The TAL Agency checklist for building brand authority

Building up your brand’s authority doesn’t happen overnight. And nor does it happen by accident. The only way to do it is through consistent work, especially when it comes to boosting your reputation elsewhere on the internet. 

Brand authority is key if you want to increase not only consumer trust in your brand, but also your organic visibility and performance – which can be the missing piece of the puzzle in the most competitive landscapes. Many people overlook the role that strategic digital PR plays here; your goal is to land consistent high-authority media coverage, gain relevant backlinks and media mentions, and be positioned as reliable and go-to experts in your priority topics.

Of course, one-off campaigns have a role to play here, but they’re not something that should be relied on. And neither should other forms of PR such as reactive PR. Building brand authority needs an approach that is both consistent and led by insights. 

Fortunately, we’ve put together a checklist that includes a breakdown of key steps that brands should follow if they’re looking to use digital PR as a way to build brand authority.

The foundational strategy steps

• What does brand authority mean to your business? Does it look like increased trust, showing expertise, increased visibility, better organic rankings, or providing better sales support? 
• What are your priority areas for building brand authority around? This could be categories, products, or services – but it should be something you want to be known for.
• In a similar vein, what are the most commercially important pages that you want your PR activity to support?
• Take note of your current performance vs competitors and where you want to be. This could include links, rankings, authority, a share of voice, etc.

The insight steps

• Start by looking at where people are searching, and what the intent behind those searches are. This will help you identify high-intent and high-interest topics.
• Keep an eye on and track industry trends in your chosen topics, along with seasonal moments you need to capitalise on, and where the news cycle turns in your favour.
• Where are the gaps where your brand can best add insight or expert commentary?
• Sign up to relevant platforms to receive reactive requests.
• Create a shared document between the team where a rolling list of potential newsjacking and proactive story ideas can be added to.
• Consider audience or social listening tools to gain a better understanding of what your target audience is discussing and sharing.

The creation steps

• Once you receive a reactive request from a journalist, craft a response! Remember, it needs to be educational not promotional. Don’t expect results instantly; it can take a while for journalists to trust your position.
• Use your bank of proactive story ideas to develop data-led campaigns using original research or analysis.
• Remember, your goal here isn’t to be promotional – what you put out there needs to be genuinely interesting, useful or story-worthy.
• Position yourselves as an expert source of information, but without being overly promotional.
• Be sure that the angles you’re working are tailored to journalists, rather than your target market. 

The outreach steps

• Build targeted media lists that are broken down by sector, national, regional, etc. This is where you can’t afford to be general! The old ‘spray and pray’ method of outreach is super outdated and just doesn’t work anymore – the more targeted the better.
• When you do send pitches, make sure they’re tailored to each journalist and publications – no generalisations here, please.
• Go for quality of publication over hitting up a sheer volume.
• Be timely with your outreach to be aligned with relevance and the news cycle.
• Concentrate on building strong relationships with journalists by consistently offering high-quality content – this will make them more likely to come back to you to request commentary.

The SEO steps

• If you do manage to gain a link from your efforts (hooray!), make sure it points to relevant and authoritative pages where possible. 
• Remember that media mentions are still important, especially in the world of AI and LLMs! But balance these with strategic link acquisition.
• Avoid over-optimising your anchor text – focus on gaining natural placements. As an example, if you’ve done some original research, consider building a campaign page on your blog or content hub with more stats and data that can be linked back to.
• Track the link quality of what you’re gaining along with new referring domains. 
• Monitor the impact your efforts are having on rankings and visibility of your key pages.

The QC steps

• Check that the placements you’re getting are relevant and authoritative and adjust if necessary.
• Check the accuracy of the messaging you’re putting out there – does it ladder back to the first strategy step?
• Keep a close eye on sentiment and brand perception in coverage.
• Identify and make note of publications that are worth re-engaging with for future stories.

The optimisation steps

• Which story types perform best? Is it reactive or data-led?
• Refine the topics you talk about based on engagement with journalists and your results.
• Double your efforts on the best-performing story types and publications, while simultaneously dialling down on low-impact approaches. 

The long-term steps

• Always bear in mind that link building and brand building are both long-term approaches that require a consistent level of effort.
• Maintain a steady rhythm of digital PR activity across various methods.
• Try to stay visible all year-round, rather than popping up in journalists’ inboxes for quick campaign bursts.
• Continuously adapt and evolve your messaging depending on your brand. 

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