Tools and providers
After the technical audit: 6 services for content and links once your site is fixed
Once crawling, indexing and page speed are sorted, rankings depend on content and links. Six services grouped by route: direct to a publisher, direct to journalists, marketplaces, an agency and a press release network.
What to take away
- A clean technical audit removes barriers. It does not create relevance, and Google says relevance comes first.
- There are five routes to new content and linksa publisher's own sales team, journalist requests, marketplaces, agencies and press release networks.
- Each route trades control, cost and effort differently. Prices are shown where published.
- Any paid placement should be marked as paid, whichever route it comes through.
Why a fixed site still needs content and links
Google is blunt about it. Its page experience documentation, updated in September 2026, says Search "always seeks to show the most relevant content, even if the page experience is sub-par". Good scores alone do not guarantee a top ranking.
The thresholds you worked towards still matter. Google Search Central's Core Web Vitals page asks for Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, Interaction to Next Paint under 200 milliseconds and Cumulative Layout Shift under 0.1. Once you meet them, a great page experience helps mainly where many useful pages compete.
The commercial case is plain. IAB UK's Digital Adspend 2025 study put UK search advertising at £17.9bn, 44% of digital spend. Organic visibility is how a site competes for the same clicks without paying for each one.
If your audit is done, the next steps usually look like the later months of a ninety day technical SEO plan: keep monitoring, then shift budget to pages worth ranking and to the signals that support them.
How to choose a route
Pick a route by what you lack. Short of writers? A marketplace or agency. Short of authority? Journalist requests or digital PR. Short of time? Pay a publisher or an agency to run it. Our technical SEO strategy guide shows how to sequence the work.
Before spending, confirm the fixes held. Our Core Web Vitals audit checklist and the guide to Search Console bulk data are good places to check that new content will be crawled and indexed.
Direct to a publisher
1. Reach Solutions
Reach Solutions is the advertising arm of Reach, publisher of titles including the Mirror, the Express and regional papers. Sponsored content is one of its formats, next to display, newsletters, video and search marketing. It cites 130+ print and online titles and 42m monthly unique visitors.
You deal with the publisher's own team, so you know exactly where the article will run. Prices are in a media pack, not on the site, and the homepage does not explain how sponsored content is labelled. Ask for an example page before you book.
Direct to journalists
2. Qwoted
Qwoted connects journalists who need sources with experts who can answer. Journalists post requests, and you pitch with a comment or data point. If the piece runs, the coverage is earned rather than paid.
A free account allows 2 pitches a month, delivered with a two-hour delay. The Pro plan is listed at $1,188.00 a year for 35 pitches a month with instant delivery. Higher tiers add coverage tracking and an account manager. It suits teams with real expertise and time to reply fast.
Marketplaces
3. Textbroker
Textbroker sells content strategy and creation, SEO, translation, and publication and link building, with a UK site among ten country sites. Content can be fully human-authored or AI-enhanced. It says it has over 80,000 clients worldwide.
Its strength after an audit is volume: briefs for category, product and guide pages written to a spec. Per-word prices are not on the homepage. Brief writers with the search intent and internal links you mapped during the audit.
4. WhitePress
WhitePress is a sponsored article and link platform covering publications on 149,000+ websites in 36 languages, with a London address in its footer. It also offers link insertion, digital PR, brand mentions and copywriting.
It scores portals on editorial and SEO metrics and highlights a 36-month guarantee with daily link monitoring. Pricing is pay-as-you-go. Because these are paid placements, check that each one is marked as paid. Our disclosure policy guide shows how to write that rule down.
Agency
5. Propellernet
Propellernet covers technical SEO, content, digital PR, strategy, paid media and analytics in one team. It says it has done PR-led link building since 2009 and became one of the first B Corps in digital marketing in 2021. CoverageBook, its coverage reporting spin-off, is used by over 18k PR professionals.
The fit here is continuity: the people who understand your technical fixes also plan content and outreach. No prices are listed, and the homepage does not give an address. Agree how results will be reported using our guide to technical SEO measurement and reporting.
Network
6. Pressat
Pressat distributes press releases to journalists, bloggers and local news outlets, with syndication to services such as Dow Jones Factiva and LexisNexis. All packages include access to 33,000 media subscribers, search engine indexing and release analytics.
Prices are published: pay-as-you-go from £110 per release, a bundle of ten for £880, or a subscription from £290 a month for five. The page does not say whether VAT is included. A release earns coverage only if the news is real, so save it for launches and data.
Comparing the six
| Service | Route | What you get | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reach Solutions | Direct to publisher | Sponsored content on Reach titles | Media pack on request |
| Qwoted | Direct to journalists | Requests to pitch into | Free; Pro $1,188.00 a year |
| Textbroker | Marketplace | Written content, publication | Not on homepage |
| WhitePress | Marketplace | Sponsored articles, link insertion | Pay-as-you-go, no figures |
| Propellernet | Agency | Technical SEO, content, digital PR | Not published |
| Pressat | Network | Press release distribution | From £110 per release |
Keep the audit habits
The discipline that fixed the site applies here too. Log every new page and every earned or paid link, then check indexing a few weeks later. Our guide to log file analysis shows how to confirm Googlebot is reaching the new content.
Common questions
Should I wait for Core Web Vitals to pass before building links?
Not necessarily. Fix crawling and indexing first, because new content needs to be found. Speed work and content can then run in parallel.
Is a press release a link building tactic?
Not reliably. Its value is coverage when the news is genuine; any links it produces are a bonus.
Which route is cheapest?
Journalist requests can cost nothing but staff time. Paid routes vary widely, and most providers here do not publish prices.
