01What PR Link Building Is and How It Works
PR link building is a method to earn backlinks from major news sites like the New York Post, Daily Mail, and MSN without paying for them. Instead of guest posts or link exchanges, you pitch a data-driven story to journalists. If they publish it, you get a powerful dofollow link to your site.
This works because journalists always need stories their audience will click. If you provide a fresh story with real data, they'll often include a link back to you as the expert. That link carries huge authority because the site's Domain Rating (DR) is very high.
02Why High DR Backlinks Matter for SEO and AI Search
Backlinks are still one of the biggest ranking factors in Google. A link from a site with DR 91 and 12.2 million monthly visitors is far more powerful than one from a random blog. Such links can boost your rankings in a way most generic tactics can't.
But PR does more than help Google rankings. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found that brand mentions correlate with AI visibility at 0.664, while backlinks alone score just 0.218. That means if you want to appear in ChatGPT, Google AI overviews, or Perplexity, getting featured in major publications is one of the smartest moves.
Even Google's John Mueller said digital PR can be more impactful for SEO than technical optimization.
03Step 1: Ideation – Find a Story With Mass Appeal
The first step in PR link building is finding a story angle that journalists will care about. Most people fail here because they pitch their own business story, but journalists don't care. They care about what their audience will click.
Ask yourself: What story can I tell using data that appeals to millions of people and allows me to appear as the expert? In this episode, Julian Goldie pitched a story about which first names appear most often among billionaires. It was data-driven, interesting to a wide audience, and it positioned him as an SEO expert quoted in the article.
To find your own angle, try this:
- Go to Google News and search your area of expertise, like 'SEO expert' or 'marketing expert'.
- Filter to the last 12 months and see what journalists are already covering.
- Find a fresh angle with new data that hasn't been exploited.
- Use government data sources like the Office for National Statistics to uncover untold stories.
Great stories have three things: mass appeal, real data that journalists can cite, and a connection to topics people care about like money, success, or the future.
04Step 2: Production – Write a Press Release That Gets Noticed
Once you have your story angle and data, you need to write a press release. This is the document that shows journalists you're professional and not just pitching a random idea.
Your press release must be properly formatted. Include a headline at the top, a sub-headline, key findings, a short bio about you as the expert, and your contact information. Keep it clean and concise because journalists receive hundreds of pitches daily.
Yours needs to be easy to scan and instantly show why it's interesting.
You can use AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to draft the press release. Just give the AI your story angle, your data points, and your expert positioning, and ask it to format it as a press release. For example, you might say: 'Here's a story about how 2,800 business owners are automating lead generation with AI.
Write a press release that positions Julian Goldie as an AI automation expert and includes these five key findings.'
The press release is critical because it proves you have a real story with real data, packaged properly. That's what gets you taken seriously by journalists.
05Step 3: Outreach – Find Journalists and Pitch Them Effectively
Now it's time to find journalists who cover topics like your story. Use Google News to search for similar articles, and you'll see the journalist's name at the top. Many journalists list their email in their bio or on the publication's website.
Some even have RSS feeds you can follow to track what they're covering.
Platforms designed for this can also help. Here are some options mentioned in this episode:
- HARO (now under Featured.com) – sends you journalist requests daily.
- Journal Finder – another strong tool for finding journalists.
- Source Bottle and Quoted – similar platforms that connect experts with reporters.
- X (formerly Twitter) – many journalists post when they need a source; search relevant hashtags and respond fast.
Your pitch email must be short. Lead with the hook – the single most interesting finding from your research – in one sentence. Don't introduce yourself first.
Then, in three to five sentences, explain the data, why it matters to their readers, who you are, and that the press release is attached. Follow up once politely. Remember, it's a numbers game: the more pitches you send, the more you land.
06Step 4: Reporting – Track Your Placements and Backlinks
After you send your pitches, you need to track what lands. You can do this for free with Google News. Just search your name or your press release topic, filter to the last week, and you'll see every recent mention.
For more detailed tracking, tools like Ahrefs and Moz show new backlinks coming in. You can track the domain rating, the traffic, and whether the link is dofollow. But starting with Google News is enough.
One surprise Julian found was syndication. When a big outlet like the New York Post publishes your story, other sites pick it up automatically. They republish the same article to their own audience, and you often get the backlink from each.
From one press release, you can end up with links from New York Post, Daily Mail, Yahoo, MSN, and dozens of smaller sites. In the 48 hours after his last campaign, he got placements on New York Post, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and MSN from one data story, one press release, and one round of outreach.
07How to Use AI to Automate the PR Link Building Process
AI can speed up every step of PR link building. Julian showed how to use tools like Claude and ChatGPT to generate story angles, write press releases, and even craft personalized pitches.
For ideation, tell the AI: 'Come up with five trending story angles for PR outreach based on the following expert positioning,' then paste your niche and expertise. Ask it to format each angle with a headline, the data you'd need, and why it would appeal to a broad audience.
For the press release, give the AI the angle, the data, and your expert bio, and it will write a properly formatted version in minutes. For outreach emails, give the AI the press release and tell it the journalist's beat, and it can draft a short personalized pitch.
However, keep one thing human. Don't automate everything. Journalists can tell when an email is templated and mass-sent.
Add a sentence or two referencing a recent article they wrote. That personal touch is what separates pitches that get opened from those that go straight to trash.
08Why PR Link Building Is Your Edge for AI Search
We're in a window where PR link building works incredibly well, but most people think it's too complicated or only for big brands. It's not. Julian started getting links from Forbes and high authority sites before he had any kind of profile.
The process works regardless of how well-known you are – what matters is the story.
AI search is now here. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI mode answer questions and recommend businesses. The data shows that what gets you recommended is brand mentions – the exact thing you build when you land PR coverage.
Tim Saulo, CMO of Ahrefs, called citations the new backlinks for the AI era. 82% of AI citations are earned media, meaning press coverage and editorial mentions. That's the output of this exact process.
If you're not doing PR link building now, your competitors eventually will. Start with one story, one pitch round. See what lands, then build from there.
It compounds.
