Link building that earns its place.
Links still decide competitive rankings, but only the right kind. We earn editorial links and mentions from sites your customers and your industry actually read, and report every one.
Editorial linksDigital PRLocal and industry links
AI answer
Several publications and industry bodies reference your company as a recognised provider, including coverage in trade press and a regional news feature.Cited by independent sourcesThird-party validation
How we build links
Digital PR
Stories, data and expert comment that journalists want to cover, earning links from news and trade publications.
Industry and association links
Memberships, directories and resources that genuinely matter in your sector.
Local links
Local press, sponsorships, partners and community sites for businesses that win locally.
Resource and content outreach
Useful guides and tools that other sites choose to reference.
Unlinked mention reclaiming
Turning existing mentions of your brand into links.
Toxic link review
Finding and handling spammy links, including after a hack or negative SEO.
Why links still matter
Links are how search engines see independent validation. Your website says what you do; other trusted sites linking to you confirm it. In competitive markets, that's usually what separates position three from position eight.
The same signals matter in AI search: assistants prefer to recommend businesses that credible third parties already talk about.
What we won't do
Cheap links are expensive. Private blog networks, paid link packages and mass guest posting can get a site penalised, and the clean-up costs far more than the links did.
- No private blog networks
- We don't buy, build or rent link networks.
- No link farms or spun articles
- Every placement is a real page on a real site.
- Relevance over metrics
- A relevant trade site beats a high-DA site with no connection to you.
- Every link reported
- Live URL, anchor text and status in your monthly report.
Digital PR versus traditional link building
Traditional link building asks sites for a link. Digital PR gives journalists a reason to write about you, using original data, expert comment or a genuinely newsworthy angle. We use both, matched to your market.
| Approach | Best for |
|---|---|
| Digital PR | Authority links and brand mentions from news and trade press |
| Industry and resource outreach | Relevant links from sites your sector already reads |
| Local links | Proximity and trust signals for businesses that win locally |
Editorial links also send referral visitors, not just ranking signals.
Planned around the pages that make money
We point links at the pages that need authority to rank, such as service pages, categories and location pages, with natural, varied anchor text. Links to the homepage alone rarely move the rankings that pay.
How it works
Gap analysis
Compare your link profile with the competitors outranking you.
Target list
Relevant publications, associations and local sites.
Assets and angles
Stories, data or resources worth linking to.
Outreach
Personal outreach to editors and site owners, never mass email blasts.
Report
Every link, where it points and what moved.
Questions we get asked
How many links will I get each month?
It varies by campaign and market. We focus on relevance and quality over volume, and report every link we earn.
Do you buy links?
No. Buying links that pass ranking credit breaks Google's guidelines and risks penalties. We earn links through PR, outreach and genuinely useful content.
Can you help with a spammy backlink profile?
Yes. We review your links, remove what we can and use a disavow file where it's genuinely needed, for example after a hack.
How long before links affect rankings?
Expect a few weeks for new links to be found and a few months for the full effect to show. Links compound, so a steady, relevant campaign outperforms a one-off burst.
What makes a link worth having?
Relevance to your business, a real audience on the linking site and an editorial reason for the link to exist. A mention in your trade press usually beats a high-metric site with no connection to what you do.
Is digital PR right for a local business?
Often, yes, at a local level: regional news, community stories and local partnerships. These links carry strong local relevance.
Related services
- ds-search.co.uk › content-seoContent SEOContent that builds topical authority: briefs, writing, clusters and refreshes.
- ds-search.co.uk › national-seoNational SEO ServicesUK-wide and US-wide organic growth through authority, architecture and links.
- ds-search.co.uk › ai-search-optimisationAI Search OptimisationGet cited in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini.
- ds-search.co.uk › technical-seo › migrations-and-recoverySEO Migrations & RecoveryMove sites without losing rankings, and recover from hacks and penalties.
See what search sees.
Get a free audit of how Google, Maps and AI assistants understand your business, with the fixes in priority order.
- Technical, on-page, local and entity checks
- AI answer visibility for your core services
- A prioritised fix list you keep, whatever you decide