Page Contents
- 1 How Journalists Find Sources for Their Stories
- 2 How articles become backlinks
- 3 The role of context in relation to whether or not a source is made into a backlink
- 4 Related Posts
- 5 How to Get Media Mentions That Turn into Backlinks
- 6 What Is Digital PR in SEO?
- 7 How Digital PR Helps in Earning High Authority Backlinks
- 8 Digital PR vs Traditional Link Building
- 9 Where the process of including links is often misunderstood
Journalists can create backlinks through Digital PR when they use other sources to help explain or build their story. The link is not created as such. The link is part of how the article is written.
How Journalists Find Sources for Their Stories
Most journalists don’t start looking for sources to link to. They start with something to write about. Sometimes it’s a story they want to tell. Sometimes it’s something they want to explain. Sometimes it’s something they see happening. Most of the time, it’s something they want to tell readers about.
This occurs in:
- a claim that needs support
- a reference to a statistic
- an example that is given
The link is connected to the sentence that makes use of the source. It is not placed separately or in addition to it.
The placement of the link is therefore dependent on the way in which the article is written. If the source is integral to the story, then this is more likely to be the case. However, if it is less integral, then it may not occur at all.
How articles become backlinks
An article may be used as a foundation for multiple backlinks. However, this does not always happen in the same way.
When the story is about something that other people are also writing about, then it becomes part of a broader content cycle. Other people are also producing articles about this, and they are referencing other articles as part of their research process.
This is where backlinks begin:
- A journalist publishes an article that makes use of certain sources
- Other journalists are also publishing articles about this same subject
- Other journalists reference the sources that were already used and found in the first article
- The sources begin to get backlinks as part of this cycle, but this is not because each source was individually made into a backlink.
The role of context in relation to whether or not a source is made into a backlink
It should be noted that this does not always occur. If the source is used in a way that is more general or descriptive, then it is possible that the journalist does not make it into a backlink.
Links are more likely to be present if:
- The reader benefits from the original source
- The content requires verification or context
- The source provides specific content that cannot be fully summarized
The process of including links has everything to do with the benefits the content provides from the reader’s perspective.
Where the process of including links is often misunderstood
It’s easy to think that a journalist includes links when they mention a brand or a specific web page. However, the process of including links does not work like that.
It’s possible to have multiple sources mentioned in the article, but the journalist does not include a link. It’s the journalist’s decision as to which sources the readers should have direct access to, as opposed to implied.
Another place where the journalist might be misunderstood is when links are included. The journalist’s goal is the article, while the link itself is part of that article. It follows the needs of the content.
That’s why the outcome of two articles on the same content might be vastly different. Two articles might mention the same source, but the link might be present in only one of the articles.
Over time, the process becomes more understandable. The backlinks from Digital PR are not created in isolation. They have everything to do with the process of the journalist.