What it is
Digital PR earns coverage and links by giving journalists something worth publishing. Original data, expert comment and stories drawn from what your business actually knows. For a company in a regulated market, it is the difference between authority you can defend and links you would have to hide from a compliance officer. For a local service business, it is how your name becomes familiar long before anyone picks up the phone. The work covers story development, pitching to real newsrooms, reactive commentary while a story is still alive, and reporting that lists every placement and what it returned. Placements are not guaranteed, because editors decide that. What is guaranteed is the quality of the stories, the discipline of the pitching and an honest list of what landed and what missed. The links that survive every algorithm update are the ones that were never about links.
Journalists do not care about your backlink profile. They care whether a story holds an audience for the ninety seconds it takes to read it. That is why most link building fails. It is written for an algorithm and sent to a human who deletes it unread. We work the other way round. The pitch answers a question the writer is already asking, and the link arrives as a consequence of doing the job properly. Coverage earned this way sends real referral traffic, gets read by buyers who would never click an advert and survives the next algorithm update because it was never built for one. The work is slower than a bulk order. It is also the version that keeps its value when the market changes.
Most of the stories are already inside your business. Your data, your customer questions, the things your experts say on sales calls that nobody has written down. We dig those out, test which ones a publication would actually run and shape them into campaigns, sometimes with commissioned research and sometimes with one clear chart built from numbers you already hold. The format follows the story, never the other way round. Then we pitch it to the writers who cover your sector at the moment the topic is live, which is the part most agencies leave to software and hope. Pitching by hand is slower than a mail-merge. It is also the part that works, because a newsroom can smell automation from the subject line.
Here is the honest part. Coverage that carries a story is proof. Coverage that carries only a price tag is a receipt, and search engines can read receipts. We do not promise a fixed number of placements, because that is an order form rather than a campaign. What we do is harder and it lasts. Stories worth publishing, pitched to people whose job is choosing, with the misses reported alongside the hits. In a regulated market that difference is not a detail. It is the entire job, and it is why we show you the pitches that failed as well as the ones that landed.
What we do
Story and data-led campaigns
The story is usually already inside your business. Your numbers, your customer questions, the opinions your experts give away on calls. We find the angle a publication wants, then build the asset around it. Surveys, original analysis, indexes and expert pieces, with every figure checked before it leaves the building and every source named beside it.
Journalist outreach
Pitches written for the person reading them. Short, specific and sent to the writers who actually cover your sector rather than blasted at ten thousand inboxes. We keep the contacts current, we follow up once and properly, and we take a no as an answer. Being useful to a newsroom is the whole strategy.
Reactive commentary
When a story breaks in your market, your experts can be quoted that day. We keep a bank of pre-cleared angles and statements so legal review is not the thing that loses the slot. Daily monitoring of the topics that matter means comments land while the story is still running, not after it has moved on.
Link and mention reporting
Every placement listed with its source, its link and the traffic it sent you. No multiplied reach figures, no impressions dressed up as impact. The report is short enough to read and specific enough to check, and it names the pitches that missed as well as the ones that landed, with the reason for each.
How we work
Audit
We review what you have said publicly, what the press covered in your market and where your data could carry a story. We also check the authority you already hold and the publications your buyers actually read before recommending anything at all.
Plan
A written campaign plan covering the stories worth telling, the outlets worth telling them to, the reactive topics worth watching and the pace of pitching. Compliance review is built in from the start rather than asked about at the end.
Build
Campaigns get made and pitched. Data gathered and checked, angles written, experts briefed and newsrooms contacted properly. Reactive opportunities are watched daily so your comment lands while the story is still alive rather than in next week's round-up.
Prove
A monthly list of every placement and link with the traffic beside it. Where something missed, we say why and what changes in the next campaign. The wins and the misses appear in the same document, which is the only kind of report worth reading.
What it costs
PR is scoped to the plan and priced before the first pitch goes out. What moves the number is how many campaigns we develop, how often you want to be in the press and whether original research sits behind the stories. Gathering and verifying data takes real time, so a research-led campaign costs more than a reactive programme. So does aiming at national titles rather than the trade press your buyers actually read. We will tell you honestly what your budget can buy, and we would rather build a smaller plan that runs properly than a large one that quietly stops in month three.
Who it is for
For regulated markets this is the only form of link building that survives a compliance review. iGaming operators, fintechs, healthcare providers and law firms all need coverage they can defend, with claims that are accurate and anything paid disclosed properly. For local service businesses it is how a name becomes familiar before the moment someone needs a plumber, a clinic or a solicitor. What these buyers share is simple. Trust is decided by who mentions you, and by whether those mentions would stand up in front of someone whose job is scepticism.
Two kinds of business come to us: local service businesses and companies in regulated markets. See everything in Be talked about.
Questions we get asked
What makes a link worth having?
One from a page your buyers actually read, in a story worth reading. Authority scores open the conversation, but relevance and the referral traffic that follows are what make a placement worth reporting. That is the kind we chase, and the kind we report when it lands.
How do you measure PR?
Placements, the authority of the pages that link to you, referral traffic and growth in branded searches. Reach figures on their own are vanity, so we do not report them as though they were results. We also show what did not land and why, because a report with no misses in it is a brochure. Over time the honest measure is whether the people you want to reach have seen your name beside something true, and whether your sales team notices the conversation starting further along than it used to.
What is digital PR and how is it different from link building?
Link building asks how to get a link. Digital PR asks what a journalist would genuinely publish, and the link arrives as a by-product of that. It is slower, harder to fake and the only version that still works after the next algorithm update. The destination looks the same from the outside. The way it is earned could not be more different, and buyers in regulated markets usually prefer the second approach for reasons that have nothing to do with search engines. One survives a compliance review. The other tends to start an argument with it.
How long does digital PR take to work?
Coverage can land within weeks of the first pitches going out. The authority effect builds over months and then keeps paying. Anyone offering a fixed number of links per month is describing a purchase rather than a campaign, and the useful question to ask them is what happens when the payments stop. Results depend on the strength of your stories and the competitiveness of your market. We commit to the pace, the standard and the reporting, and we leave the things nobody controls honestly alone rather than dressing them up as promises.
Do we need our own data for a campaign?
It helps. Original numbers are the thing a journalist cannot get anywhere else, which is exactly why they get used and cited. If you have none, we can commission research or work from public data with the sources cited properly, which is slower but perfectly respectable. What we will not do is dress an opinion up as a survey. That gets found out, and so does the brand behind it. There is usually more usable material inside your business than anyone expects. If the honest answer is that there is no story yet, we say that and wait rather than manufacturing one.
How much does digital PR cost?
It depends on how many campaigns run and whether research sits behind them. We scope the work and fix the price before the first pitch goes out. We do not quote a cost per link, because that number rewards the wrong work and quietly turns a campaign into an order for backlinks. A reactive programme costs less than a full campaign calendar, and trade press costs less than national titles. If your budget is smaller than the plan, we will say so and scale the plan instead. What you pay for is the thinking, the making and the pitching, and all three are visible in the reporting.
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Tell us what you need from digital pr. We will tell you what we would do about it.