---
title: "Digital PR link building"
description: "Digital PR link building from ShoutRank. Stories, data, and expert comment a journalist can use. Mentions follow the story, not a placement order."
canonical: https://shoutrank.com/digital-pr-link-building
markdown: https://shoutrank.com/digital-pr-link-building.md
---

# Digital PR link building

Digital PR link building from ShoutRank. Stories, data, and expert comment a journalist can use. Mentions follow the story, not a placement order.
Digital PR link building earns coverage because the story is useful to a journalist’s reader. The link is a consequence, not the product being sold.

Newsrooms and industry desks ignore outreach that is a request to add a URL. They sometimes use a data point, a clear expert view, or a correction to a story they already run. That is the opening.

ShoutRank does not dress up paid placements as PR. The story has to stand without the link. Where the asset is a citation study already on this site, it is labeled as ours and [linked from the study](https://shoutrank.com/data-studies), not passed off as an independent lab.

ShoutRank does not guarantee a ranking or a citation.

## The problem

### The “study” is a survey of customers.

Twelve people were asked a leading question. No reporter can defend it, and the page admits nothing about the method.

### The expert quote is a slogan.

Founders send a sentence that could sit on any homepage. The journalist needs a view that takes a side.

### Coverage is counted when the link is nofollow.

Or when it is a press-release wire. The mention may still be worth having. It is not the same as a reported story.

## How ShoutRank approaches it

We look for a fact the company can publish with a method: what was counted, what was left out, and what a reporter can check. If there is no such fact, we do not invent one. Expert commentary is the fallback, and it has to answer a question the desk is already asking.

Targets are reporters and editors who cover the beat, not a blast list of anyone with a contact form.

## What the work includes

### Story brief

The claim, the method, and what the story does not prove.

### Desk list

Journalists and editors on the beat, with the reason this story fits their last pieces.

### Assets

A page, a table, or a quote a desk can lift without calling legal first.

### Coverage log

What ran, where, and whether it describes you accurately.

## Process

### Discovery

Find a claim the company can stand behind in public.

### Audit

Check that the method is writable in a paragraph. Kill the story if it is not.

### Strategy

Match desks to the beat, not to a domain score.

### Implementation

Pitch the story. Accept silence and no as normal outcomes.

### Monitoring

Read what ran. Correct factual errors quickly.

### Optimization

Note which angles produced reporting and which produced nothing.

### Reporting

Stories that ran, stories that did not, and the URLs.

## Why ShoutRank

### Method on the page

A number without a method is not a study we will pitch.

### No wire-release theater

A syndicated press release is labeled as one. It is not called earned media.

### The client can defend it

If the founder would not explain the data on a call, it does not go to a desk.

## How success is measured

Stories published by desks that cover the beat.

Whether the coverage links the assigned URL and states the claim correctly.

Pitches that did not run, so expectations stay attached to reality.

A named client result is published when that client clears the figure. Until then the report is the measurement.

## Questions

### Do you guarantee coverage in a named publication?

No. A desk decides. We can prepare a story they might use. We cannot place it.

### Can we pitch client data we have not published?

Only with the client’s clearance, and only if the method can be public. A named result waits until that client clears the figure.

### Is digital PR the same as editorial link building?

PR starts from a story. Editorial link building starts from a page that already exists and could mention you more accurately.

## Related

- [Editorial links](https://shoutrank.com/editorial-link-building): Updating a page that is already live.
- [Data studies](https://shoutrank.com/data-studies): Citation rankings that can be a source, when they fit.
- [Link building](https://shoutrank.com/link-building): The practice this sits inside.