Today’s digital landscape is ever-changing. The hallmarks of traditional PR are no longer enough to help brands stand out and deliver measurable business impact. Brands have to be everywhere, all at once.
At O’Connell & Goldberg, our team has seen firsthand how public relations and SEO have fused together over the last half decade. Working together, these entities create visibility, authority, and impact for our clients. As our team leans into the AI age, we found it pivotal to discern why Digital PR matters and how it works in tandem with SEO to deliver real results.
The Ever-Changing Search Landscape
The days of relying solely on top-of-funnel keywords or even keywords in general are rapidly declining. Enter the rise of longer query searches that aim to answer questions with a summary, as opposed to digging through web pages.
This shift has caused dramatic declines in informational search traffic. Resulting in search engines and AI systems to place greater emphasis on authority, relevance, and brand signals to understand and surface businesses that answer people’s questions.
This shift transforms how brands should think about visibility:
- Users increasingly discover brands through trusted online coverage and contextual mentions as opposed to brand web pages.
- Search engines and even AI-driven overviews draw hundreds of signals beyond keyword optimization alone through fan-out methods.
- Digital PR sits at the crucial intersection of media exposure and search visibility, no longer just awareness… it’s discovery.
What Is Digital PR, Really?
Digital PR is more than press releases and link outreach. It’s strategic storytelling that earns media attention, builds authority, and generates signals that search engines care about.
Key elements include:
- Earned coverage on news sites, blogs, and industry publications.
- Brand mentions paired with context. Enabling search algorithms to understand who you are and what your brand does.
- Content designed to attract backlinks and citations.
- Integration with SEO goals from the outset, not as an afterthought.
Digital PR isn’t just building awareness with a mention. It’s actively shaping your brand’s search presence and reinforcing its relevance and digital footprint across the web.
How Digital PR Is Inexplicably Tied to SEO
Here’s how our team is using Digital PR to deliver SEO value to clients in 2026 and beyond:
1. Boost Brand Authority Through Earned Mentions
When your brand appears alongside relevant topics and in trusted publications, search engines see that as a signal of expertise and trustworthiness. Two major core components of modern ranking algorithms.
2. Generate High-Quality Backlinks
Press outreach, media mentions, and features can lead to natural backlinks from reputable sources. Though changing in nature of acquisition, it is still one of the strongest SEO signals when done correctly.
3. Increase Online Visibility and Search Presence
Press releases and earned media often get indexed on multiple domains. That means more opportunities for visibility on page one of search results, sometimes even in featured snippets, Google News, Discover, and more.
4. Support Brand and Branded Search Growth
Repeated media appearances create familiarity, and familiarity builds more of a complete digital brand footprint. When audiences start searching for your brand by name, search engines see that as a high-intent signal, which can boost organic rankings over time.
Are Press Releases Still Worth It?
This topic has been debated for years.
Our answer?
Absolutely.
Before the unpresented rise of AI chatbots, press releases on their own did little for SEO. Usually due to them being poorly structured and lacking newsworthy content. But recent data suggests that well-crafted, strategically linked press releases can deliver measurable SEO benefits.
One case study saw a nearly 83% traffic increase to a target page after a strategically issued press release, complete with links to key landing pages and real news content.
What’s more compelling in 2026 is that press releases are sometimes cited directly in AI-generated search overviews, signaling not just backlinks but authority recognition by machines.
Press releases shouldn’t be used as a standalone tactic, but when integrated into a broader digital PR and SEO strategy, they are more powerful than ever.
The New Digital PR Playbook
To succeed today, PR campaigns need to be:
- SEO-aligned: target pages and keywords matter
- Journalist-friendly: strong news angles and relevant data
- Amplified across platforms: from media to social to owned channels
- Measured with SEO metrics: backlinks, rankings, referral traffic, branded searches, and AI visibility metrics, not just press hits.
Digital PR FAQs
SEO-driven public relations is a PR strategy combining traditional media outreach with search engine optimization tactics. Instead of focusing only on brand awareness, digital PR prioritizes earning high-quality backlinks, increasing domain authority, and improving visibility in search. When combined, these efforts aim to drive measurable online impact through media coverage that supports organic rankings.
Traditional PR focuses on brand exposure through media placements, press releases, and reputation management. Digital PR amplifies that by targeting online publications that provide authoritative backlinks. While traditional PR emphasizes reach and impressions, digital PR prioritizes search engine rankings, referral traffic, and measurable SEO performance.
SEO is critical because most audiences discover brands through search engines or AI chatbots. Digital PR strengthens a brand’s authority by securing backlinks from credible publications, which improves rankings, authority, and chances to be cited. Without SEO at top of mind, PR efforts may generate awareness but fail to create long-term organic visibility or sustainable online growth.
Short answer? Absolutely. Digital PR can improve search rankings by earning backlinks from highly authoritative websites. Search engines view these backlinks as trust signals, increasing domain authority and query intent. The more high-quality links a brand earns through strategic PR placements, the stronger its ability to rank competitively in search results.
Digital PR is measurable. Unlike traditional PR, which often relies on impressions or circulation numbers, digital PR tracks backlinks earned, domain authority growth, referral traffic, keyword rankings, and conversions through various softwares or analytics platforms. This makes it easier to evaluate return on investment and SEO impact as long as the necessary tools are available.
Industries competing online, like professional services, SaaS, healthcare, energy, and B2B sectors. That being said, any organization seeking long-term organic visibility and authority can use digital PR to strengthen search performance and market credibility.
A New Era of PR Is Here
At O’Connell & Goldberg, we’re master craftsmen helping brands harness this digital-first PR approach. Our tried-and-true methods blends traditional storytelling with modern search dynamics.
Digital PR isn’t just about being seen. It’s about being discoverable, trusted, and relevant in the places your audiences are already searching.
If your PR strategy isn’t yet delivering measurable SEO impact, now is the time to evolve.