How to create genuinely useful on-site content for both users and journalists

By Aimee Crossland

Offsite and onsite strategies can often be thought of as separate entities but thinking that way could actually be holding back the results of both strategies. Combining Digital PR and onsite content can amplify reach, increase brand awareness and build authority.

One of the most important aspects of Digital PR is not only driving links, but also helping brands become experts and thought leaders in their field by sharing expert commentaries and insightful content pieces.

Onsite and offsite strategies can work together to support and amplify one another. For a good Digital PR strategy to hold up, we ultimately want to drive links to our sites, and solid onsite content, optimised correctly, and holding useful information, will help us do that. And, in turn for good onsite content to be seen we need to amplify reach – which Digital PR allows us to do.

Consulting our SEO strategy throughout is vital to ensure everything is optimised correctly and we’re aligning with our overall objectives throughout the campaign, driving links to the right pages which will improve rankings.

With all of that being said, the content in question needs to be genuinely useful for both journalists and users – otherwise it won’t drive the links or captivate the reader.

Creating onsite content that is useful for journalists

When devising a campaign strategy, we need to consider how onsite content can add strength to the overall campaign. This content is a huge part of the story and should be powerful enough to incentivise journalists to link to it, which will only be the case if it is genuinely useful information the reader will want to access.

‘Useful’ content can be a number of things. Whether it’s additional information, statistics, infographics, data, images, expert comments – the onsite content should hold that extra strength to incentivise links from secured coverage.

There is no point creating onsite content for the sake of it as that defeats the purpose.

Journalists want something useful and informative but also relevant to link to, so it’s important the offsite and onsite content are working hand-in-hand.

The offsite content should be related to the onsite but should also need it in a way that will ensure we’re achieving links.

For example, are we linking back because our data and findings are there, because there’s something interactive, or as that’s where journalists will send people to find more info?

If you think about it, for a journalist to want to link to something (which ultimately means directing the reader away from the publication they work for) that something must add value to the piece, otherwise what’s the point in them linking?

With a strong onsite piece of content in place, the offsite campaign can explore a variety of angles and stories, that relate back to the onsite content, with the intent to drive links back to the page over a period of time.

Creating onsite content that is useful for your audience

For the same reason that we want to create onsite content that is genuinely useful and informative to incentivise links and provide content of value to journalists – we want to give the same to the user landing on the site.

On your own site you have the power to essentially post however much content you or your client want, within reason of course. You choose the word count and the story. This is a privilege that should be used carefully.

So, for that reason your onsite content is the place where you can afford to dig a little deeper and expand, explain the story, data or angle in much more detail. Whether it be through words, videos or graphics.

Remember, you are the expert here. Through your onsite and offsite campaign, you are building authority, trust and thought leadership so this needs to come across in your content.

Always give solutions, practical tips and advice that relates to the overall campaign. This is one of the most useful things you can do for your audience to encourage repeat engagement.

It’s also important to remember to optimise onsite content from an SEO perspective. Whether that means making sure you include your relevant internal links to ensure passthrough benefits or hitting those relevant keyword targets.

Whatever your angle, making sure content is useful for SEO is as important as ensuring it is useful for audiences and journalists.

Things to Remember

• It’s important to consider the assets you’re going to utilise from both an offsite and onsite perspective as soon as you start on the campaign. Do you need graphics, images or quotes to offer the journalist as an extra asset?
• Make sure to always ask for the credit back to your brand or client!
• Don’t feel like it’s ‘one story’ for one piece of onsite content, you should be able to hook numerous offsite angles and ideas from your onsite content to keep driving links and achieve authoritative and relevant coverage
• You can regularly revisit and update this content throughout the year for a continuing story, or when breaking news occurs that’s relevant to the piece, we can always tweak content to re-align with campaign objectives
• Remember you are the expert, position yourself as this throughout and give genuinely useful advice to your audience