posts and stuff like this. To me it's overtaking and I think this is probably the argument where someone will say... I actually had this conversation with Craig Campbell when he was doing a live show the other week and I said, "Do you think Digital PR can overtake traditional link building?"
Because I'm biased and I genuinely think it will. But there is the argument of, if you're using reactive PR specifically... For example, you can only answer the queries that are there. It's not like a guest post, I can reach out to the website, that just jumps the topic that they don't already have or can negotiate having that guest post put on there... With reactive specifically, I can only answer the queries that are there. I can't make a journalist write something that makes sense. So if someone wants 50 links a month, for example... Are you going to be able to get it through those methods? Now if you use combined Digital PR, 100%, if that's your KPI that wants 50 links a month... Yes you can. And also if you're using an agency or you're a freelancer even that is doing this, you're really investing in doing this as part of your service, and you invest in those paid platforms. So you do have alternatives for HARO and stuff like this. Yes you can again. But again, it's also being able... I think in those terms, for me, it comes into being able to manage the expectations of the client. Because there is so much more value from the authority side, from the E-A-T, from the quality of the link, from the lack of link to key of an individual link I can get from Digital PR, versus getting 50 links from crappy guest posts. Do you know what I mean?
Jack: Yeah, definitely.
Jenny: It's if I've been able to both manage expectations and being able to educate the people you're working with as well, around why I'm doing this... What value it has and that yes... We need that longevity because you're not going to see those results immediately. But just like you would with any other part of SEO, with the technical, with the on page, have to be able to educate your clients and manage their expectations appropriately, to be able to get the best possible results.
And I think to be honest, this would go forward when, like I say, when we look at things... How well it boosts your E-A-T, because you know are building Expertise, Authority And Trust through gaining those links. Through the quality of the links that you're gaining. And when we look at the updates that we've had, to me it's going in the direction that, even if it doesn't wipe out traditional link all together, it's going to become more and more important in SEO to go forward. More and more people are going to have to get on the bandwagon and understand how the different parts of Digital PR work, and how they can utilize those for their SEOs or how they can boost that on page with a Digital PR campaign.
The off page, how they can really put a stamp on the E-A-T and all of this kind of thing. It just does so much for your SEO... And like I say, if you try and envision where Google updates are going to go, I can see it being a really core part of what SEO work, as SEO is being able to utilize that Digital PR, whether it be working simultaneously with an outside Digital PR team, or integrating it in your off page strategy, as a go to off page strategy.
Jack: I think you're totally right. I think with just the way Google is pointing with all of these recent updates, we've talked about E-A-T a lot. Previously on the show and a lot of this episode as well. And as we said, we've had helpful content update, we've had the spam updates, we've had project review updates, but the September core update this week, there's so much stuff and they're very clearly pointing towards, as you said, leaning towards this long-term longevity, building authority and expertise over longer periods of time. And I remember we talked about the Aira link building, the state of link building report, a few episodes ago. And it was a big consensus and a review across a lot of different agencies and a lot of different consultants and all that stuff. And I was surprised there was... I think nearly 50% of people said they were using guest posting, actively, as part of their strategy.
And I agree with you, again, I don't work in Digital PR, but from the people I know who do, whether that's on the Candour team or outside of Candour and people I know on Twitter or in person or whatever it is, I don't agree with you Jenny. I think Digital PR is very much going to be the one that sticks around. How HARO sticks around and stuff like that is a different question. But being able to build that authority, and being able to establish your name in your industry, just makes so much more sense. And even things like chasing unlinked mentions and all that kind of stuff, I've done that previously. Earlier in my SEO career and would spend hours and get absolutely nothing. Do you know what I mean? You get those, you put in so many, so much hours and so much effort, and get no links whatsoever. Whereas you could have spent that time researching, building a campaign, or even answering reactive PR questions that way, and gotten five times the links, 10 times the links and higher authority better, more interesting stuff there as well.
Jenny: I mean I think the best way to think about what it is... Would you have these conversations about white hat and gray hat all this malarkey... But can Google argue with it? Google can't argue with Digital PR, but we are taking those links. It can't argue that, that's not a genuine way to get in.
Jack: Providing genuine value to those users. Absolutely.
Jenny: Expert commentary, you've put yourself out there as an expert. And also when we think about E-A-T, I mean I think a lot of people don't really understand E-A-T that deeply-
Jack: Oh, definitely.
Jenny: ... we've got to remember that. Essentially E-A-T is just guidelines for the search quality rate and stuff. So those are real people, that if I'm ranked in top of Google for something... Somebody's just going to check that, is this right? Does this meet these guidelines? And they're real people. So again, if they look at me-
Jack: And their guidelines are updated recently as well, weren't they?
Jenny: Exactly. So it's whether it be those particular people, Google is an algorithm, is an entity, or real users or whatever. If you can put yourself out there with a digital footprint on genuine high authority websites as a go-to expert, nobody can argue with your expertise. I mean even when we're looking... Take an SEO as an example, I mean when I started writing for Ahrefs, I only did it initially because in total honesty, as a woman in SEO, I can't tell you the amount of times I've had someone come to me and-
Jack: Oh, God.
Jenny: ... say, "I'd like to work with you, but what I want you to do is... Basically Matt Diggity, he brought out this thing... Can you just do it exactly how he is? And they're not interested in hearing what you've got to say, as an SEO, as a strategist, nothing. And I mean, I love Matt Diggity, what he does and stuff like that. And probably what I would do, would probably be exactly the same as what he would do anyway. Do you know what I mean? It's just-
Jack: That's not the point.
Jenny: ... not the point. No, it's not. So that's the only reason I started doing it, because I just thought... Well, I could start a YouTube channel and tell everyone I'm fantastic, but that's just my opinion... Where, to me, if you are being featured by big name companies in your niche specifically, then that's that little bit of trust. It's that bit of authority that... Well, this person obviously thinks they're an expert, because they've let them write on their website or whatever. So it's exactly the same as that, regardless of what your business is, regardless of what niche you're working in, that is essentially what you're doing. You're allowing, because we all start as nobody, essentially. If you've got no digital footprint, even if you've worked in your industry for 50 years... If nobody's heard of you, you're still a nobody... The average Joe using the internet. So you've got to start somewhere and we have to have those big names that average Joe has heard of saying, "Oh, well this person's an expert and I featured them talking about this on my website." That's essentially what you're doing. And I think you've got to think of it in that way. And if you do think of it in that way, and like I say, you utilize these strategies... I mean, I still look at it as an SEO. I'm still going to do a gap analysis on that backlink.
Jack: Of course.
Jenny: I'm still going to look at, okay, if these are your competitors, even using DR as an example, what DR levels are these websites that are top ranking, real? Where are most of their links coming from? Are they all DR 70 plus? Right, well we're probably going to need a target those high level websites. We'll want a varied backlink profile. So we're going to look at different websites that we can target through Digital PR and things like this. You have to still have a strategy behind it as an SEO. In the same way you would with a guest post, not anything else. But it's just utilizing those different techniques, which undoubtedly over the years will probably evolve and change, like we say, might not be HARO anymore, might be something else, and whatever. But certainly going forward, I think in terms of getting the best possible links you can, that are doing the most for your website, not only in building your own domain authority, but building your authority as an expert and people behind your brand, building your brand, building E-A-T, it's just endless. And all of those things... When you're doing it consistently alongside a strong SEO strategy with your on page, your technical, you will see a massive boost. I can't tell you the amount of tests I've done where I've done the same thing. You can have two comparable websites that are in the same kind of position, same kind of age. You've got the same SEO strategy in terms of on page and technical, and even being in the same niche. I've done them in the same niche before. Using the same keywords, building different content, but targeting the same keywords and everything. And that the boost in KPIs in terms of traffic and all of that stuff on the websites that utilize Digital PR is massive. I mean, I've seen jumps in traffic of 127% in a month, just from a website that's starting to get that pickup from Digital PR, that's starting to get that boost. And you can look at all the different tests. I mean I'm sure Ahrefs and places like this have done tests on the amount of referral domains versus how much traffic and all of this kind of stuff.
But just as someone who does digital PR is a part of that strategy, naturally. I wouldn't think of doing an SEO strategy without including Digital PR or thought of it. I can tell you that you'd be surprised at how much background it does for SEO, and then you're not even thinking about the fact that it is building a brand. It is making those people behind the company known, and things like this. And I mean, I've had people reach out, I've been behind the persona of the CEO or whatever, and I've seen it where companies have started reaching out to the email of the CEO to go on podcasts to do this, because they've seen them mentioned on whatever website that's being very niche specific. Would love to get you on more podcasts and stuff like this. And then what you're doing, essentially, if you can build it up to that point where people are asking you for podcasts, they're coming to you rather than posting in HARO. They're coming directly to you.
You've set that little Digital PR train off... You're putting the work in to do the work for you, essentially. That's going to start rolling. And it's going to be a heck of a lot easier and you're going to get much better opportunities that are actually coming to you. You're attracting those opportunities by putting the work in initially. So I mean, who doesn't want that? I mean, if every SEO had websites like WebMD involving people like this, coming to them and saying, "Can I give you a link on my website?" You'd bite their arm off. Do you know what I mean?
Jack: That's the dream. Right?
Jenny: Exactly. Do you know what I mean? You can't go wrong in that sense. I don't know if I've just sold Digital PR to loads of SEOs there... But honestly that's... I'm too passionate about it, to be honest. I get on my soapbox. But no really, I mean who doesn't want to be able to do that for themselves or for their clients? And especially, I've worked with people... I've worked for years with affiliate sites and stuff like that, and when you think of someone who's starting an affiliate site, I mean I've worked with loads of people over COVID and I can't talk about the benefits of affiliate site enough to be honest. I love affiliate SEO, just in the fact that I believe anybody can do it. And when you look at something like COVID, I mean I met a guy who had been a dentist... Had his dentist practice shut down and started an affiliate website about dentistry. Do you know what I mean?
Jack: Right.
Jenny: You can build a business with your own expertise and you can do it over time. And yes, it might take a long time to do... But it doesn't have to cost you a fortune. Even if you know how to utilize these platforms or Digital PR, you can build yourself up as an expert.
You can utilize your own experience to write content. And yes, it might come to a point where you are starting to make money and it's going well and you can bring people in to do that. But I mean that's a dream in itself and gives people physical and financial freedom. So being able to have these strategies that can essentially... Not run themselves, you still have to be the strategist behind it, but if you ever be attracting opportunities to you, rather than... We've all been there, we've all been a junior level SEO who was chasing every website possible, because they have to get that link.
They have to meet that link deadline, and they have to get the amount of links that the client wants and stuff like that. We've all been that person or worked with that person. So if you can put yourself in a position where you are getting fantastic links for your clients that are really doing good things for the website, doing good things in terms of the E-A-T and the profile, and the expertise of the person behind the site and then they start coming to you on top of that... Who wouldn't want that as an SEO?
Jack: Absolutely. I think that wraps us up really nicely as well. Finishing off with the dream mission accomplished, right?
Jenny: The dream. Well that's it. It's literally, where do you go from there? But there's no reason why anybody can't do that as part of their SEO strategy. It's tied up with my point. And it's one of those things where there's lots of people who... I've seen lots... Especially, I've been part of Women in Tech SEO for a long time now, and I was one of the first people who joined in with their mentor and stuff like this. And I mean the girl that I mentored at the time was a junior level SEO, in an agency, now she's running her own agency. She's got people working for her-
Jack: Amazing.
Jenny: ... she speaks at BrightonSEO and there's just no reason why everybody can't do that. Do you know what I mean? There's no reason why. If that's your dream, if you were... I would rather work for myself and ads can work anywhere in the world. I mean I said to you when we started here, it's SEO... It's a hard job. It's a hard job mentally, a lot of work from home. We're not around people all the time. You've got somebody's business in your hands and decisions you make and literally make or break their business. So if you want to use that knowledge to build your own business, whether that be working with clients or something like an affiliate site, that can literally give you the physical freedom to work from anyway, to be able to have that balance to enjoy your life as well as have this high stress level... Why wouldn't you? Do you know what I mean? Why wouldn't you do it?
Jack: Definitely. Well there we go folks. That is a lot of information thrown at you about Digital PR. How it can benefit you and your SEO efforts. So Jenny, if people do want to get in contact with you? How can they best find you on the internet?
Jenny: Well you probably say I'm writing more things about Digital PR and all of that stuff on Ahrefs and Deepcrawl and places like this. You can also find me on Twitter, @SEOwithJenny. My website is SEO with Jenny. It's easy to remember. Anyway, SEO with Jenny.
Jack: I appreciate the brand, nice and straightforward.
Jenny: Why not? Well, do you know what it is though? Because obviously my surname is hard for a lot of people to pronounce, so I was... If I'm like jennyabouobaia.com, I wouldn't get... Jenny, how do you spell? I wonder how do you spell that?
Jack: You'd have to buy all of the domains, have all of the Us and the Os and the variants and stuff.
Jenny: Exactly. So it's just, I feel, Jenny's nice and simple, easy to remember. So that's me on Twitter, and my website and all the rest of it. If anyone wants to chat about Digital PR, I'll be happy to talk their ear off.
Jack: Excellent. Well links for that listeners, will be in the show notes at search.withcandour.co.uk. There'll be links to the articles we've talked about, whether that's Ahrefs, Deepcrawl, all the stuff Jenny's been writing. Links to the website and links to your Twitter as well. So head to the show notes and you'll find everything you need to know about Jenny Abouobaia. So thank you Jenny, for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure to have a chat and finally talk about some Digital PR and delve into the different ideas and different sides of it and all that kind of thing. So thank you very much for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Jenny: Yes, thank you for having us. It's been an absolutely lovely to talk about... like I say, I'm always happy to get on my soapbox and sell how much every essay you wanted to see to use Digital PR. So, no, it's been lovely and it's lovely to get to talk about it rather than just write about it and be a little face in the corner as the author. So yes, it's very nice.
Outro:
Jack: And that wraps us up for this week. Thank you once again to Jenny Abouobaia for joining me on the show. Absolute pleasure to learn a little bit more about Digital PR and how it can benefit our SEO efforts. So if you are interested and you do work in SEO or PBC and you'd like to come on the show, please do hit me up. Again, links for all of that are in the show notes as always. And next week's guest will be the one and only Luce Rawlings. You may recognize Luce's name because we've talked about her on the show before. She is in fact one of the Data Journalists over at SISTRIX as well as a freelance SEO consultant in her own right as well. We will be diving into a lot of very interesting data from SISTRIX with Luce's unique insight from being on the inside and working on the data journalism team.
And we'll also be talking about some career things for SEO as well. Basically how to carve out your career path in SEO, and it's going to be a very interesting conversation. So please do tune in next week for my chat with Luce Rawlings, all about carving out your SEO career path and a lot of interesting data from SISTRIX as well. Until then, thanks so much for listening and have a lovely week.