(13 min. read)
What does 'Digital PR' actually mean?
Digital PR grew into one of the hottest linkbuilding strategies in the SEO industry—but reducing it to just “PR with links” misses the point. It’s actually a natural progression of traditional public relations, with the main distinction being the type of media it focuses on (Digital PR, obviously, uses digital ones).
As mentioned, the tactics are digital. Think thought leadership features, expert commentary, timely data drops, podcast interviews and so on. But the intent is the same as it was years ago: getting others to talk about the brand in ways that feel natural, credible, and useful.
It’s easy to assume Digital PR is just link building with a fancy name. And while it does drive backlinks, the real goal is broader: shaping how your brand shows up in the public eye.
It sits at the intersection of branding and SEO—earning trust from people and signals from search engines. That’s what makes it such a high-leverage tactic. Digital PR relies on external credibility, which means coverage is never guaranteed. For respected outlets to quote your founder, feature your insights, or reference your data, you need something meaningful to say—and you need to be persistent enough to get journalists to notice you in a sea of other pitches.
Digital PR doesn’t necessarily chase virality (though when it happens, it’s a huge win). Instead, it aims to build durable authority.
Why Digital PR Matters Now More Than Ever
It's easy to get fixated on the immediate, tangible outcome of a Digital PR campaign: the coveted backlink. And yes, those links are incredibly valuable for SEO, signaling authority and trust to search engines. However, Digital PR's influence now extends well beyond traditional SEO signals, playing a critical role in shaping how your brand is understood and presented by the next generation of search experiences: AI-powered results.
These aren't your typical blue-link search results. Think of Google's AI Overviews, or the answers you get from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other large language models (LLMs). These systems don't just point you to a website; they synthesize information to provide direct, often unlinked, answers. And the sources they pull from are disproportionately those with established credibility.
Google's algorithms, and indeed the large language models powering generative AI search experiences, are no longer just looking at keywords and backlinks in isolation. They are constantly striving to understand E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
In a world saturated with information, much of it AI-generated, how do you discern what's reliable? Google's answer is by prioritizing content and brands that demonstrate genuine E-E-A-T. This is precisely where Digital PR shines.
Being frequently and positively mentioned in high-trust online publications, news articles, reputable industry blogs, and even podcasts directly feeds into the datasets these AI models learn from. So if your brand is consistently mentioned and cited by these respected outlets, you are far more likely to be featured – or even directly quoted – in these AI-generated summaries. Your brand's consistent appearance in these authoritative contexts helps the AI understand:
- Entity Recognition: The AI learns to associate your brand name with specific products, services, expertise, and a general field of knowledge. If your founder is frequently quoted on topics related to renewable energy, the AI begins to recognize them as an "entity" of expertise within that domain.
- Topical Authority: When your brand is consistently covered across a specific subject area, it signals to the AI that you are a go-to authority on that topic. This isn't about keywords on your site; it's about external validation across the web.
- Sentiment &
Brand Values: AI models can analyze the sentiment surrounding brand mentions. Positive coverage contributes to a positive sentiment profile, which can influence how your brand is presented in AI-generated summaries – a huge win for soft factors that were once harder to quantify.
In essence, Digital PR strategically builds a digital footprint of external credibility that these AI systems prioritize. While a backlink is a direct vote for your website, an authoritative mention, even without a link, is a vote for your brand's very existence and relevance in the broader knowledge graph. This means your brand could influence consumer decisions directly within an AI-generated answer, often without the user ever needing to click through to your site. This represents a powerful, and often overlooked, form of "zero-click" visibility.
The How Behind Digital PR
One of the questions that remains is: how is Digital PR actually done to make your brand stand out—and get linked—in high-level publications? On paper, it’s simple: create something worth talking about, pitch it to a journalist, and hope it lands. In reality, that last step (getting coverage) is where most of the heavy lifting happens.
There’s no one-size-fits-all method, but to gain traction, you can choose from several tactics when running a Digital PR campaign:
- Expert commentary
It’s built on a simple idea: journalists want to write better stories backed by credible expert insight. Platforms like HARO, Featured, and Qwoted exist to connect those journalists with subject-matter experts fast.
If a journalist likes your response, it might get published along with a backlink to your site. These HARO-style kinds of mentions usually come with a brand link in the byline or signature. It’s not always glamorous, but it’s consistent and scalable. - Reactive PR (aka newsjacking)
This method leverages the power of timeliness. When a big news story breaks in your industry, there’s often a short window where journalists are scrambling for expert takes and fresh angles. That’s your moment.
Whether it’s a policy shift, a viral TikTok trend, or a breaking financial report, jumping into the conversation with a relevant opinion—or better yet, a contrarian one—can get you quoted in high-traffic articles that are already gaining traction. But speed matters. Miss the moment, and the media’s moved on. - Data storytelling
Data-led campaigns rely on original research, surveys, or creative analysis of public data. The idea is to dig up something journalists didn’t have before, or something they covered years ago and might be interested in refreshing the data.
Journalists are constantly on the hunt for exclusive data points and fresh perspectives that can strengthen their articles. When you provide them with original, well-presented data, you become an indispensable source, earning both citations and backlinks as publications reference your findings. Think digestible insights, strong headlines, and ideally, a few visuals that make the data easier to spread. - Creative campaigns /
stunts
This is where PR meets imagination. Such campaigns are built to earn attention by doing something unexpected. That could mean running a quirky experiment, building an interactive tool, or staging something bold in the real world that’s designed to go viral online.
Done right, it feels less like marketing and more like a story people want to tell, leading to widespread coverage and links. The challenge is balancing creativity with substance—making sure there’s a meaningful link between the idea and your brand. - Thought leadership and op-eds
Unlike expert commentary, which is reactive, thought leadership is about stepping up and leading the conversation. That means publishing opinion pieces, writing in-depth columns, joining podcast interviews, or speaking at industry events.
It works best when someone from your team—founder, CMO, whoever—has something sharp to say that challenges the status quo or clarifies complex issues. It’s not about self-promotion. It’s about showing up with perspective, not just presence.
Building a Successful Digital PR Strategy
We understand how advantageous a well-crafted Digital PR strategy can be — now is the time to learn how to implement one step-by-step. Building a Digital PR strategy involves a series of carefully planned steps that integrate various digital marketing tactics and tools to enhance your brand’s online presence. Follow these steps thoroughly when building your strategy from scratch:
Content Creation for Digital PR
Content is the cornerstone of any successful Digital PR strategy. The goal is to inform, educate, or entertain your target audience with fresh takes on industry trends, unique data insights, or thought-provoking perspectives. This newsworthiness is what attracts the attention of journalists and influencers.
Keep in mind that Digital PR focuses on data-driven content, such as case studies and industry analyses. Simple blog posts won’t suffice here—the content needs to be buzzworthy and provide real value to your target audience.
Digital PR goes beyond press releases. It explores various content formats that journalists and influencers crave:
- Data-driven research studies: Uncover and analyze industry data to reveal hidden trends or offer new interpretations. Journalists love the authority of well-conducted research.
- Survey results: Tap into public opinion with well-designed surveys on relevant topics. Compelling findings can spark conversation and generate media buzz.
- Creative campaigns: Push boundaries with innovative campaigns that address industry challenges or social issues. Uniqueness and creativity are surefire ways to grab headlines.
Even a touch of calculated controversy can pique journalists' interest. However, ensure it's based on solid evidence and presented in a responsible manner to avoid negativity. Remember, journalists are storytellers. By prioritizing valuable and newsworthy content, you create narratives they naturally want to include in their articles, linking back to your website and propelling your SEO efforts.
Media Outreach Techniques
Building strong relationships with journalists, bloggers and influencers can have a tremendous long-term effect and help secure valuable media coverage of your brand. It’s one of the best ways to enhance your brand’s visibility — here’s how to implement effective media outreach techniques:
Start with finding media outlets, popular blogs, and online communities that align with your industry and target audience. You can use services like Cision or Muck Rack to find suitable journalists and bloggers who cover topics related to your industry.
Create a detailed list of your contacts (journalists, bloggers, influencers, etc.) who cover topics related to your industry. Include all relevant contact details, publication names, and areas of interest to streamline your outreach efforts.
Research each contact’s recent work to get a better grip of the journalist’s writing style, their audience’s interests, and the topics they cover. Modify your pitch to align with the journalist’s and their audience’s preferences and the type of content they typically publish. Address them by name and reference their recent work or specific interests to show you’ve done your homework. Write a concise and attention-grabbing subject line that clearly conveys the value of your story, and clearly explain why it’s newsworthy and relevant to their audience.
Keep your pitch brief and to-the-point, ideally no longer than a few paragraphs. Provide supporting materials and offer value that can help journalists in their work, like brief notes that journalists could publish right away or infographics highlighting the results of a survey or study. You can also utilize PR tools like BuzzStream, Pitchbox, Meltwater, etc., to streamline your efforts and track interactions. These tools can make it much easier to access top-level journalists and influencers, automating backlink prospecting and outreach.
Follow and engage with journalists and bloggers on social media. Share and comment on their work to build rapport and stay on their radar.
Be transparent and honest, and follow up professionally. If you don’t receive a response, follow up politely after a few days or a week with a brief reminder. Respect the journalist’s time and don’t be too pushy. Honor any requests regarding preferred contact methods or topics they are not interested in covering.
Content Syndication for Amplification
Content syndication is a powerful strategy within Digital PR that involves republishing your content by smaller media outlets to extend its reach and enhance its impact. This can easily increase your visibility and help establish authority among a wider audience, furthermore improving your SEO.
Syndicating your content allows you to tap into the established audiences of reputable publications, without having to directly publish your texts multiple times, significantly expanding your content’s reach beyond your immediate network. As you create newsworthy content and pitch it to journalists, they will create unique articles that might contain backlinks to your site. As these articles get further shared by other publishers, the links to your content will be syndicated further, too. Frequent appearances on well-known websites and publications increase your brand’s visibility and recognition, making it more familiar to a wider audience.
While you might not have direct control over syndication, it’s a worthwhile tactic that can boost your SEO. It provides even more opportunities for generating high-quality backlinks to your original article or website, which are crucial for improving your site’s search engine ranking. Gaining backlinks from authoritative sites enhances your domain authority, a key factor in SEO algorithms, leading to better overall search engine performance.
Research whether a journalist’s previous work has been syndicated. This way you can gauge how likely it is for your content to be syndicated as well if you decide to pitch to that journalist. Look for similar articles on other sites with disclaimers like “This article originally appeared in” or similar.
Measuring the Success of Your Digital PR Efforts
Now that your strategy is ready, how will you know how well it actually works? Evaluating the effectiveness of your Digital PR strategy is essential to understand its impact and refine your approach. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and utilizing various monitoring tools, you can gain valuable insights into the success of your efforts.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Digital PR
1. Website Traffic
- Total Visits:
Track the overall number of visitors to your website, which indicates the reach and effectiveness of your Digital PR campaigns.
- Referral Traffic:
Monitor traffic coming from specific sources, such as media outlets or social media platforms where your content was featured.
- Traffic from Syndication:
Measure the number of visitors coming from syndicated content published on third-party platforms.
2. Brand Mentions
- Volume of Mentions:
Track the number of times your brand is mentioned across various online channels, including news websites, blogs, and social media.
- Sentiment Analysis:
Analyze the sentiment of brand mentions (positive, negative, neutral) to gauge public perception and brand reputation.
3. Backlinks
- Total Backlinks:
Measure the total number of backlinks generated from Digital PR activities, focusing on those from high-authority domains.
- Backlinks from Syndication:
Track backlinks earned specifically from syndicated content to evaluate the SEO benefits of your syndication efforts.
4. Engagement Metrics
- Social Media Engagement:
Monitor likes, shares, comments, and other interactions on social media posts related to your Digital PR campaigns.
- Content Shares:
Measure how often your content is shared across different platforms, indicating its popularity and reach.
5. Media Coverage
- Number of Articles/
Features:
Count the number of articles, features, or news stories that mention your brand as a result of your media outreach efforts.
- Quality of Coverage:
Evaluate the prominence and context of the coverage, such as headline features versus brief mentions.
6. Lead Generation and Conversions
- Lead Volume:
Track the number of leads generated through Digital PR campaigns, including those from referral traffic and content syndication.
- Conversion Rate:
Measure the percentage of visitors who take a desired action (e.g., signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase) after interacting with your Digital PR content.
Recommended Tools
Brand Mentions Monitoring
Google Alerts:
Set up alerts for your brand name, key products, and relevant industry terms to receive notifications whenever they are mentioned online.
Brand24:
Use Brand24 to track real-time mentions of your brand across social media, blogs, forums, and news sites. It also provides sentiment analysis and influencer score tracking.
Website Traffic Measurement
Google Analytics:
Analyze website traffic, referral sources, user behavior, and conversion rates. It offers detailed insights into how visitors interact with your site.
SEMrush:
Track website traffic, backlinks, and keyword rankings. SEMrush also provides competitor analysis to compare your performance with industry peers.
Social Media Performance
Hootsuite:
Manage and analyze social media activity across multiple platforms. Hootsuite provides detailed engagement metrics, audience insights, and performance reports.
Sprout Social:
Use Sprout Social to track social media engagement, audience growth, and content performance. It also offers advanced analytics and reporting features.
Backlink Analysis
Ahrefs:
Monitor backlinks, domain authority, and organic traffic. Ahrefs provides comprehensive tools for analyzing backlink profiles and tracking SEO performance.
Moz Link Explorer:
Use Moz Link Explorer to track backlinks, domain authority, and page authority. It helps identify link-building opportunities and assess the quality of backlinks.
Media Coverage Tracking
Muck Rack:
Track media coverage, manage journalist relationships, and analyze the impact of your PR efforts. Muck Rack also offers a media database for targeted outreach.
CoverageBook:
Generate reports on media coverage, including metrics such as reach, engagement, and SEO value. CoverageBook simplifies the process of demonstrating PR impact.
Digital PR utilizes online channels to promote your brand, involving content creation, SEO integration, influencer outreach, and social media engagement, distinct from traditional PR's offline focus. By integrating these strategies and tools, you can build your online presence, improve SEO, and achieve sustainable growth long term.
