Digital PR for small businesses: Getting mentioned online
Digital PR sounds expensive and, if you're running a local business, you might reasonably think:
"What has Digital PR got to do with me?"
You don't need to be a household-name brand to get your business mentioned online, you just need something that other people find interesting enough to talk about, and that's where Digital PR comes in.
What actually is Digital PR?
At its simplest, Digital PR is about creating something interesting, useful or newsworthy and getting it in front of journalists, publications and websites that might want to share it.
That could be:
Original research
Interesting statistics
A survey
A data-led campaign
Expert commentary
A genuinely unusual business story
Seasonal content
Something connected to a current news story
The important part is that you're creating something worth talking about and not simply emailing a journalist and saying: "Hi, we're a great local plumbing company. Please write about us."
That's a really quick way to get blocked and your name spread around the very tight-knit journalist circles, and not in the fun way.
Digital PR isn't the same as traditional PR
There is some overlap, but Digital PR tends to focus heavily on online publications and the opportunities they can create for a business whereas a traditional PR campaign might be focused on getting a business featured in a newspaper, magazine or broadcast programme.
Digital PR can involve those things too, but it also looks at:
Online news sites
Industry publications
Specialist websites
Blogs
Local publications
Journalists writing for digital outlets
And there can be an SEO benefit too, if a website covers the campaign and links back to your website then that's seen as a trust signal. It's a relevant online mention and a backlink that signals trust in your expertise or knowledge.
But isn't Digital PR just link building?
This is an important distinction.
Traditional link building can involve actively trying to acquire links from websites.
Digital PR starts with the story and the link is a potential result of getting that story covered.
"But what could my small business possibly talk about?"
This is usually where business owners underestimate themselves.
You might think:
"We're just a local business. Nothing interesting happens here."
You'd be surprised since you're working with customers every day. You're seeing trends. You're solving problems. You're collecting information, and sometimes there's a story sitting inside your business that you haven't even noticed.
Here are a few places to look:
1. Data-led campaigns
Data is one of the most useful ingredients in Digital PR.
You might analyse:
Customer trends
Prices
Search data
Public datasets
Industry statistics
Your own business data
Survey responses
For example, imagine you're an estate agent.
You could analyse house-price data to find out which home improvements appear to add the most value in your local area. Or you could look at how house prices in your area have changed over the last decade.
That's considerably more interesting to a journalist than: "Local estate agent launches new website." And the business still gets to be part of the story.
2. Local stories
You don't always need complicated research.
Sometimes the story is simply something unusual happening within the business' local area.
Perhaps you've:
Noticed a trend between neighbourhoods
Completed an unusual project
Worked on a historic building
Been involved in a community project
A local publication may be interested in something that wouldn't get anywhere near a national newspaper. Most people may not see that as amazing but Digital PR doesn't have to mean national coverage every time. Relevant local links can be just as valuable.
3. Expert commentary
This is particularly useful for trades and other specialist businesses as journalists regularly need people who actually know what they're talking about. Especially with the increase in AI content, an actual expert is worth their weight in gold to a journalist.
If a journalist is writing about boiler problems in winter, a qualified heating engineer has something useful to contribute.
If they're writing about garden maintenance during a heatwave, a landscaper or gardener could provide expert advice.
If they're covering home renovations, a builder could explain which projects tend to cause the biggest headaches.
You don't need a full campaign, you just need to have the right answer to their questions or a small comment explaining why something does what it does.
4. Seasonal campaigns
The calendar is basically a free list of PR opportunities.
Christmas.
Summer.
Bank holidays.
Halloween.
Back-to-school season.
The first cold snap of winter.
National awareness days.
The trick is not to force your business into every vaguely relevant occasion, instead, look for moments where your expertise intersects naturally with something people are already talking about.
5. Original research
Research can make a particularly strong campaign because it gives journalists something new.
You could survey customers about:
Spending habits
Common problems
Preferences
Attitudes
Experiences
Or analyse publicly available or even your own data to identify an interesting trend.
The key word here is original. If 14 other websites have already published the same statistic, repeating it isn't exactly groundbreaking. But, if you've found something nobody else has spotted, you've potentially got a story.
So what actually makes a campaign newsworthy?
There isn't a magic formula, but a useful starting point is:
Interesting + relevant + timely + evidence
The campaign needs to give a journalist a reason to care.
Consider two pitches.
Pitch A:
"Local builder celebrates 10 years in business."
Potentially interesting to a local audience, particularly if there's a strong human story behind it.
Pitch B:
"Analysis of 500 UK renovation projects reveals the home improvements most likely to cause delays."
Now you've got data, a useful finding and a story that could appeal to journalists covering property, homes, money and potentially local news.
What can Digital PR actually do for a small business?
Build authority
Being mentioned by credible websites can help establish your business as an expert in its field. If an independent plumber is quoted in an article about boiler problems, that is a useful third-party endorsement of their expertise.
Increase visibility
A story can put your business in front of people who would never have found it through a normal Google search. That's particularly useful when you're trying to build awareness beyond your immediate customer base.
Earn links
Some online coverage will include a link to your website.
Those links can contribute to your website's authority and potentially support your wider SEO strategy. But remember: the link is a potential outcome of good PR, not the entire point of the campaign.
Build trust
There's a difference between saying: "We're experts." and having someone else independently describe you as an expert. Third-party coverage can give a business an additional layer of credibility.
What Digital PR can't guarantee
This bit is important. Anyone promising that every PR campaign will generate a certain number of links or land coverage in a particular newspaper is making a promise about something they don't completely control.
You don't control the journalist.
You don't control the publication.
You don't control what other news happens that day.
And you certainly don't control whether a journalist wakes up in the morning and decides that your campaign is the most exciting thing they've seen all week.
Good Digital PR improves your chances by giving journalists something genuinely worth covering, but there are no guarantees.
What might this look like for a small business?
Let's take a fictional gardening company looking for a way to generate some online coverage.
Instead of sending out a press release saying: "Local gardening company provides high-quality gardening services."
They look for an interesting angle, analyse publicly available data around garden trends and combine it with their own experience.
They discover that searches for a particular type of garden project have increased significantly.
They create a short report showing the trend, add expert commentary explaining why it's happening, and package the findings into a simple story.
Now they have something they can pitch.
They can approach:
Gardening publications
Home and property websites
Local media
Lifestyle publications
Journalists covering consumer trends
Some won't respond, some will say no. One might be interested, another might ask for additional commentary.
Eventually, the business could earn several pieces of coverage from one campaign. That's Digital PR, finding a good story and putting it in front of the right people.
You don't have to be interesting every day
You don't need to manufacture a new PR campaign every week, for a small business, even one strong campaign can create useful opportunities, and Digital PR doesn't have to be the only thing you're doing.
It can sit alongside:
Local SEO
Google Business Profile optimisation
Reviews
Content
Social media
Traditional marketing
Referral activity
So, does your business have a Digital PR story?
Possibly.
It might be hiding in your customer data.
It might be something you've noticed after doing your job for 15 years.
It might be a weird local trend you keep seeing.
It might be an interesting question you've never thought to ask your customers.
Or it might be something happening in the news right now where your expertise gives you something genuinely useful to say.
The important thing is to start with the story, not the link. If the only interesting thing about your campaign is that it contains a link to your website, you've probably got a problem.
Good Digital PR gives people a reason to talk about your business and sometimes, the best stories are already sitting right under your nose.
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