How can digital PR take your brand to the next level when AI just won’t cut it?
In today’s crowded digital marketplace, getting your business noticed is more challenging than ever. SEO, social media, content marketing—you’ve probably dabbled in all of them. But there’s one piece of the puzzle that might be the missing key to your search engine success: Digital PR.
What is digital PR? How does it fit into your overall strategy? Can it really make a difference in your search engine rankings? And perhaps most importantly, can artificial intelligence (AI) ultimately compete with the human touch in this critical area of marketing?
If you’re ready to transform your online presence, this guide will show you how digital PR works, how it connects with SEO, and how it can position your brand as an industry leader. So, is digital PR the missing key to your success? Let’s find out.
Digital PR is the modern evolution of traditional public relations, combining the classic goals of brand reputation management and awareness with SEO, content marketing, and online outreach. Its primary aim is to build your brand’s authority online by earning backlinks, increasing mentions, and generating buzz around your content, products, or services.
Digital PR is about so much more than backlinks. It’s about crafting stories that resonate with your audience and building relationships with journalists, influencers, and thought leaders. Unlike SEO, where technical elements are often automated, digital PR requires a human touch—an approach that AI-driven tools can’t replicate.
In traditional PR, you’d send press releases to newspapers or TV networks. Today, digital PR targets online platforms like industry websites, blogs, and social influencers—places where your audience spends most of their time. The added benefit? These mentions and backlinks have a direct impact on your search engine ranking, helping you rise to the top of Google’s results.
Digital PR is a multi-faceted approach that includes several core elements working together to improve your brand’s visibility and credibility. Let’s break them down:
This involves pitching directly to journalists and bloggers. Success depends on finding the right person and sending a pitch that resonates with their specific audience. It’s a manual, time-intensive process that AI just can’t handle.
Writing insightful content for other high-authority sites positions you as a thought leader, while also generating backlinks to your own website. This DOES NOT mean paying for guest posts - be warned!
Infographics, original research, and data-driven stories often attract backlinks from major publications and social media shares.
Appearing as a guest on a podcast or being interviewed by a respected site can generate buzz around your brand.
Content that goes viral on social platforms can generate hundreds of shares, driving traffic and creating more opportunities for backlinks.
This manual approach means no shortcuts. Your content needs to be relevant, interesting, and highly shareable. Journalists can spot automated, generic pitches from a mile away, and they don’t engage with them. That’s why personalisation is key.
Learn more about personalisation in digital marketing here.
The relationship between digital PR and search engine optimisation (SEO) is a powerful one. While SEO focuses on improving the technical aspects of your website (keywords, site speed, etc.), digital PR builds your website’s authority in Google’s eyes by earning links from reputable, high-authority websites.
Here’s how digital PR directly impacts your SEO strategy:
Google views backlinks from high-authority websites as votes of confidence. The more quality backlinks you have, the more Google views your site as trustworthy, boosting your rankings
Even when a publication doesn’t include a direct link, mentions of your brand can still provide value. Google’s algorithm notices when your brand is referenced, even without a hyperlink, and this contributes to your authority.
Digital PR drives new traffic to your site. As users visit your website and interact with your content, engagement metrics such as time spent on the page and bounce rate improve, which further benefits your SEO efforts.
Example: Imagine you’re a small company selling eco-friendly cleaning products. A successful digital PR campaign might get your business featured in a major sustainability blog. That feature drives hundreds of new visitors to your site, earns you backlinks from other sites that reference the article, and gives your domain authority a significant boost.
At the heart of digital PR is link building—and it’s not just about quantity. A typical campaign should yield 10-15 high-quality backlinks, but the focus should always be on the value of the link, not just the number.
Unlike many automated marketing tactics, digital PR is a manual, hands-on process. It requires careful planning, personalisation, and persistence. Here’s a breakdown of the typical digital PR process:
Are you aiming for more traffic, higher domain authority, or greater brand recognition? Establishing clear goals upfront will guide the rest of your campaign.
This is where manual effort really comes into play. You need to identify the right journalists, bloggers, and influencers who align with your niche. What stories do they cover? How does your brand fit into their narrative?
Create content that’s valuable, informative, and shareable. This might involve writing guest posts, crafting press releases, or developing infographics that make complex information easily digestible.
Personalised outreach is essential. A one-size-fits-all email template won’t work. Craft individual pitches for each journalist, explaining why your story matters to their audience.
Track which publications have picked up your story and which haven’t responded. A good digital PR campaign requires persistent follow-up and constant monitoring.
Why AI Can’t Compete: Each step of this process relies on creativity, personalisation, and human engagement - elements that AI-driven systems simply can’t replicate. The manual effort required to build relationships with journalists and influencers is one of the biggest advantages of digital PR. AI tools can assist in identifying outreach opportunities, but they can’t handle the emotional intelligence needed to craft tailored pitches that resonate.
Explore how manual processes can enhance your digital strategy.
Digital PR requires patience. Unlike paid ads or automated SEO tools, which can show immediate results, digital PR is a long game. You’re building a network of relationships and crafting stories that resonate. This can take anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks before you start seeing significant results.
Why the delay?
Journalist engagement takes time: Not every pitch will get picked up right away. Some journalists may only cover your story weeks or months later when the timing fits their editorial calendar.
Backlink generation: While some stories will earn you immediate backlinks, others might take time to generate those all-important links.
This slow but steady approach might feel like a drawback, but the results of digital PR are long-lasting and provide significant ROI over time. If done well, the authority and backlinks earned from digital PR can last for years, consistently driving organic traffic and improving your brand’s online presence.
Whether you’re a start-up, a small business, or a large enterprise, digital PR offers substantial benefits for businesses of all sizes. Here’s who can benefit most:
A. Start-ups: You need to make a splash and get noticed. Digital PR helps you establish authority in your industry and earn high-quality backlinks from the start.
B. Small and medium-sized businesses: Digital PR offers a cost-effective way to build brand awareness and improve your search engine rankings without relying heavily on paid advertising.
C. Enterprise-level companies: Even big brands need to maintain relevance in the digital space. Digital PR keeps you visible in your industry and ensures your reputation remains strong.
No matter the size of your business, digital PR helps build trust. Trust is essential for both your audience and search engines and the manual effort behind digital PR ensures that the trust you build is authentic.
In a world increasingly dominated by AI and automation, it’s easy to think that software can do it all. But digital PR is one area where AI falls short.
Here’s why AI can’t replicate the power of human-driven PR:
Journalists receive hundreds of pitches daily. An AI-generated email won’t stand out from the crowd. Only personalised, thoughtfully crafted outreach can cut through the noise.
Relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers are built over time, not through automated processes. Trust is key in PR, and trust is something only humans can develop.
AI might be able to churn out content, but it lacks the nuance, emotion, and creativity required to tell stories that resonate with people.
Measuring the success of a digital PR campaign goes beyond tracking backlinks. Here are the key metrics you should monitor to gauge your campaign’s effectiveness:
Backlinks and domain authority: Track how many backlinks you earn and the quality of the sites linking to you. An increase in domain authority is a strong indicator of success.
Traffic spikes: Monitor traffic to your website after your PR content goes live. Significant increases in organic traffic suggest that your campaign is working.
Social shares and engagement: Measure how often your content is shared on social media platforms. More shares mean greater reach and visibility.
Brand mentions: Even if you don’t get a direct link, being mentioned by reputable sources still adds to your brand’s credibility.
Tracking these metrics provides a clear picture of your digital PR efforts’ impact and helps you understand the value of your manual work.
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so does digital PR. Here are a few trends to keep an eye on:
Digital PR and SEO will continue to become even more closely intertwined as Google’s algorithm becomes more sophisticated in assessing backlinks and brand mentions.
Journalists are increasingly looking for stories backed by data. Infographics and original research will remain essential tools in a successful digital PR campaign.
The line between PR and influencer marketing is blurring. As social media continues to grow, influencers will play an even bigger role in driving brand visibility.
If you’re looking for a way to improve your website’s search engine rankings, build your brand’s authority, and create meaningful connections with journalists and influencers, digital PR is an excellent investment. It requires manual effort, creativity, and patience, but the long-term results can be transformative for your business.
The question is: Are you ready to put in the manual work that AI can’t deliver? If the answer is yes, the rewards will speak for themselves.
Explore more about how our digital marketing services can help take your business to the next level and boost your online presence.
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