Backlinks still matter in SEO.
But I don’t think businesses should approach link building as a race to collect as many links as possible.
The better question is:
Why would another legitimate website want to mention or link to my business?
That changes the strategy completely.
Instead of trying to manufacture hundreds of backlinks, I focus on earning legitimate references from websites, publications, organizations and communities where it actually makes sense for the business to appear.
That’s where digital PR and link building work together.
Digital PR can help a business earn media coverage, expert mentions, interviews, citations and brand exposure.
Link building focuses more specifically on earning links from other websites.
Sometimes those goals overlap.
Sometimes a great PR mention doesn’t include a followed backlink at all—and I may still consider it valuable.
Here’s how I think about digital PR and link building for SEO today.
Quick Answer: What Are Digital PR and Link Building?
Digital PR is the process of earning online visibility through media coverage, expert commentary, original research, interviews, partnerships, newsworthy stories and other legitimate mentions of your business.
Link building is the process of earning links from other websites to yours.
A good digital PR campaign can produce backlinks, but backlinks shouldn’t be the only reason to pursue PR.
A legitimate mention can also create:
- Brand awareness
- Referral traffic
- Industry credibility
- Relationships with journalists and publishers
- Exposure to potential customers
- Search visibility around your brand
- Opportunities for future coverage
That broader value is why I prefer thinking in terms of authority and visibility rather than simply counting links.
Why Do Backlinks Matter for SEO?
A backlink is a link from another website to yours.
Links have long been part of how search engines discover pages and evaluate relationships between websites.
But this does not mean:
More backlinks = higher rankings.
A link from a real, relevant publication can be very different from a link created on a website that exists primarily to sell guest posts.
I would rather earn one legitimate editorial mention from a publication people actually read than manufacture dozens of links on websites built mainly for link placement.
Backlinks are one component of off-page SEO, along with broader signals such as media coverage, business citations, professional associations and legitimate brand mentions.
What Is Digital PR?
Digital PR is public relations conducted primarily through online channels.
The goal is to get your business, expertise, research or story in front of audiences beyond your own website.
Digital PR opportunities can include:
Media coverage.
Expert commentary.
Interviews.
Podcasts.
News articles.
Industry publications.
Original research.
Local business stories.
Community involvement.
Partnership announcements.
Surveys.
Data studies.
Awards.
Professional organizations.
Useful resources.
Some of these opportunities result in a backlink.
Some result in an unlinked brand mention.
Some generate referral traffic.
Some introduce your business to journalists or customers who had never heard of you before.
That’s why I don’t judge the entire value of PR based on whether a link is followed.
Digital PR vs. Traditional Link Building
There is overlap, but I don’t consider them identical.
Traditional link building often begins with:
“How can I get another website to link to this page?”
Digital PR begins more broadly:
“What can this business contribute that is actually worth talking about?”
That contribution might be:
Expert knowledge.
Original data.
A strong opinion.
A local trend.
A useful resource.
A compelling business story.
A community initiative.
A new development.
That’s a much stronger starting point.
The backlink becomes a potential result of doing something worthy of attention rather than the entire reason the activity exists.
What Makes a Backlink Worth Pursuing?
I don’t evaluate backlinks using one metric.
Third-party SEO tools may provide authority scores, traffic estimates and other useful data, but no single score tells me whether a link is good.
I look at the bigger picture.
Is the Website Relevant?
Does the website have a real relationship to your business, industry, expertise or market?
A San Diego business mentioned by a legitimate San Diego publication has an obvious contextual connection.
A dentist referenced by a respected dental organization makes sense.
A contractor included in a legitimate construction publication makes sense.
Random links from unrelated websites are much less interesting to me.
Is It a Legitimate Website?
Does the website appear to exist for actual users?
Does it publish genuine editorial content?
Does it have a real audience or purpose?
Or does every page appear to exist because somebody paid to place an article and a backlink?
That distinction matters.
Does the Mention Make Sense?
Context matters.
If I’m quoted in an article about SEO strategy, a link to my website makes sense.
If the same link suddenly appears in an unrelated article about cryptocurrency, there’s no logical connection.
I want links and mentions to look like they belong where they appear.
Could the Link Send Real Referral Traffic?
Not every valuable link needs to send thousands of visitors.
But I like asking whether a real person might actually click it.
A link from a niche publication with a small but highly relevant audience may be far more useful to a business than a random high-metric website nobody in its market reads.
Would I Want the Mention Without the Backlink?
This is one of my favorite tests.
Ask yourself:
Would I still want my business mentioned on this website if the link were nofollow?
If the answer is yes, you’ve probably found a much more interesting opportunity.
That means the placement has real-world value beyond trying to manipulate rankings.
Quality Matters More Than Raw Link Count
I don’t build backlink strategies around hitting an arbitrary number.
I don’t tell clients:
“You need 100 links this month.”
Why 100?
Where are they coming from?
Why would those websites link to you?
Are they relevant?
Are they legitimate?
Are they useful?
Link count by itself tells me very little.
I’d rather see a smaller backlink profile filled with legitimate industry, media, local and professional references than a huge collection of questionable links created solely for SEO.
What About Domain Authority?
You’ll often hear people talk about DA, DR or other third-party authority metrics.
These can be useful for comparing websites.
But Google does not use Moz Domain Authority or another SEO tool’s proprietary score as its ranking system.
I don’t reject a good PR opportunity because a tool says the publication’s authority score is one point below an arbitrary threshold.
And I don’t automatically pursue a website simply because its DA is high.
I look at:
Relevance.
Legitimacy.
Editorial quality.
Audience.
Context.
Reputation.
Traffic potential.
Relationship to the business.
SEO metrics can help inform the evaluation.
They shouldn’t replace judgment.
Good Digital PR Starts With Something Worth Sharing
One of the hardest parts of digital PR is that the business actually needs something interesting to contribute.
Sending journalists:
“Hi, please write about my company because I want a backlink”
isn’t much of a story.
A better pitch may involve:
Original research.
A local trend you’ve observed.
Interesting customer data.
An expert reaction to industry news.
A survey.
A useful analysis.
A surprising business insight.
A timely local issue.
A compelling case study.
A genuinely unusual company development.
You need a reason for someone else to care.
Original Research Can Be Powerful
Original information can create particularly strong PR opportunities.
Suppose a San Diego business publishes research about:
Small-business marketing trends.
Local housing behavior.
Tourism patterns.
Financial concerns.
Consumer preferences.
Hiring trends.
Health and wellness habits.
Technology adoption.
If the research is legitimate and interesting, journalists and publishers may reference it when covering related topics.
That doesn’t guarantee backlinks.
But it gives you something original to pitch rather than another generic blog post that says the same thing as hundreds of other websites.
Expert Commentary Is Another Strong PR Strategy
You don’t always need a major research project.
Sometimes your expertise is the story.
Journalists regularly need experts who can explain complicated topics.
A financial advisor might provide perspective on retirement planning.
An attorney might explain a legal development.
A doctor might provide general educational commentary within appropriate professional limits.
A contractor might discuss home-maintenance trends.
And someone like me might explain changes in Google search, Local SEO or AI search.
When you genuinely know your subject, expert commentary can become an excellent way to build visibility.
Local PR Opportunities for San Diego Businesses
Local businesses sometimes overlook PR because they assume media coverage is only for large national brands.
I disagree.
A San Diego business can look for opportunities with:
Local news publications.
Business publications.
Community organizations.
Professional associations.
Chambers of commerce.
Local podcasts.
Event organizers.
Neighborhood publications.
Industry groups.
Charities.
Local partnerships.
Relevant community events.
The opportunity needs to make sense for the business.
You don’t need to appear in a national publication every month to build a credible presence online.
Sometimes the most relevant authority comes from your own market.
Community Involvement Can Produce Natural Mentions
PR doesn’t always start with pitching journalists.
Businesses participate in the real world.
Maybe you:
Sponsor a local event.
Support a nonprofit.
Teach a workshop.
Speak at an industry conference.
Host a community event.
Partner with another company.
Participate in a professional organization.
Contribute expertise to a local publication.
Those activities may naturally produce:
Event pages.
Organization profiles.
Press coverage.
Partner mentions.
Business citations.
Backlinks.
The key is that the activity exists for a legitimate reason.
The online visibility is an additional benefit.
What About Guest Posting?
Guest posting isn’t automatically good or bad.
The context matters.
Contributing a thoughtful article to a reputable industry publication where you have actual expertise can be perfectly reasonable.
Writing hundreds of generic articles for websites that exist mainly to sell followed backlinks is something very different.
When evaluating a guest-post opportunity, I ask:
Would I be proud to have my name associated with this publication?
Does the website serve a legitimate audience?
Do I actually have expertise to contribute?
Would this article still be worth writing if Google ignored the backlink?
Those questions eliminate a lot of bad opportunities quickly.
Don’t Buy Links Just Because Someone Says They Have “High DA”
If you run a website long enough, you’ll receive emails promising backlinks.
Usually something like:
“We can publish your article on a DA 70 site with permanent dofollow links.”
I don’t make backlink decisions based on sales emails and authority scores.
Links created primarily to manipulate search rankings can create risk.
That includes certain paid link schemes, large-scale link exchanges and mass-produced guest posting intended primarily to pass ranking value.
If a placement is sponsored or paid, appropriate link attributes may also be necessary.
The goal shouldn’t be finding increasingly clever ways to disguise paid links.
The goal should be building a legitimate business presence.
Are Nofollow Links Worth Anything?
They can be.
A nofollow link does not need to be treated as worthless.
Imagine a respected news publication writes an article about your business and links to you using a nofollow attribute.
Would I say:
“Forget it. That coverage has no value”?
Of course not.
You may still gain:
Referral traffic.
Brand awareness.
Credibility.
Customer discovery.
Future media opportunities.
A legitimate online reference to your company.
Google can treat certain link attributes as hints for its systems, but I would never promise ranking improvement simply because you earned a nofollow link.
The broader marketing value can be reason enough.
What About Unlinked Brand Mentions?
The same logic applies.
If a major publication mentions your business without linking to your website, I don’t automatically consider the coverage unsuccessful.
An unlinked mention can still expose your brand to an entirely new audience.
People may:
Search for your company.
Visit your website directly.
Follow you on social media.
Mention your business elsewhere.
Reference the story.
Become customers.
I would not claim that every unlinked brand mention is a confirmed direct Google ranking signal.
That’s too simplistic.
But legitimate brand visibility across the web can still be extremely valuable.
Digital PR and AI Search
AI search has created another reason businesses are thinking more seriously about their overall online footprint.
Systems such as Google AI features and conversational AI can draw information from numerous sources when forming responses.
That does not mean there’s a simple formula such as:
“Get ten brand mentions and ChatGPT will recommend your company.”
There isn’t.
But building a clear, credible and widely supported online presence is sensible.
I want your business information to be understandable on your own website and reinforced by legitimate sources elsewhere when possible.
That can include:
Media coverage.
Professional profiles.
Industry references.
Business directories.
Interviews.
Reviews.
Expert commentary.
Relevant backlinks.
If AI visibility is one of your goals, I go deeper into this in my guide on how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search.
What About Press Releases?
Press releases can be useful when you actually have news.
Examples might include:
A major company expansion.
A meaningful acquisition.
New research.
An important executive appointment.
A major community initiative.
A genuinely newsworthy product or service development.
But I don’t publish a press release and assume syndicated links will magically increase rankings.
A press release is primarily a communications and distribution tool.
Its greatest value may come when journalists, publishers or industry websites discover the story and create independent coverage of their own.
That’s much more interesting than simply counting every syndicated copy as another “backlink.”
Business Directories Have a Different Job
Business directories and citations can still be useful, especially for local businesses.
But I separate them conceptually from digital PR.
A legitimate directory listing might help:
Keep business information accurate.
Make the business easier to discover.
Provide referral traffic.
Establish a relevant professional or local profile.
Provide a legitimate website reference.
That doesn’t mean you should submit your business to every directory you can find.
I’ve created a separate guide to 375 local citation sites for businesses that specifically want to work on citations.
I also have a resource on SEO-friendly business directories that explains why I now prioritize relevance and legitimacy over raw link quantity.
What About Link Exchanges?
Natural reciprocal links happen.
Two legitimate business partners may link to each other.
An organization may link to a member who links back to the organization.
A company may recommend a useful resource that also happens to mention the company somewhere else.
That’s normal.
The problem is turning link exchanges into a scheme:
“I’ll link to you only if you give me a keyword-rich link back.”
At scale, that starts looking less like genuine web relationships and more like manufacturing PageRank.
Again, context matters.
How I Build a Digital PR and Link Strategy
I don’t begin by buying a list of websites.
I begin with the business.
Step 1: Understand What Makes the Business Interesting
What expertise does the company have?
What experience?
What data?
What local perspective?
What customer insight?
What story?
What resources?
There has to be something worth promoting.
Step 2: Identify the Right Audience
Who should know about it?
Customers?
Journalists?
Industry professionals?
Local business owners?
Trade publications?
Community organizations?
Different stories belong in different places.
Step 3: Create Something Worth Referencing
This may be:
Original research.
An expert article.
A useful guide.
A case study.
A statistic.
A survey.
A tool.
A visual resource.
A strong opinion backed by experience.
A newsworthy development.
The best link assets usually give someone a legitimate reason to reference them.
Step 4: Find Relevant Publishers and Organizations
Then I look for places where the story actually belongs.
Not:
“Who will sell me a backlink?”
But:
“Who serves the audience that would care about this?”
That’s a much healthier outreach strategy.
Step 5: Personalize the Pitch
Journalists receive enormous amounts of generic outreach.
A good pitch should quickly explain:
Why you’re contacting that particular person.
Why the story matters to their audience.
What is new or useful about it.
What expertise or information you can provide.
I don’t need a five-paragraph autobiography.
Get to the point.
Step 6: Build Relationships Over Time
One successful placement can lead to another.
If you provide useful expert commentary, respond professionally and make a journalist’s job easier, they may remember you.
That’s a much stronger long-term strategy than emailing thousands of strangers asking for links.
Step 7: Measure More Than Backlinks
I certainly track links.
But I also care about:
Referral traffic.
Brand searches.
Media placements.
Qualified visibility.
New relationships.
Lead generation.
Mentions.
Which types of outreach actually work.
The biggest link count does not automatically equal the best PR campaign.
How I Evaluate a Link Opportunity
When an opportunity comes across my desk, these are the types of questions I ask:
- Is the website legitimate?
- Is it relevant to the business?
- Does it have a real audience?
- Is the content editorially credible?
- Does the placement make contextual sense?
- Would I be comfortable showing the link to a client?
- Could the mention send relevant traffic?
- Is someone asking us to manipulate anchor text?
- Is payment involved?
- Would the opportunity still have value without a followed backlink?
That last question is worth repeating.
If the only value disappears when Google stops counting the link, I’d question the opportunity.
What Should Your Backlink Anchor Text Look Like?
I don’t try to make every external link use the exact keyword I want to rank for.
That can become unnatural very quickly.
Legitimate editorial links often use:
Your business name.
Your name.
A URL.
The title of a resource.
Natural descriptive text.
That’s fine.
If a newspaper mentions Jen Ruhman SEO, I don’t need to email the journalist asking them to change the anchor to:
“best SEO company San Diego affordable Local SEO expert.”
Natural links tend to look natural.
How Long Does Digital PR Take?
There isn’t one reliable timeline.
A timely expert comment might earn a placement quickly.
A relationship with a major publication may take months.
Original research may require considerable preparation before it’s ready to pitch.
Some outreach won’t receive a response at all.
That’s normal.
Digital PR is not a vending machine where you insert one press release and receive three backlinks.
The strongest results often come from consistency, expertise, relationships and having genuinely interesting information to contribute.
Can Digital PR Improve Google Rankings?
It can support SEO, particularly when PR leads to legitimate backlinks, stronger brand visibility and relevant third-party references.
But I would never promise:
“Get featured in this publication and your rankings will increase.”
SEO doesn’t work that predictably.
Rankings can be affected by many things, including:
Search intent.
Content quality.
Technical SEO.
Competition.
Backlinks.
Internal linking.
Website structure.
Local signals.
Page relevance.
The strength of competing websites.
Digital PR can be an important part of the strategy without pretending it’s a guaranteed ranking shortcut.
Does Every Business Need an Aggressive Link-Building Campaign?
No.
That’s another place where I think SEO advice becomes too generic.
A website may have much bigger problems than backlinks.
If Google can’t crawl important pages, fix that.
If service pages are weak, fix them.
If the business targets the wrong keywords, fix that.
If the website has multiple pages competing for the same intent, fix that.
If Local SEO signals are poor, address them.
Sometimes link building is exactly what’s missing.
Other times it isn’t the first priority.
That’s why I evaluate the entire SEO picture rather than automatically prescribing “more backlinks.”
Digital PR and Link Building Should Build a Real Reputation
My philosophy is simple:
Build the kind of online presence you’d still want if Google didn’t exist.
Would you want respected industry publications mentioning your business?
Yes.
Would you want local media quoting you as an expert?
Yes.
Would you want professional organizations recognizing your company?
Yes.
Would you want useful referral traffic?
Yes.
Would you want customers seeing your name across credible websites?
Yes.
Those are strong marketing outcomes regardless of what happens with one ranking.
And when legitimate visibility also earns strong backlinks, it can support SEO at the same time.
That’s the type of link building I want.
Not a spreadsheet filled with hundreds of URLs nobody will ever visit.
Frequently Asked Questions About Digital PR and Link Building
What Is Digital PR in SEO?
Digital PR is the process of earning online media coverage, expert mentions, interviews, brand visibility and potentially backlinks through newsworthy or useful contributions.
It can support SEO while also providing broader marketing and reputation benefits.
What Is the Difference Between Digital PR and Link Building?
Link building specifically focuses on earning links to a website.
Digital PR is broader. It focuses on earning visibility and coverage, which may or may not include a backlink.
A strong digital PR campaign can produce both.
Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO?
Links remain an important part of how the web is connected and can contribute to search visibility.
But quality, relevance and legitimacy matter far more than simply accumulating as many links as possible.
Is Guest Posting Bad for SEO?
Not inherently.
Contributing genuine expertise to a legitimate publication can have value.
Large-scale guest posting created primarily to manufacture ranking links is a very different practice.
Are Nofollow Links Worth Getting?
They can be.
A nofollow link from a strong publication can still produce brand exposure, referral traffic, credibility and other marketing value.
I wouldn’t evaluate a legitimate PR opportunity only by whether the link is followed.
Do Unlinked Brand Mentions Help SEO?
An unlinked mention can provide brand awareness, reputation and discovery value.
I would not promise that every unlinked mention directly improves rankings, but legitimate third-party references can still strengthen a business’s overall online presence.
Should I Buy Backlinks?
I don’t recommend building an SEO strategy around buying links intended to manipulate rankings.
Paid or sponsored relationships should also be handled transparently and with the appropriate link attributes when required.
Is a High-DA Backlink Always Good?
No.
Domain Authority is a third-party metric.
I also evaluate relevance, legitimacy, context, audience, editorial quality and whether the website appears to exist for real users.
Do Press Releases Build Backlinks?
Press releases can distribute legitimate company news and may lead to media coverage.
I don’t treat every syndicated press-release link as a powerful SEO backlink.
The more valuable outcome may be independent coverage generated from the story.
Does Digital PR Help AI Search?
It may help expand the legitimate information available about a business across the web, but there is no guaranteed formula for appearing in AI-generated answers.
Clear business information, useful content, credible mentions and a strong overall web presence are more sensible goals than chasing an “AI backlink hack.”
Earn Attention Instead of Manufacturing Links
Good link building has become less interesting to me as a numbers game and more interesting as a reputation strategy.
I want businesses earning references because they:
Know something.
Did something.
Published something.
Helped someone.
Contributed expertise.
Created useful data.
Participated in their community.
Built something worth mentioning.
That’s the foundation of sustainable digital PR.
The backlink is valuable.
But the reason you earned it matters too.
Need Help Building Authority for Your Business?
I’m Jen Ruhman, founder of Jen Ruhman SEO.
As a San Diego SEO expert, I look at backlinks and Digital PR as part of the larger SEO strategy—not as an isolated race to accumulate links.
That means figuring out whether your business needs stronger content, better technical SEO, improved Local SEO, more relevant authority signals, Digital PR—or a combination of those things.
If your competitors seem to have stronger authority online and you’re not sure how to close the gap, I can help you identify where the real opportunities are.
Call or text: (619) 719-1315
Thanks for reading,
Jen Ruhman
Founder, Jen Ruhman SEO