Last updated on May 6th, 2025 at 01:48 pm

Why you need to combine your PR and SEO strategies

When you think of a PR strategy, the first thing that comes to mind wouldn’t be search engine optimisation. However, combining the two can bring about a major change in the credibility, visibility, and overall presence of your brand.

Businesses tend to compartmentalise these two practices, focusing on traditional PR as a brand and promotional tool and SEO as a ranking, traffic, and keyword research tool.

Because PR and SEO are inherently complementary, and this is why.

Enhanced brand visibility

PR and SEO work in unison to boost your brand messages and reach a broader audience. Use them on your social channels and websites and include them in any information that goes out to third-party channels, including media outlets.

These integrated approaches create buzz around your key moments. These could be the launch of a new product or service, an appointment or promotion, or a story about the growth of your business.

By siloing your PR and your SEO, you minimise this buzz. This is why at AMBITIOUS we use integrated, multi-disciplinary models when developing and executing campaigns. This bigger picture approach enables us to run campaigns that drive true value, rather than serving to boost vanity metrics.

Improved search engine rankings

Ranking at the top of search has always been the prime directive of SEO.

But how this is achieved has become one of the most mercurial tactics in modern marketing.

Constant updates to Google’s algorithm and the nascent impact of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) on search habits have made the art of SEO a whole lot more complicated. Keyword rankings simply aren’t enough any more. Building a high domain authority is becoming increasingly challenging as news outlets, traditionally providers of strong trust signal backlinks, are increasingly setting backlinks as no-follow links.

This is another area where the intersection of PR and SEO meet.

Because great coverage, even with no follow links, is a tremendous trust signal, that can and will enhance your visibility and your credibility, especially in the new world of search and chatbots. Backlinks also create a connection between your company and the outlet that has referenced it. But to achieve this, you need to understand how the media works and what it needs.

Stronger brand credibility

Traditionally speaking, public relations could be boiled down to building profiles through third-party media endorsement.

At its core, it’s still the same. What’s changed are the tactics and the stakeholders.

A shrinking media landscape has made column inches more scarce, and the competition for editorial attention is fierce. An understanding of what media want and need can make all the difference.

But we’re all striving for the same thing, driving enquiries and making sales.

Driving traffic is the lifeblood of online news media. If you can take some grounding SEO principles, such as keywords, strong H1 titles, EEAT factors and combine this with creative PR tactics including storytelling and deep knowledge of the audience, then you’re on the road to providing high-quality content that is mutually beneficial for client and media alike.

These mutually beneficial relationships are something we strive for here at AMBITIOUS. But we also understand that just focusing on traffic isn’t the best way to run a campaign.

The right website traffic

Better search rankings mean better traffic, right?

Yes. But there’s traffic and then there’s the right kind of traffic.

Let’s say 10,000 people come to your site after an influx of news coverage. This, at face value, is PR doing its job well.

But once again, we arrive at the bigger picture. The traffic that lands on your site should be interested in what you offer and potentially looking to purchase services or products.

Digital PR is more than just driving traffic for the sake of driving traffic. There needs to be some tangible benefit, whether that’s an SEO benefit, a PR benefit or a combination of the two. This is where it helps to frame your goals up-front to get the right people interested in your offerings.

Again, this is something we can help with. Through a process called the AMEC Framework, we establish goals and success parameters up-front. With this foundational understanding, we can then develop and subsequently implement integrated strategic communications tactics that benefit you and your business.

It’s not about just driving traffic. At the end of the day, 100 of the right people are so much more valuable than 10,000 of the wrong people.

All PR is storytelling. And that’s incredibly valuable in today’s media landscape.

But in all seriousness, the ability to craft a narrative is one thing. The ability to craft a narrative that works for media and clients is an entirely different skillset.

The reason most media pitches fail isn’t because you haven’t thought about your brand narrative. It’s that you’ve thought about it too much. Remember, you need to maintain a certain degree of separation.

When pitching to the media, you need to exist in two simultaneous frames of mind. One is what the client needs. The other, you guessed it, is what the media needs.

Having an experienced hand in your corner is priceless.

Someone who not only knows your business inside out, but knows the sector, its movers and shakers. The media landscape, the deadlines, the perfect time to pitch a story and, perhaps most importantly, when and what not to pitch.

Reputation management

PR is about reputation building.

You build your foundation on owned content. That’s your website, your social channels, your website, email marketing, the works.

But what you say about yourself isn’t nearly as valuable as what others say about you.

So you support that foundation with reputational boosting strategies and tactics like media activations, influencer partnerships, and attending and speaking at events. All of these things combined create a reputation.

But this reputation is a finely spun thread.

All these elements interweave and intersect; if and when one part goes wrong, it can have a cascade effect. One broken part, the whole thread unravels.

What if an organisational crisis hits your business? How do you deal with it?

What if a bot attack hits your review pages with an army of fake reviews? Are you set up to handle that? Or what if a Google core update decimates your keyword strategy and reduces your SERP presence to dust?

These are three very different things, but all of them have an impact on your reputation and they’re also things that we can help you with.

Content is EVERYTHING!

Last but by no means least is the growing importance of content.

We said at the start that Google updates and AI have been game changers in SEO. That really can’t be understated because the definition of ‘successful SEO’ changes with each passing core update.

Having and owning your content has always been important. But it’s never been this important.

You might have noticed that YouTube content is appearing more and more in search engine results pages. YouTube is now a de facto search engine in its own right, and younger generations are now using TikTok as their primary means of search.

This is becoming reflected in the kinds of briefs we’re seeing. The PR strategy pivot is quickly becoming content-led, and it is something we’ve specifically adapted our services towards, with the introduction of dedicated integrated content services provision.

From written blog content and emails to socials and multi-channel multi-format video, businesses have to be tooling up their content offering in as many ways as possible.

The world is changing, and so must you!

In summary

By integrating PR and SEO, you can create a powerful and holistic communications engine, one that boosts visibility but also builds lasting credibility and trust.

SEO is no longer just about domain authority, ranking factors, high-quality backlinks and keywords. It’s about creating authentic content, stories and narratives that serve a purpose.

That purpose isn’t SEO optimisation. The purpose is to show your experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness to your audiences.

The way this can be achieved is through a combination of media coverage in the right places, value-driven digital PR campaigns, content provision and giving your target audience exactly what they want and need and nothing less.

This is the direction that PR strategy is moving, and we’re moving with it. We’d love to join you on that journey too.