Most articles about digital PR and SEO are written for someone starting from nothing.
This one isn’t.
Last year we ran a four-month programme for Cyber Scotland which resulted in 17 pieces of coverage across trade, regional and national media, including The Scotsman, Insider Media and Scottish Financial News.
Naturally, the coverage was the part everyone celebrated at the time, because that is the most visible result of PR and the thing you can immediately send around internally and share on LinkedIn. What nobody was really counting, though, was what all of those articles, links and mentions would continue to do for Cyber Scotland’s visibility in search long after the original stories had appeared.
And that is the gap we think more businesses need to start looking at.
PR coverage is no longer simply something that lands, gets shared for a few days and disappears into an archive. Increasingly, it becomes part of the wider body of information that exists about your business online, and that matters not only for traditional search but for the way people are beginning to discover companies through AI too.
Key takeaways
- Every piece of earned coverage can do more than one job. If it includes a link, it can help strengthen your website’s authority, while the coverage itself puts your business, people and expertise into a credible third-party publication.
- AI tools including ChatGPT and Perplexity, along with Google’s AI search features, can draw on information published across the wider web, which makes independent media coverage increasingly valuable when people are researching companies and experts.
- Most businesses we speak to could tell me roughly what press coverage they have received, but very few could confidently tell me which publications have covered them during the last six months, which stories linked back to their website and what that coverage might be doing for their wider visibility.
- PR and SEO should not really be sitting in separate boxes. When they are done well, they support many of the same commercial objectives.
- One of the simplest visibility checks takes about 10 minutes and costs nothing. Ask a number of AI tools which businesses or experts they associate with your sector and see whether you appear.
What does digital PR do for SEO?
There are really two things happening when a credible publication writes about your business, although traditionally we have tended to focus far more heavily on one than the other.
The first is the link.
If a national newspaper, respected regional title or specialist trade publication writes about you and includes a link back to your website, that can strengthen the signals around the authority and relevance of your site. Links from reputable third-party websites have been part of the search landscape for years, which means good PR has actually been supporting SEO for a very long time, even if nobody on the PR side necessarily called it that.
The second part is the mention itself, and we think this is becoming much more interesting.
Your company name, your chief executive, your expertise or your product appears alongside the subjects you want to be associated with, but crucially it appears somewhere other than your own website.
There is quite an important distinction there because, of course, we can all say wonderful things about ourselves on our own websites. Independent coverage shows that somebody else thought your view, expertise, story or data was sufficiently interesting and credible to publish.
We wrote about this last year in SEO vs GEO, and the principle still stands. SEO helps make you discoverable, while independent media coverage helps build the wider evidence that you are credible when somebody does discover you.
Increasingly, we think you need both.
Why do brand mentions matter now?
Because the way people search is changing, and not every search now ends with somebody clicking through to a company’s website.
Someone looking for an HR consultancy, cyber security specialist, accountant or construction expert might still type a phrase into Google, but they might just as easily ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for recommendations, or use one of Google’s AI search features to help them research the market.
Those systems can draw information from multiple sources across the web when constructing their answers, which means your own website remains incredibly important, but it is no longer the only place where your reputation is being formed.
The wider footprint matters too.
So that trade feature you were pleased to secure in March, the quote your chief executive gave to a national newspaper last summer or the piece of original research that was picked up across half a dozen titles may still be working for you.
It is just working somewhere you might not have thought to look.
What does this look like in practice?
Clover HR is a good example.
We supported the business between July and December last year and secured 16 pieces of coverage across business, HR trade and national media, including a feature in People Management, expert commentary in The Telegraph and a BBC radio interview with Clover HR’s then chief executive, the late Michael Doolin.
Michael, who sadly passed away subsequently, told me at the time that the coverage and messaging had “made a real difference to our visibility”, which was obviously exactly what we had set out to achieve from a communications perspective.
But when we look back at that programme now, I can see another layer of value that we were creating at the same time.
Every one of those interviews, comments and articles was adding to the body of independent information about Clover HR online, placing the business and Michael’s expertise into established, credible publications and associating the company with the very subjects it wanted to be known for.
That is difficult to replicate through your own website because you cannot manufacture independent endorsement yourself. The coverage exists because a journalist or editor decided your expertise was relevant enough to include.
For us, that is where the relationship between PR, search and AI visibility starts to become really interesting.
How do you connect coverage to search results?
We would start with something incredibly simple and count what you already have, because in our experience most businesses do not really know.
They might know they were featured in The Telegraph last month or that the managing director appeared on local radio, but when you start looking at the whole picture over six or 12 months, things become much more interesting.
Look at which publications have covered you, what kind of authority and audience those publications have and which of the articles included links back to your website. Then look at the subjects you want your business to be known for and ask whether your media coverage is consistently reinforcing those areas.
And then there is the AI test.
Open ChatGPT, Perplexity or another AI search tool and ask the sorts of questions a prospective customer might ask. Who are the leading companies in your category? Which businesses specialise in a particular area? Who are the experts talking about a particular issue?
Does your name appear?
We would never rely on one prompt or one tool as a definitive measure because results can vary, but as a quick sense-check it is incredibly useful and takes very little time.
Quite often, it changes the conversation about PR internally because suddenly that piece of coverage is no longer being viewed simply as a newspaper clipping. It is part of the company’s overall search and reputation footprint.
Do you need to choose between PR and SEO?
No, and we are not convinced the choice ever made much sense in the first place.
SEO is largely concerned with making sure your own website and content can be found, while PR is about getting other people to talk about you in places you do not control. One strengthens what you own and the other creates credibility around it.
They are different disciplines, but they are pulling in broadly the same direction.
We have certainly never worked on a PR programme and thought that improving a client’s reputation, securing authoritative coverage and getting knowledgeable people quoted in respected publications was somehow going to make its search visibility worse.
Quite the opposite.
Where we think businesses miss an opportunity is when they treat press coverage as something with an incredibly short lifespan: the story appears, somebody shares it on LinkedIn, the link gets dropped into a board report and everyone moves on to the next thing.
That coverage is still there.
And when you begin looking at it as part of a much bigger body of evidence about your business, rather than simply a nice piece of publicity, the value of consistent PR starts to look rather different.
Frequently asked questions
What is digital PR for SEO?
Digital PR is the process of earning coverage, mentions and links in credible online publications, usually through strong stories, expert commentary, research, opinion and media relations. From an SEO perspective, the obvious benefit is that some of those stories will link back to your website, but there is also wider value in building independent references to your company, people and expertise across the web.
Is SEO still worth it?
Absolutely. Your website still needs to be technically sound, useful, authoritative and easy to find, and I certainly would not suggest that AI has somehow made traditional search irrelevant.
What has changed is everything surrounding it. People now have far more ways to research a business before making contact, which means the information they encounter about you outside your website is becoming increasingly important too.
What are examples of digital PR?
Digital PR can take many forms, from expert commentary in a national newspaper or specialist trade title through to original research, regional news stories, thought leadership, surveys, product or business launches and broadcast interviews.
The common thread is that somebody other than you is publishing something about your business or expertise, which is precisely what gives earned media its value.
How long does digital PR take to affect search?
There is no neat answer because the benefits build in different ways.
A strong story can generate coverage very quickly once the idea, timing and relationships are right, whereas the broader benefit of accumulating links, mentions and third-party references develops over a much longer period.
This is also why we have always preferred sustained PR programmes to isolated bursts of activity. One article is useful; a year of credible coverage creates something far more substantial.
Do we need links, or are mentions enough?
Ideally you want both, but we would never turn down a brilliant piece of national or specialist coverage simply because the journalist had not included a link.
Links can help strengthen the authority and discoverability of your own website, while mentions build the wider independent footprint around your company, your people and your expertise.
A good PR programme should be looking at the whole picture rather than chasing links for the sake of them.
About the author
Jenny Holden runs Chorus Communications, a senior-led PR and communications consultancy working with businesses across sectors including construction, care, travel, HR and tech.
With more than 20 years’ experience across B2B and B2C communications, Jenny has built an extensive network of journalists across national, regional and specialist media and works with clients to turn their expertise, data and ideas into stories that build reputation and visibility.
Recent programmes include Cyber Scotland, Clover HR and Access Bookings. You can see more of the work here.
Ready to find out what your coverage is worth?
If you are already investing in PR, there is a good chance you are already creating far more long-term value than the coverage report at the end of the month is showing you.
The gap, more often than not, is understanding and measuring it.
We would be very happy to take a look at what your existing coverage is doing for your visibility, where you are already appearing and, perhaps more importantly, where the obvious gaps are.
Meta Title: How Digital PR and SEO Work Together to Get Your Brand Found
Meta Description: Digital PR and SEO pull in the same direction. Discover what your press coverage is already doing for search and AI visibility, and how to start measuring it.
