For business to business (B2B) companies, earning media coverage is just the beginning. One of the many benefits is when you receive high-authority backlinks from a media brand that can boost your domain rating and improve search rankings.
High-authority backlinks are links from trustworthy and reputable websites, generally with much larger audiences and web traffic, to your own website.
These are valuable for search engine optimisation (SEO) because they boost your site’s credibility and search engine rankings by passing “link equity”, the value and authority that hyperlinks pass from one webpage to another.
Websites with high authority are typically older, have a large number of quality backlinks themselves, and are considered trusted sources by search engines and users, which can be a great combination for driving visitors to your site and enhancing the value placed on your site by search engines.
Here is how we help clients bridge the gap between traditional PR and measurable SEO performance.
Understand the backlinks connection between digital PR and SEO
Recent industry research confirms what savvy marketers already know: backlinks remain critical to SEO success.
Studies analysing more than 1.18 million keywords found that the top-ranking result in Google has almost four times more backlinks than positions 2-10, whilst surveys of more than 800 SEO experts reveal that 56.2% believe both backlink quality and quantity have the biggest impact on rankings and authority.
But not all backlinks are created equal. Digital PR excels at securing contextual backlinks from high-authority news sites, trade publications, and respected industry platforms, all of which signal credibility to search engines.
When journalists cite your original research or quote your business leads in articles with Domain Authority scores of 60+, you are building a backlink profile that Google rewards with higher rankings.
Finding your news stories
Many B2B businesses struggle to identify newsworthy content, but with support from experts like the team at Osborn Communications you can find the stories are already there.
Customer success stories, proprietary data, industry trends analysis, and expert commentary on current events all provide compelling angles that journalists seek. The key is packaging these insights in formats that naturally attract media attention and those crucial backlinks.
Examples can be found. One successful healthcare IT campaign produced high-end links through data-driven content, contributing to a 76 per cent increase in domain authority over 24 months. Examples like this demonstrate how strategic earned media directly translates into SEO performance.
Building backlinks into your earned media strategy
To maximise SEO impact from your PR efforts, consider these proven tactics:
Create original research: Proprietary surveys, industry benchmarks, or market analysis naturally attract citations. Journalists depend on fresh data, and when they reference your findings, they typically include backlinks to the source material.
Target high-Domain Authority publications: Research which media outlets rank for keywords relevant to your business. Using tools like Moz, Semrush, or Ahrefs, you can measure the Domain Authority of any publication and the higher the score, the more valuable it is as a digital PR pitching target.
Make it easy to link: Include URL-friendly formats in your press materials. When you provide journalists with all necessary information, statistics, and proper attributions, they are more likely to include trackable backlinks in their coverage.
Think long-term: Unlike paid advertising, earned media backlinks continue delivering SEO value long after publication. Quality coverage becomes an evergreen asset that compounds your domain authority over time.
When to call in expert support
Still wondering whether you need a PR agency? If you’re struggling to secure high-authority backlinks, unsure why the media would be interested in your business, or simply need specialised expertise in digital PR for SEO, professional support can accelerate your results.
The convergence of PR and SEO represents a powerful opportunity for B2B businesses. By transforming news coverage into high-authority backlinks, you’re not just building brand awareness—you’re creating measurable search performance improvements that drive long-term growth.
The question is not whether to pursue this strategy, but how quickly you can begin.
Ready to transform your media coverage into SEO results? Contact Osborn Communications to discover how our PR approach generates both brand authority and backlink performance for B2B businesses across the UK.