Fresh off her presentation at the Women in Tech SEO Fest in Portland, Delaney MacKenzie, BTM content manager, shares how brands can better integrate earned media with search strategies to boost visibility, authority, and trust. Catch her on Episode 81 of The Redirect for more discussion transcending this blog.
Whether you’re optimizing for algorithms or building trust with audiences, the message is clear: PR and SEO are no longer separate disciplines—they’re partners in a unified digital strategy. Here’s a closer look at the conversation and how to apply these insights to your own campaigns.
Why PR Needs SEO (and Vice Versa)
PR and SEO share a common goal: to connect brands with the right audience through trust, credibility, and strategic messaging. While PR focuses on storytelling and relationship-building, SEO ensures that those stories are discoverable, indexed, and prioritized by search engines.
Delaney describes digital PR as any earned media with an online presence—articles, blogs, video interviews, or even repurposed TV segments—that link back to a brand’s site. These placements do double duty: they shape brand perception and send powerful authority signals to search engines. That’s where the synergy begins.
Backlinks: The Real PR Value for Search
One of the clearest intersections between PR and SEO is the coveted backlink. When a press hit includes a hyperlink to your website, it not only increases referral traffic but improves your domain’s authority with search engines.
Delaney notes that backlinks from earned media are SEO gold—but they’re not always guaranteed. That’s why it’s crucial to follow up with journalists when coverage goes live and politely request link inclusion. Even without a backlink, media mentions on high-authority sites still offer value, but when both teams collaborate, the impact is exponentially greater.
Press Releases That Rank
Traditional press releases are written for journalists, but with a few SEO tweaks, they can work double time for your digital strategy. Delaney recommends embedding 2–4 internal links to relevant landing pages, event pages, or blog posts. Be strategic—link where it matters most for users and for search.
Another hidden opportunity? The boilerplate. This business description is often copied word-for-word by journalists, so optimize it like you would a homepage intro: include primary keywords, brand terminology, and a link back to your root domain.
Measuring Campaign Impact with Landing Pages
Creating campaign-specific landing pages is one of the smartest ways to measure PR and SEO performance together. These pages allow teams to monitor traffic spikes from specific media placements, track user behavior, and evaluate conversions, whether for ticket sales, email signups, or content downloads.
Delaney shares a case study on The Redirect, where a Michigan resort launched a sports-themed suite through a joint PR and SEO effort. The coordinated campaign produced measurable spikes in web traffic, podcast engagement, and contest entries, all traceable back to specific earned media hits. Without alignment between teams, that kind of insight would’ve been lost.
Breaking Down Silos: A Unified Strategy Wins
Silos between PR, SEO, and marketing teams are one of the biggest barriers to success. Too often, PR launches a campaign without informing SEO teams, leading to missed opportunities for optimization, measurement, and amplification.
Delaney suggests starting with the basics: realign on goals, confirm timelines, and ensure every team knows what the others are working toward. For example, if a press release is scheduled to drop, make sure the landing page it points to is optimized and indexed before launch. Collaboration saves time, maximizes results, and strengthens brand alignment across all channels.
AI, Search, and the Human Element
As AI begins to influence the search landscape, the need for authentic, human-generated content has never been higher. Delaney points out that Google is prioritizing content that reflects experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (EEAT), the very pillars of good PR.
What does this mean for brands? Content should be credible, discoverable, and written by real people with real insights. Even platforms like TikTok and Reddit are showing up in SERPs, signaling that user-generated content and social signals are increasingly important to SEO success.
Tools & Tips Mentioned in the Episode
- Google Alerts – Track media mentions of your brand or leadership
- Help A Reporter Out (HARO) – Find journalist queries to respond to
- Quoted & SourceBottle – Connect with media opportunities
- Source of Sources (SOS) – Pairing journalists to sources they need – you!
- Optimized Boilerplates – Include keywords and a homepage link
- Campaign-Specific Landing Pages – Track earned media performance
Final Thoughts
We’re all playing for the same team. PR builds trust with people. SEO builds trust with search engines. But when combined, they amplify each other’s strengths and help brands cut through the noise. Want to unify your SEO and PR strategy? Start by building bridges—not silos. Align on shared goals, collaborate early, and track results together. When PR and SEO are in sync, modern marketing reaches its full potential.
Don’t forget to check out WTSFest Portland 2026!
Have questions or want to explore this for your brand? Get in touch and we’ll help you align your PR and SEO strategies.
