Search Engine Optimisation
Digital PR Link Building
One method within off-page SEO, and the one measured on links. Brand PR — narrative, relationships, share of voice — sits under digital marketing.
Digital PR earns editorial coverage that happens to link. The Nexclick develops stories and original data UK journalists have a reason to run, pitches them to relevant publications, and reports on links won rather than on placements attempted. It is the most expensive route to a link and the most durable.
Is this you?
What usually prompts the call
- You need authority links and everything on offer is a paid placement in disguise.
- Competitors get quoted in the trade press and you never do.
- You have interesting internal data and no idea whether anyone would cover it.
- A previous campaign got coverage on sites with no readers and no links.
What we do
The actual deliverables
Things that appear on an invoice, not adjectives.
- Story development from what you actually have
- Internal data, customer patterns, sector observations, expert opinion. Most businesses have a story and have never recognised it as one.
- Original data production
- Surveys, freedom of information requests, analysis of public datasets, or your own anonymised figures. Data-led stories earn coverage far more reliably than opinion.
- Publication targeting
- Which UK outlets cover this subject, which journalists specifically, and what they have written recently. Relevance beats reach — a trade title with 5,000 readers can outperform a national.
- Pitching
- Personalised, short, and to the right person. Volume outreach to a bought media list burns the relationships that make the next campaign work.
- Reactive commentary
- Responding to journalist requests when your expertise fits. Lower effort per link than a full campaign and considerably more consistent.
- Link recovery on coverage
- Coverage frequently mentions a business without linking. Following up politely converts a meaningful share of unlinked mentions.
- Honest reporting on what landed
- Every placement named, with the URL, whether it links, and whether the link is followed. Coverage without a link is a brand result, and it gets reported as one.
Checklist
Will a journalist actually run this? A pre-pitch test
Run any campaign idea through this before spending on production. Ideas failing more than three of these will not earn coverage regardless of how well they are pitched, and knowing that early saves the production budget.
- 01Can the story be stated in one sentence a non-specialist would understand?
- 02Is there a number in it? Data-led stories are covered far more reliably than opinion.
- 03Is the data genuinely new, or is it restating something already published?
- 04Would the story still be interesting if your company name were removed?
- 05Does it connect to something currently in the news, or to a predictable seasonal moment?
- 06Is there a regional angle, so local press can run their own version?
- 07Can a journalist verify the methodology if they ask?
- 08Is the sample size large enough that a competitor could not credibly dismiss it?
- 09Is there a visual — a chart, a map — they can publish without making one?
- 10Is there a named human available to quote, with a real title?
- 11Would you read this if it appeared about another company?
- 12Is the claim defensible, or does it overstate what the data supports?
- 13Is there anything in it that could embarrass you if it were picked up widely?
- 14Have you checked nobody ran the same story in the last twelve months?
How it works
Step by step, with timeframes
Timeframes are typical rather than guaranteed, and they assume we get account access and approvals when we ask.
- 01Week 1–2
Find the story
What you have that a journalist would want. This is the hardest step and it determines everything after it.
- 02Week 2–5
Build the asset
Data gathered, analysed and written up so a journalist can use it without doing the work themselves.
- 03Week 5–8
Pitch
Targeted outreach to named journalists, staged so the strongest outlets are approached first.
- 04Week 8–12
Follow up and recover links
Chasing unlinked mentions and syndicated coverage. This stage routinely adds as many links again as the original pitching.
What you get
Reporting and ownership
- Every placement named with its URL, and an explicit note on whether it carries a followed link.
- The data asset itself, owned by you and hosted on your domain so it keeps earning links.
- Coverage reported separately from links, because a mention without a link is a different result.
- A journalist relationship list built during the campaign and handed over.
- An honest campaign post-mortem, including when a story did not land and why.
Tools and platforms
- Response Source / journalist request platforms
- BuzzStream or Pitchbox
- Ahrefs (coverage and link monitoring)
- Google Alerts
- Survey platforms
- FOI request tracking
Timeline
How long this actually takes
Story development and asset production take four to six weeks. Pitching runs over two to four weeks, and coverage arrives unevenly — sometimes within days, sometimes a month later when a journalist finds a slot. Allow three months per campaign end to end. The honest position on outcomes: campaigns are unpredictable. A good story with good data can produce fifteen links or three, and the variable is often what else is happening in the news that week. Anyone quoting a guaranteed number of links is either buying them or describing an average as a commitment.
Pricing model
Fixed-price project
Priced per campaign, covering story development, asset production, outreach and follow-up. Not priced per link, because paying per link creates the incentive to buy them.
Questions
Digital PR Link Building questions
How many links will a campaign produce?
It varies enormously, and anyone giving you a firm number is describing an average as a promise. A strong data-led story might earn ten to twenty referring domains; a weaker one might earn three. News cycles matter as much as quality — a good story released the week of a major national event will underperform.
What is the difference between digital PR and traditional PR?
Digital PR is measured on links and search visibility. Traditional PR is measured on coverage, message and reputation. The activity overlaps substantially and the reporting does not, which is why we run them as separate services with different success metrics.
Do we need original data, or will an opinion piece work?
Data works considerably better. Journalists need something to report, and a number gives them a headline. Expert commentary earns coverage reactively — responding to a story already running — but rarely originates one on its own.
What if the coverage does not include a link?
It happens frequently, particularly with national titles that have policies against outbound links. We follow up and ask, which converts a reasonable share. Unlinked coverage still has brand and entity value, and it gets reported separately rather than counted as a link.
Can you get us into national newspapers?
Sometimes, and it should not be the objective. National coverage is unpredictable and frequently unlinked. Relevant trade and regional publications produce more links, more consistently, and often more qualified referral traffic. We will target nationals where the story genuinely warrants it.
Is this the same as paying for a guest post?
No, and the difference is enforcement-relevant. Digital PR earns editorial placement — a journalist decides the story is worth running. Paid placement is a transaction, breaches Google’s link policies, and the sites selling it get devalued in waves, taking the links with them.
Last reviewed 28 July 2026.
Tell us what you are trying to fix
A 20-minute call, no pitch deck. The Nexclick will tell you what we would do, roughly what it costs, and whether we are the right people for it.