Digital PR has become one of the most talked about areas of digital marketing in recent years – and for good reason. As more of the customer journey has shifted online, visibility in search results, online media and social platforms has become super important to business growth.
At its core, digital PR takes the foundations of traditional PR – reputation building, media relationships and storytelling – and applies them to the online world. The key difference is the focus on earning high quality backlinks and coverage from authoritative websites, helping brands strengthen both their search visibility and their credibility as trusted sources of information for search engines and large language models (LLMs).
It’s a strategy built on creating genuinely useful, engaging content and getting it in front of the right journalists and publishers. Done well, it blends PR, SEO, content marketing and social distribution into a single approach that strengthens both brand awareness and online performance.
So, what can digital PR actually do for your business? Let’s take a look.
What’s in this article:
- What is digital PR?
- How digital PR can help brand awareness
- Examples of how digital PR can improve brand awareness
- Eight more ways digital PR can improve your business
- Key takeaways
What is digital PR?
Digital PR is a tactic used by PR professionals and business owners to help build high authority links to their website. This is all in effort to improve the website’s SEO performance and rankings to attract new customers and boost relevancy.
At its core, digital PR involves creating and distributing content to key, relevant journalists and online writers. The goal is to achieve online media coverage, while achieving backlinks to your brand’s website. This can generate ‘buzz’ about your organisation, increasing awareness and recognition.
Backlinks earned through digital PR also drive traffic to your site, and improve search engine rankings to compete with other brands in your space. Quality backlinks signal to search engines that a website is trustworthy and authoritative, which can significantly improve its search rankings.
Digital PR also helps to establish and maintain positive relationships. These connections and relationships can be with the media, their readers and with key customers. If the brand is reputable and the story is strong then stakeholders, key audiences and more will be reading, engaging and supporting the content.
Through digital PR, you can also be established as a thought leader and expert in your field. By commenting on trending topics, industry-wide issues and new technologies or advancements, you can provide expert advice and help build authority in your brand niche.
PR is all about storytelling, and every business has its own stories to tell. You can find out more about digital PR and how it works in this detailed blog post.
How digital PR can help brand awareness
Helping brands tell their stories
PR is storytelling, and every business has its fair share of stories to tell. From behind-the-scenes glimpses of a new product, to how the business started, there will be a hook or angle to find.
Whether the story is packaged as a press release, thought leadership article, case study or Q&A, there needs to be a purpose to the story. PR professionals ensure that the story told is relevant and adds value to the brand’s customers, and/or the media’s audience. Does it engage, advise, or entertain the readers? Will it provoke a feeling or reaction?
Sometimes PR professionals need to dip into their toolbox and edit their style of writing to reflect the media they are targeting. The story needs to be told in a journalistic style to hit national, trade, or regional media. PRs need to make life as easy as possible for journalists and editors, so the closer the story is to the media’s style of writing, the better it is.
Establishing brand authority
PR helps brands look authoritative and be seen as thought leaders in their industry or sector. This is done by creating interesting content that establishes the business as an expert in their field of expertise.
Publishing high-quality PR articles like this on relevant and authoritative sites will improve a brand's reputation by showcasing them as a credible source of information. PR effectively conveys a brand’s innovative, forward-thinking ideas.
Using this PR tactic, a brand is mentioned much more frequently in front of a relevant target audience, which may generate leads from some of the people who read the coverage and visit the website.
This improved trust in your brand is also great from an SEO perspective and often an increase in strong editorial coverage and links is reflected in the search engine results page.
The power of online
Digital PR is particularly useful when it comes to getting your brand, product or service seen by lots of people. Gaining mass media coverage from high authority domains helps your brand be seen by huge audiences - and this will in turn help to drive brand recognition and boost traffic to your website.
When issuing a story to the media, a PR professional will prospect multiple media outlets and journalists in order to create a relevant and targeted media list. If the story gets picked up by multiple targets, then the reach of even a humble brand mention can go far and wide.
And then there’s the SEO benefit. As digital PR content gets used on high-authority websites, it helps improve search engine rankings by earning high-quality backlinks. When people search for related products or services, your brand is more likely to appear higher in search results, increasing awareness.
Examples of how digital PR can improve brand awareness
A great example of this in our recent work is a campaign we created for Absolute Reg, an online registration plate dealer.
We employed our newsjacking skills to tap into Barbie mania around the release of the year's most talked about movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
Absolute Reg had the number plate BAR 81E listed for sale which gave us the perfect way to attach the brand to the movie. If you squint a bit the plate reads BARBIE.
We used our newsjacking skills to tap into the Barbie mania around the release of the huge movie release. Absolute Reg had the number plate BAR 81E listed for sale which gave us the perfect way to attach the brand to the movie.
The plate’s huge price tag made the story even more enticing to journalists. We set about creating a strong media release which described the plate as ‘iconic’ and told how the most dedicated fans (with very deep pockets) could buy it. We also created imagery to show the media how the plate would look on Barbie’s own car.
In total, we logged 297 items of media coverage in the likes of The Sun, The Express, This Is Money and The Sunday Times, over a two month engagement period. This meant audiences had several opportunities to see the brand, engage with their story and click through to their site.
We also logged 265 backlinks to the client's website, from sites with an average domain rating of 73.
We also worked with The Inhaler Tailor – a rare business that really does offer a solution to a very real problem. We were very happy to help with their success in a brand building campaign.
The company makes funky inhaler covers, helping those who suffer from asthma to overcome any reticence they may have towards using their device in public. The business owners asked Motive to help them get their brand in front of the right audiences. We drew on our journalistic skills for this one - and produced a profile piece after interviewing all the key players and securing a role from the NHS in York.
We then pitched the story to relevant media targets, and secured a front page story in The York Press and regional television coverage on BBC Look North.
This was followed by national TV coverage on BBC Breakfast and on several news sites including Yorkshire Live, Yahoo News and Teesside Live.
The most impressive piece of coverage came from BBC News, who covered the story. Inhaler Tailor even made it to be one of the most popular BBC News stories of the day.
From these results, we estimate the opportunities for the brand to be seen by around 20 million audience members. This was a huge result for the brand and helped them increase their brand recognition immensely.
Thanks to the success of the campaign, traffic to The Inhaler Tailor website increased almost five fold. Daily sales peaked with an increase of more than 1050% following the BBC Breakfast coverage.
At the end of the campaign, daily sales remained 27% higher than they had been at the outset.
This is a great example of utilising digital PR tools to increase brand awareness and boost sales. You can see more about our work here.
Eight more ways digital PR can improve your business
1. Improve search rankings and online visibility
One of the main reasons businesses invest in digital PR is its impact on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). When your brand earns links from trusted media outlets and authoritative websites, search engines see these as strong signals of credibility.
Over time, a steady stream of high quality backlinks helps strengthen your website’s authority, making it more likely to appear higher in search results and easier for potential customers to find you online. Read more about how digital affects your website here.
2. Earn high quality backlinks from credible sources
When your content appears on respected publications, those sites are effectively referencing your brand as a trusted source of information. This builds credibility not only with potential customers but also with search engines and LLMs like ChatGPT.
Remember – natural, earned links from relevant and reputable websites remain one of the most powerful signals for long term SEO performance.
3. Drive more traffic to your website
Digital PR helps people find you in search results and sends visitors directly to your site.
Clickable links within media coverage can generate immediate referral traffic, while improved rankings bring a steady stream of new users over time. The result is more people discovering your brand and engaging with your content.
4. Reach new audiences and expand your brand’s visibility
Coverage across a wide range of online publications puts your brand in front of audiences who may never have encountered you otherwise.
This expanded reach helps grow awareness, introduce your business to new markets and create more opportunities to attract potential customers.
5. Build trust, credibility and brand familiarity
Consistent media coverage helps people become familiar with your brand. When audiences repeatedly see your business mentioned in trusted publications, it strengthens credibility and builds long term trust. That familiarity can play a major role in influencing future purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.
6. React quickly to news and emerging trends
Digital PR allows brands to join conversations as they happen. Whether it’s breaking news, seasonal topics or emerging trends, reacting quickly helps position your business as a relevant and knowledgeable voice in your industry. Being part of the conversation at the right time can significantly increase visibility and engagement.
7. Generate leads and inbound opportunities
As your brand becomes more visible and trusted, journalists and content creators may start approaching you for expert comments and insights. These inbound opportunities create additional coverage and strengthen your reputation.
8. Support conversions and future sales
Digital PR isn’t designed as a direct sales channel, but it plays a powerful supporting role. When potential customers discover your brand through trusted coverage, they are often more confident and more likely to buy when they later visit your website.
Key takeaways
- Digital PR connects PR, SEO and content into one strategy. It helps brands grow visibility across search and social platforms at the same time.
- Backlinks and media coverage are powerful growth drivers. They improve search rankings, drive website traffic and signal credibility to search engines and customers.
- Consistent coverage builds trust and authority. This helps position your brand as a recognised voice in your industry and supports future engagement and sales.
- Digital PR expands your reach beyond existing audiences. It helps you tap into new markets, react to trends and generate inbound opportunities from journalists.
- Results are measurable and long term. Campaign performance can be tracked and refined to continually improve rankings, traffic and brand awareness.
Ready to see what digital PR could do for your business? Speak to our friendly team about how digital PR could support your growth.
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