Hi there, and welcome to issue #15 of the Outranked SEO newsletter.
In this issue, I’m going to be sharing insights into the long-term impact of digital PR on SEO success, according to the data.
I recently did a deep-dive into the growth achieved across 5 brands who consistently invested into digital PR over two years or more.
Today, I'm sharing the insights from these five case studies.
You’ll learn:
- The long-term impact of digital PR on organic rankings, traffic and visibility.
- The common things that prevent digital PR from having the impact it can have on these metrics.
- Some really interesting insights around the breakdown of follow vs nofollow links, syndicated coverage, brand mentions and more.
Let’s get into it...
If you want to read the expanded version of this and see a detailed breakdown of all five brands and their performance, you can view that here.
As a tl;dr ... a consistent investment into digital PR over two years led to a growth of 124% (+252k) in monthly organic sessions and +2,320 in top 3 rankings, on average.
I’ve been doing digital PR since long before anyone called it digital PR, and founded one of the UK’s largest digital PR agencies back in 2014.
But despite this, I strongly believe that so much marketing budget is wasted on digital PR.
That’s not because it isn’t a valuable tactic, though.
It is.
In fact, it’s one of the most important areas that businesses should be allocating resources to. There’s no doubt about that, especially given how earned media placements are one of the key contributors to LLM visibility.
But because it’s often run in the wrong way, with the wrong expectations, and often without any real integration to SEO (despite SEO budgets still being what usually resource it).
That’s the real issue.
I know the impact that it can have on a brand’s organic visibility (and resultant traffic and revenue). But this happens as the result of a solid strategy, not by winging it and hoping to see some form of an ROI.
Too many digital PR campaigns are disconnected from the outcomes that matter. There’s too much of a focus on tactics, and very little strategy in place.
When digital PR is done right, it’s an unrivaled way for a brand to really accelerate growth, and build an SEO moat. Yes, even in 2025 (perhaps even more so than ever before, as we navigate our way through the new era of AI-powered search).
I’m going to give you a rare inside look into the strategies, the challenges and the results from five long-term digital PR projects in four different, but equally competitive, niches.
The problem with digital PR & why it’s often set up to fail.
Before we dive into how to get digital PR right, and show you how we’ve driven serious SEO growth, let’s address the elephant in the room:
A lot of brands have invested tens of thousands (or more) into digital PR and seen little to no impact.
I’m not shying away from that. It’s a real problem in our industry.
But it’s not because digital PR doesn’t work. It’s not because Google doesn’t reward links anymore. And it’s not because most PRs are bad at their job.
It’s because digital PR is too often set up to fail from the get go.
Here’s why:
1. Most campaigns are disconnected from SEO goals.
There’s a difference between earning links and earning the right links, to the right pages, for the right reasons.
And too many campaigns are run in a vacuum — driven by ideas, not strategy.
When PR and SEO teams work in silos, you get coverage that doesn’t support the pages or topics that actually matter.
To earn links that actually have an impact, you need to know:
- What keyword groups are being targeted
- Which pages are commercially important
- Where the authority gaps sit across priority categories
Without this, you’re working blind; and missing the opportunity to accelerate rankings where it counts.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say you run an online bathroom retailer. If your SEO team is focused on growing visibility across “baths,” and PR is earning links into “showers,” you’re pulling in two different directions.
The result? Minimal impact.
2. Success is defined by “number of links earned” instead of business growth.
100 links sounds impressive, but if they don’t impact rankings, traffic, or revenue, what’s the point?
I’ve seen lots of cases where 10 strategically earned links drove more growth than another project’s 100.
Because the goal was never “just links.” It was growth.
Nobody wants links. They want the outcome of links; better rankings, more traffic, more conversions.
Treat links as a means to an end, not the end goal itself.
3. It’s treated like link-buying with a few extra steps.
Some brands approach digital PR like it’s just a ‘cleaner’ version of buying links; paying for deliverables, not outcomes.
Set a deliverable target and track the cost per link.
Job done, right?
But that’s not how building authority works.
Digital PR done right earns links through relevance, trust, and originality, not just link volume.
If your primary KPI is cost-per-link, you’re likely optimising for the wrong thing. You’re setting yourself up for failure, with a focus that’s placed on “any link will do,” rather than a strategic understanding of what links are going to drive growth (and which aren’t).
You’ll get cheaper links, but you probably won’t get results.
And let’s face it. Cheaper links that don’t actually have an impact aren’t actually cheaper at all.
4. Unrealistic expectations destroy long-term momentum.
Digital PR compounds over time.
At first, the impact is probably going to be small. Then it accelerates.
Why the delay?
Because in most competitive markets, you’re playing catch-up. You have to close the link gap before you start pulling ahead. And that takes time.
But if you expect hockey-stick growth in month one or two, you’ll likely get frustrated, hit pause, and kill the momentum just before the results start to come in.
This is not a one-campaign, quick-win channel.
It’s a long-term strategic contributor. We could even call it a brand-building channel?! And when you stick with it, it delivers.
5. Brands invest sporadically, then expect hockey-stick results.
The most successful brands we’ve worked with invest consistently.
Even when things are slow and they keep going in those months before the traffic and revenue gains are seen.
Because that consistency builds authority. And authority is what unlocks competitive rankings.
If you dip in and out, you’ll struggle to outrank competitors who are investing every single month.
The characteristics of the brands who win the biggest with digital PR.
The results I’m about to share didn’t happen by accident.
And they didn’t just happen because the strategy was good.
They happened because these brands did what most don’t.
And if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this section, it’s this:
Your results from digital PR are shaped just as much by your mindset, commitment and internal setup as they are by the quality of your strategy.
All five of these brands had different challenges, different markets, and different goals.
But they shared a set of characteristics that set them up for success. And if you want to see the same kind of results, this is what you need to aim for:
1. They trusted the process.
They did their due diligence when choosing an agency, asked the right questions, and once they understood the vision, they committed.
- They didn’t try to rewrite pitches.
- They didn’t dilute stories or reject ideas on subjective opinions.
- They trusted specialists to do their job.
The strongest results come when there’s trust, clarity, and space to do the work properly.
2. They invested consistently; for two years or more.
They didn’t go into digital PR with a plan to duck out after a quarter (many do, sadly; hoping a quick burst of earned links will solve bigger problems). They didn’t get nervous at the first slow month for coverage (it happens to us all).
They invested consistently and stuck with it.
They understood that this is a compound channel, not a one-off channel.
They stuck with it long enough to see it really start working.
3. They made it possible to move fast.
We had access to the people who mattered; from product experts to internal spokespeople.
Press quote requests didn’t get stuck in a three-week approval chain. They made it happen, fast.
Digital PR moves in real time.
If your internal process doesn’t, you’ll miss the biggest opportunities.
4. They understood that not every win comes with a followed link (or even a link at all).
They got it.
Sometimes you land a great piece on a tier-one publication, and it’s a brand mention.
Sometimes you earn a nofollow link.
Sometimes it syndicates across a whole media network.
These brands didn’t obsess over the technicalities. They focused on relevance and impact above anything else.
5. They knew that PR isn’t perfectly linear.
Some months are quiet. Others explode.
But that’s just how PR works. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or hasn’t actually experienced it.
They didn’t panic when a campaign didn’t land straight away. Or when one didn’t go as big as the last.
They knew the story pipeline was full, and that momentum was always building.
6. They had a solid technical and content foundation.
No amount of authority can override fundamental SEO issues.
These brands weren’t held back by major tech issues.
And they had great content that we could strategically support with coverage and links.
This meant the authority we built actually translated into rankings, traffic and revenue.
I chose these five projects for this case study not because they were the easiest or most high-profile, but because they show what’s possible when you get everything aligned.
They’re the perfect demonstration of what happens when:
- The strategy is smart and well thought out
- Execution is consistent
- The brand and agency are on the same page
- And the goal is growth, not just links
I’ve spoken to (and worked with) brands that only care about followed links (check out this guide which lays down my thoughts about why nofollow links aren’t worthless). Or who reject great stories because there are too many internal stakeholders diluting everything until there’s nothing interesting left.
These five didn’t work that way.
And that’s why they saw such powerful results.
Digital PR increases organic traffic by 124% (+252k monthly sessions) and adds 2,680 top 3 rankings over 2 years…
I get it; isolating out the impact of digital PR on SEO success is hard, especially given that there’s usually other things being done too.
But what we can’t dismiss is the importance of building authority. Earning the right to rank on the SERPs.
I’ve taken a deep-dive into five clients who have invested into digital PR with Digitaloft for the last two years, to reveal what the data says about the impact of the tactic on organic growth.
Over two years, the average growth seen was 124%. Or, in real terms, an extra 252k organic sessions every month. As well as adding an average of 2,680 top 3 rankings.
If you want to read the expanded version of this and see a detailed breakdown of all five brands and their performance, you can view that here.
That’s big.
In total, across a two year period for these five brands, we earned:
- 6,155 total pieces of press coverage
- 916 unlinked brand mentions (15% of all coverage)
- 5,239 links (85% of all coverage)
- 2,652 nofollow links (51% of all links)
- 2,587 followed links (49% of all links)
- 3,608 pieces of syndicated coverage (59% of all coverage)
- 2,547 pieces of non-syndicated coverage (41% of all coverage)
Interesting, right?
Despite half of the links earned across these five brands being nofollowed, and 6 in 10 pieces being syndicated (although this does skew by brand), they saw significant growth.
Why?
Because these are all brand signals. SEO success isn’t just about links in 2025.
Keep reading and you’ll also see how digital PR very much has it’s peaks and troughs… some months result in a lot more coverage and links than others, and that’s totally normal! If you’re seeing busy months and quiet months in your own activity, you’re not alone, at all.
How we got to the 124% average growth figure & the data behind these case studies…
This case study is all about being transparent and showing all of the numbers behind the results. And that means clarity on how I reached the 124% average growth figure, too.
Here’s the growth each brand saw over two years, between March 2023 and March 2024:
– Brand 1: +124% (+390k p/m) | +2,514 top 3 rankings
– Brand 2: +233% (+550k p/m) | +6,885 top 3 rankings
– Brand 3: +191% (+217k p/m) | +2,974 top 3 rankings
– Brand 4: +6,950% (+50k p/m) | +752 top 3 rankings
– Brand 5: +87% (+54k p/m) | +277 top 3 rankings
Notice how brand 4 grew by almost 7,000%? That’s because it was a brand new site when we started working on it in 2023.
To get to our growth figure of 124%, I averaged this from the absolute growth figures across the five brands.
I’ve used visibility charts from Semrush here, rather than GA4 or GSC, for the simple reason that I want to show the raw growth data from a third-party source, rather than one that could have had filters applied. (Shoutout to Nick Eubanks here for calling out his use of third-party tools in case studies for this very reason; thanks for the inspiration to do the same).
The takeaway…
Digital PR works, but only when it’s approached with the right strategy, the right mindset, and the right setup to drive impact.
This isn’t about chasing headlines for the sake of it. It’s not about link counts, DA scores, or finding the cheapest way to hit a monthly deliverable.
It’s about driving growth.
What you’ve seen across these five case studies is a clear pattern:
- Strategic alignment with SEO goals
- Relevance over reach
- Consistency over sporadic bursts
- Smart measurement that ties back to actual business outcomes
These things are the foundation for digital PR that actually moves the needle, even in the most competitive industries.
If your goal is to rank better, increase organic traffic, drive more revenue, and build long-term defensibility in search, this is how you do it.
Not by following trends.
Not by counting links.
But by earning the right visibility, in the right places, for the right reasons.
And if your digital PR activity isn’t currently set up to do that? Now’s the time to change it.
Because when it is, when digital PR is truly connected to your SEO strategy, the results speak for themselves.
(And if you’re looking for a partner who can help you get there, well… you know where to find us.)
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If you learned something from this issue or it’s made you think about SEO a little differently, please consider forwarding it to someone else on your team.
I’m on a mission to make sure more SEO investment actually has an impact on real business metrics.
Appreciate you making it to the end; same time next week?
- James Brockbank
P.S. If you ever need expert support with SEO or digital PR and want to drive results that actually matter, I’d love to chat. Let’s talk.
✍️ From the Loft...
Fresh from our side of the web; here’s a few things me and other Lofties put out into the world recently.
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📌 This week’s bookmarks:
If I could only send three links to a fellow marketer this week, it’d be these…
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👋 Hi, I'm James...
Managing Director & Founder at Digitaloft.
I've spent the last 10 years building an agency that's perfectly positioned to help ambitious brands to drive real business growth from SEO and digital PR.
You might have seen me speaking at events like BrightonSEO, SMX and the International Search Summit.
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