Does earned media actually move search rankings? Although public relations and SEO are often thought of as distinct aspects of marketing, the answer is yes: media coverage does amplify your firm’s overall online presence.
A successful PR campaign creates visibility and credibility via coverage in newspapers, trade publications, TV broadcasts, radio, podcasts and other outlets – almost all of which publish digital versions. In today’s media landscape, PR creates more authoritative online content, which is the foundation of SEO. Meaning, these two tactics are more intertwined than you might think.
Marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum anymore. If your marketing tactics don’t work together (more specifically support and propel each other), it’s likely they’re not working as well as they should be. And in the highly competitive legal marketing space, strong marketing is what makes you stand out. Your marketing is about return on investment, and the collaboration between PR and SEO can increase your ROI and then some.
So, let’s start with two very important aspects of your marketing – PR and SEO – and how they work together, and in turn, give you better results.
What’s the Difference Between Public Relations and SEO?
Before we dive in, we’ll start with the basics of each. Put simply, search engine optimization (SEO) encompasses a variety of techniques intended to make your website (and therefore your brand) more visible online. Google uses a framework called Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) to determine which websites show up first on the search engine results page (SERP). Sites that share helpful, trustworthy and easy-to-understand information rank higher, making you more visible to potential prospects. SEO techniques might include incorporating keywords into your content, tagging images or improving your website’s design and structure. These practices signal to search engines that your website is an authoritative, user friendly source of information.
Public relations is a strategic communications tool that builds your reputation to the public, or more specifically, your target audiences. And again, in simpler words, it’s using traditional media (newspapers, magazines, podcasts, etc.) to increase your visibility, build your reputation and position you as an expert so your prospects think of you first when they have a need. A modern PR strategy also includes digital PR tactics that focus on channels like social media, blogs and online-only publications. PR can also include reputation management activities like speaking engagements, awards and rankings, and crisis communications when necessary.
PR and SEO are considered separate tactics, and you can choose to do one without the other. However, the reality is if you do both, you will generate better results and create more brand awareness. As we’ve emphasized, focusing on a single channel doesn’t cut it anymore. Potential clients encounter your brand across multiple touchpoints, and failing to meet them where they are is a missed marketing opportunity. PR and SEO are complementary – not competing – strategies.
How PR Helps SEO
A key element of SEO is the concept of backlinking. This is when other websites link back to your law firm’s website. Google and other search engines see each legitimate backlink as a point in your favor. The more backlinks you have from relevant and reputable websites, the more trustworthy your firm’s site appears, and the higher you are placed on the SERP (Search Engines Results Page).
In the early days of the internet, people engaged in spammy link building techniques to place their website link on as many other sites as possible. However, Google’s algorithm has become more sophisticated over time. Placing links on low-quality sites, pasting links in comment sections and engaging in link exchange schemes no longer helps you rank higher. In fact, these tactics are punished by Google. To be beneficial for SEO purposes, backlinks should come from legitimate editorial sources.
This is where PR comes into play. Trade publications and major news outlets have high domain authority, which means search engines recognize these sites as some of the most trusted online sources. When you receive coverage in a digital outlet, you don’t just get exposure from brand mentions, you get a strong backlink from a high-quality website. As a result, PR tactics have a direct impact on your SEO – earned media creates the trust that Google rewards.
The more coverage you receive from high-authority websites, the higher your own website climbs in the rankings. Then, when potential customers are searching for your services, you are more visible to them.
Earned Media, Authority and AI Search
The SEO landscape is constantly changing, and we’re seeing yet another major shift: generative engine optimization, or GEO. GEO is the process of optimizing content so it can be discovered and incorporated into AI chatbots, Large Language Models (LLMs) and other generative AI search engines. Similar to Google’s E-E-A-T framework, LLMs determine which information to incorporate by vetting the source’s trustworthiness and authority. Most often, LLMs rely on reputable, objective sources like news sites and professional awards and rankings when they gather and synthesize information.
What’s more, AI is now a key element of how people search for information online. AI Overviews – the summary at the top of Google’s SERP – show up for nearly every search query, and many users are relying on this overview to answer their questions quickly and efficiently. Users are also increasingly turning to ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI chatbots as their primary search engines instead of Google.
Finally, Google is beginning to prioritize positive reputation over simple link building. As search algorithms become more advanced, they are using nuanced signals to determine the overall trustworthiness of a brand (and therefore, where it should rank). Today, ranking high on the SERP isn’t just matter of getting the most backlinks; it also involves maintaining a strong reputation.
What does all of this have to do with PR? Almost everything. PR gets your name into the authoritative outlets that LLMs use to generate summaries and answers to queries. Credible third-party coverage boosts your “blue-link” ranking (the traditional, organic web URL listing) on the SERP, but it also facilitates visibility in AI Overviews and answer engines – i.e., the places where users are beginning to look first for answers. Now, PR is the primary tool for reputation management, which is the future of SEO. As AI search becomes commonplace, GEO becomes standardized and trustworthiness trumps all, earned media SEO has become more essential than ever.
Public Relations and SEO in Practice
We’ve given you the background information, but what does it really look like when PR and SEO tactics are used together? Here’s an example.
John Smith, labor and employment attorney and founding partner at Smith Law Firm, is quoted in a Law360 article because his PR team pitches him as an expert on workplace discrimination. People who are interested in workplace discrimination read the article and want to know more about John’s practice, so they Google his firm. As a result, branded search lift – a key SEO metric that improves rankings – increases. The article also includes a contextual backlink and a brand mention of Smith Law Firm, so the firm’s discrimination practice area page gains authority and ranks higher on SERP.
With a single quote in one article, John has achieved three essential marketing goals. First, he increased his credibility because a Law360 reporter trusted him as a key source. Second, he increased his visibility by being featured in a reputable publication with thousands of readers. Finally, he improved his firm website’s ranking, increasing client visibility and the odds that targets will see him first while researching his practice area.
What’s more, the next time a reporter is looking for an expert source to comment on workplace discrimination, John’s name and firm will come up. John’s PR team can also point to his previous media placements as an example of his thought leadership. The cycle continues, and the Smith Law Firm brand is strengthened with every media mention.
In our experience executing a media outreach campaign for lawyers and law firms, we’ve seen the power of press coverage time and again. While it can be difficult to quantify at first, over time, every effort builds on itself. This is the reason why PR and SEO fuel each other: they work in harmony to improve your brand’s reputation from multiple angles.
How to Integrate Your PR and SEO Efforts
Although the specific strategies and goals of PR and SEO are different, they both contribute to your overall marketing and brand reputation. When combined, these tactics amplify each other, and you get more out of your marketing efforts and budget. Here are some fundamental ways to make PR and SEO work together for your firm.
- Align PR and SEO on shared target keywords. The foundation of any SEO campaign is keyword strategy: identifying the target keywords that will help your website rank. Your PR team can then incorporate keywords into content and use them to guide media topics and editorial calendars.
- Optimize your website’s news and press coverage page. Your PR team should help you get more out of media mentions by posting them on your website. A well-designed news or press coverage webpage can also serve as a useful tool to increase organic traffic as part of an SEO campaign.
- Repurpose media coverage as on-site content. Repurposing content not only helps you make the most of your PR efforts, but it provides an opportunity to place internal links on your website and incorporate more keywords.
- Consider both PR and SEO angles for social media campaigns. When planning a social media campaign, a PR team will be focused on posts that are of value to your targets, whereas a SEO team will be focused on posts that are of value to search engines. By working together, not only do you achieve both, but a better campaign is developed.
- Measure PR and SEO against shared outcomes. Track metrics that are influenced by both SEO and PR efforts, and use them to measure the success of your overall marketing strategy. Metrics might include referral traffic, branded search, assisted conversions and AI-surface citations.
Working with a PR and SEO Agency for Law Firms
With three decades of integrated marketing experience focused on law firms, Berbay develops holistic marketing and public relations campaigns that get results. We build visibility and credibility using a variety of complementary tactics, including SEO, PR, content marketing and social media. When you partner with Berbay, you can be sure that every element of your campaign will work together, without the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors. If you’d like to learn more about creating an integrated PR and SEO campaign, contact us at 310-405-7343 or info@berbay.com.
