How Press Drives SEO and Backlinks (From Real Experience)

Hey founder! I'm Fortuna, the founder of ContactJournalists.com, and I know exactly what you've been through – trying to push your business forward and out there – into the real world and the world wide web!

I was there too, and when I had ItReallyWorksVitamins.com it was such a lovely buzz getting your product featured in different blogs including:

https://charlottesmakeupblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/it-really-works-vitamins-review/

https://thefashion-junkie.blogspot.com/2015/10/product-review-it-really-works-vitamins.html

Those early features felt amazing at the time. Seeing someone take the time to write about your product properly, to actually try it and share it, really mattered.

But then something bigger happened.

Let me explain this from experience, not theory.

When I was running It Really Works Vitamins, getting featured in Forbes was one of those absolutely amazing moments that seem to happen to other founders actually finally happened to me - We were included in Best Nutrition Innovation 2019, and I remember refreshing the page about twenty times just to make sure it was real and I visited my Grandma and showed her!

Here's the actual feature:

👉 https://www.forbes.com/sites/leebelltech/2019/04/27/best-nutrition-innovation-2019/

That Forbes article didn't just mention us - it linked to our website!

And that single backlink went on to boost our SEO for absolutely years to come. Long after the initial excitement faded, that link was still doing work behind the scenes.

So what are backlinks? What is a backlink? (Proper definition)

A backlink is when another website links to your website.

Search engines treat backlinks as votes of confidence. The idea is simple: if trusted sites link to you, your site is probably trustworthy too.

Google has confirmed for years that backlinks are one of the strongest ranking signals:

👉 https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

If you've ever found yourself Googling "how to get backlinks" and immediately feeling exhausted, you're not alone.

Most founders don't struggle because they don't understand backlinks. They struggle because they're forced into guessing games. Cold outreach. Spammy tactics they don't feel good about.

Press shortcuts all of that. Instead of chasing links, you respond to journalists who already need sources. That's the entire philosophy behind ContactJournalists.com. There's a 7-day free trial, so you can see how it feels to respond to real requests instead of forcing it.

What is Domain Rating (DR)?

Domain Rating is a metric created by Ahrefs to estimate how authoritative a website is based on its backlink profile.

You can read the official explanation here:

👉 https://ahrefs.com/blog/domain-rating/

In plain English:

When a site like Forbes links to you, it strengthens your domain as a whole, not just the page being linked.

That's why one strong press backlink can outperform dozens of low-quality links. This is why founder-led press works so well for SEO.

You don't need hundreds of links. You need a handful of meaningful ones from places that already carry weight. That's what raises your baseline so everything else becomes easier.

If you want to build domain authority without hiring an agency or buying dodgy links, responding to journalist requests is one of the cleanest ways I know to do it.

You can try that approach yourself with a 7-day free trial on ContactJournalists.com and decide if it's right for how you want to grow.

What is "link juice"?

"Link juice" is the informal term SEOs use to describe the authority that passes from one site to another via a link.

If a high-authority site links to you, some of its credibility flows through that link.

Moz explains this concept well here:

👉 https://moz.com/learn/seo/link-juice

Editorial press links are especially powerful because they are:

• Placed naturally inside content
• Surrounded by relevant context
• Earned, not manipulated
• Difficult to fake or scale artificially

Google is extremely good at recognising these signals.

The reason press links hit differently is because they're earned, contextual, and human.

They come from real conversations. Real stories. Real journalists writing in real time.

That's why speed and relevance matter so much.

ContactJournalists.com is designed to surface those moments while they're still live, not days later when the opportunity's gone. If that sounds like the calmer way you'd prefer to approach PR, there's a 7-day free trial waiting.

Why press links are different from other backlinks

Press backlinks sit in a category of their own.

They tend to be:

• Editorial (chosen by a journalist, not paid for)
• Contextual (embedded in a real article)
• Relevant (tied to your industry or expertise)
• Trusted (from domains Google already respects)

Compare that to:

• Paid guest posts
• Link exchanges
• Random directories

This is exactly why I set up ContactJournalists.com in the first place.

After years of doing PR the hard way, I realised the real problem wasn't writing pitches. It was finding the right journalists at the right moment, before the opportunity disappeared. Founders were spending hours guessing, cold emailing, or chasing links that barely made a dent.

ContactJournalists.com was built to flip that.

Three things we focus on:

If press links are the backlinks that actually move the needle for your SEO, this is the calmest way I know to earn them.

There's a 7-day free trial, so you can explore it properly, respond to real journalist requests, and see if it fits the way you want to build, without committing to anything upfront.

Founder to founder, that's exactly how I'd want to try it too.

The compounding effect I didn't expect

After the Forbes feature, there wasn't a huge overnight spike or a dramatic moment where everything suddenly took off. It was subtler than that.

The website began ranking more naturally for brand terms, product-related searches, and questions people in our niche were actually typing into Google. New blog posts didn't need the same huge level of effort in pushing to get seen. Pages seemed to get picked up faster. SEO stopped feeling like such a fight.

Even outreach changed. When journalists looked us up, they could see we'd already been featured in credible places! Woohoo! Conversations started warmer and replies came back quicker.

It's not just a moment or a traffic spike you screenshot and move on from – press really becomes part of the foundations of your business.

It's infrastructure you build once and benefit from again and again and again!

This is the part that's hard to explain until you've lived it.

Once your site has a few strong press mentions behind it, everything else feels less uphill. SEO. Outreach. Even confidence.

If you want to start building that kind of quiet momentum, responding to journalist demand is one of the most reliable places to start. You don't need a big launch or a perfect story, just visibility into the right opportunities.

That's exactly what the 7-day free trial on ContactJournalists.com gives you.

Why relevance matters more than raw authority

A link from a huge site is powerful, but relevance is what makes it work.

Google doesn't just look at how authoritative a site is. It looks at context. Who is linking to you, why, and whether it makes sense in the wider topic space you operate in.

That's why these kinds of mentions are so effective:

• A nutrition brand featured in Men's Health
• A fashion startup mentioned in Vogue
• A SaaS founder quoted in TechCrunch

In each case, the publication already has topical authority in that space. When they link to you, Google isn't just seeing a trusted domain, it's seeing a relevant endorsement.

Google has been increasingly explicit about this. It uses topical relevance to understand what your site should rank for, not just whether it's legitimate.

You can see this reflected in Google's own guidance around links and ranking signals:

👉 https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide

And it's something SEO platforms have been talking about for years. Moz explains how relevance strengthens link value here:

👉 https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks

This is why random high-DR links, even from "big" sites, often underperform. A powerful link that doesn't make sense contextually sends a weak signal.

Press coverage that actually fits your industry does the opposite. It reinforces what your brand is about, what space you belong in, and which searches you deserve to show up for.

That's why one relevant press mention can outperform dozens of generic backlinks, and why founders who focus on relevance tend to see much stronger long-term SEO results.

If you want coverage that actually makes sense for your industry, ContactJournalists.com helps you filter by category, topic, and relevance, so you're not wasting time replying to things that were never a fit.

You can try it risk-free with the 7-day free trial.

Press as an SEO strategy (not a vanity play)

I didn't fully understand this while I was building my first company.

Back then, press felt like something you chased for the feeling it gave you. Credibility. Validation. Social proof. That little moment where you thought, okay, this is real, people are taking us seriously now.

And to be fair, all of that matters.

But what I didn't see at the time was that press was doing something much quieter and much more valuable in the background.

It was strengthening the business in ways ads never could.

When a reputable publication links to you, that authority stays put. It keeps working long after the article stops circulating on social.

That's why, looking back, I'd tell any founder this:

It also changes how everything else feels. SEO becomes less fragile. Outreach becomes less awkward. Even new content performs better because you're no longer starting from zero every time.

This is the mindset shift most founders miss. Press isn't a vanity channel. It's not a "nice-to-have" once you're bigger. Used properly, it becomes part of your growth infrastructure.

If you want to go deeper into this way of thinking, this post expands on why press works when founders stop treating it like a performance:

Why Most Press Releases Fail (And How to Fix Yours)

👉 Read why most press releases fail and how to fix yours

It breaks down why traditional PR approaches rarely lead to meaningful coverage or backlinks, and how founders get better results by focusing on relevance, timing, and responding to real journalist demand instead.

You can also explore more founder-led breakdowns like this across the ContactJournalists.com blog here:

👉 /#blog

Overall used properly, press becomes one of the most stable growth assets you can build. It strengthens your SEO. It builds trust before someone ever lands on your site. It compounds quietly while you're busy dealing with everything else that comes with running a business.

That Forbes feature felt magical in the moment.

But the link, the authority, and the knock-on effects years later ended up mattering far more.

That's why I built ContactJournalists.com the way I did. Not to turn founders into PR machines, but to make press feel calmer, clearer, and genuinely useful again.

If you want to explore that approach for yourself, there's a 7-day free trial. No pressure. No hard sell. Just a chance to see if this way of working fits how you want to grow.