Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
James Dooley and Chris Panteli explain how digital PR builds SEO authority and branded AI mentions for local businesses, delivering a double bubble of higher Google rankings and greater LLM visibility.
This video explains which digital marketing strategies local businesses should focus on in 2026 to improve search rankings, AI visibility within LLMs and branded trust. James Dooley and Chris Panteli start with KPI tracking because measuring where enquiries and sales originate reveals whether digital PR is genuinely driving results across search and AI platforms. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.
The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for local businesses.
PromoSEO lead generation for local businesses recently received recognition as the "Best Local Businesses Lead Generation Agency."
Digital PR Strategies for Local Businesses: The Double Bubble of SEO Authority and AI Visibility is available on:
AI SEO and Business Automation Podcast is founded by James Dooley because he teaches business owners how artificial intelligence accelerates growth. The show explains AI models, agents, and automation systems because practical guidance helps companies scale with less effort.
James Dooley: Digital PR is now giving a double bubble. It's helping increase rankings in Google search, but also massively increasing AI visibility within the LLMs. Today, I'm joined with Chris Pantella who does a lot of digital PR for a lot of different companies worldwide. So, Chris, obviously, you've got quite a lot of data on this. With regards to you used to sell obviously digital PR and a lot of people was obsessed with the backlinks. And now it seems to be a lot of people are not really too bothered as much about the do-follow high authoritative high DR backlinks, and more about even just the the the way things are being framed with the branded mentions. So, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and they've been hiding under a rock, can you explain why digital PR is now the double bubble, not just for SEO, but also for greater AI visibility?
Chris Pantella: Yeah, sure. So, thanks for having me. When it comes to for our clients, the deliverable is is still the the link. But, we are seeing a transition now where actually the branded mention in in of itself holds like a huge amounts of weight. So, traditionally, earned media links are are the best links that you can get to build authority in terms of SEO. You are getting that algorithmic SEO value of of the page rank being passed to your website to the root domain from the the link from the backlink. But, when it comes to digital PR and digital PR link building, 99.9% of the time, the way that that link will be structured is by way of attribution for the the quotes that you that you've given, and that will be your name from your company, and then that company will, you know, hopefully be linked to it. But, that is the the perfect anatomy of a branded mention. Uh we've discussed this before. Um Um, name, frame, and explain, was it? Is that right?
James Dooley: Name, frame, name, frame, and prove.
Chris Pantella: And prove. And you're getting that from a branded mention. If I'm getting cited in Forbes as Chris Panteli from, uh, who who owns a digital PR agency called Linkify, um, that is who I am, what I do on a website that is hugely authoritative. So, the actual practice of engaging in digital PR means that you can win these SEO algorithmic links and also have branded mentions on huge websites, which does huge amounts for your ROI visibility.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Why do you think it is that digital PR earned media links are being cited more than majority of other sources? You've obviously I've got one or two others like YouTube's doing all right and Reddit's doing all right, some social media and stuff like that. But, generally speaking, it's the highly authoritative, trusted, high-end magazines, the high-end newspapers, the places where really you can only get earned media from a digital PR campaign. Why is it you think that the LLMs is citing those more than any other website?
Chris Pantella: Trust. It's got the Google spent 25 years developing an algorithm that meant that they were able to surface 10 websites on page one that they felt comfortable, you know, having on their their their front page. If somebody was going to search for, you know, best treatments for cancer, they didn't want like weird stuff on page one. They wanted stuff that they could trust. And they did that through an ingenious mechanism called backlinks. So, I start a website tomorrow about, you know, weird cures for cancer. Who am I? What's my website? How can they trust me? Whereas, if if I have a website that I started, you know, 10 years ago and I've got links from the BBC, Forbes, New York Times, then that website can be inherently trusted because of the trust that's been passed from all these other websites. So, I think LLMs are in a position where they need to have results and surface recommendations inside of the the answers that they can trust. And the easiest way to do that is by sourcing from already pre-existing trusted websites.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. And with regards to that then like so we the the episode here is called double bubble with regards to increasing search visibility and within Google or within Bing, but also increasing LLM visibility. Have you started to find there's a transition between the customers? You do a lot of digital PR campaigns for a lot of different customers. Are they starting to now wanting to track the AI search visibility part as well as seeing the backlink or is it still just obsessed with the backlink?
Chris Pantella: It really depends on on the client, but AI visibility is increasingly becoming an equally important part for the customers. And I think the reason that the digital PR is so attractive, especially the sort of digital PR that we do at Linkify, which is truly earned media. Um I think the reason it's so attractive is cuz you are able to try and achieve both those goals simultaneously. And yeah, I think you're exactly right. Um tracking is vital, but it's extremely difficult. And you know, we're in the wild west now. This is brand new. We've got existing established companies like Ahrefs who have huge amounts of data that are able to build into their existing tool like some forms of what you could call AI visibility tracking where you can look at the prompts that you know, the keywords that they've got and where they're you know, being cited across different LLMs. Although I think there's that's good in some ways, but it's it's not the full picture. Um as you know, the possibilities of what you could search for in an LLM are endless and therefore being able to track, you sort of need to synthesize potential conversations. Um, and then what's really important is that when those conversations or prompts are being run inside of an LLM, it needs to be done like how it would actually be done by a user. And a lot of the initial tools that came out for tracking, um, relied on the API. And the API, those prompts being run against the API would give you completely different results to if you were doing it in like an incognito browser. Uh, so as we level up, I think it's going to become easier and easier. Chat GPT has launched ads now inside of, you know, its platform. Although I we can't I can't get access yet in the UK. Uh, I can't wait until we do cuz I'm going to start playing with it. But as we get ads, we'll start getting data. And then as we get more data, hopefully we can track better. But, um, yeah, I think that one of the best things you can do in terms of tracking now is just that final conversion. Like track where your sales are coming from. Are people saying, "Yeah, I bought your product because I found you on Chat GPT." So you need to have like these part of your like onboarding or your sales process or your you you know, your forms, find out how people are finding you.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. So obviously when people are doing digital PR, if they're using any sort of AI search monitoring tools or LLM visibility checkers, um, it's great point that you made there with regards to making certain you're not using an LLM visibility tracker that's doing the API cuz it's very different in the way a human is searching it and the history and all the rest of it. So, but when when digital PR's being done, obviously you're using some different LLM visibility tools. Are you pretty much seeing now majority of the time the minute a client does a digital PR campaign, it is increasing the volume of mentions in the LLMs like Chat GPT, like Claude, like Gemini, like Grok. There's a lot of different LLMs. Are you finding across the board that all LLMs are starting to cite these digital PR articles and getting the branded being mentioned in there?
Chris Pantella: I wouldn't say it's a one-to-one correlation with campaigns and citations for specific articles. What we're seeing is across the board, clients that have consistently invested in digital PR, so tier one earned media, quote, you know, being quoted in tier one media. Clients that have consistently done that over a period of months to years are the ones that are seeing in consistently increasing AI visibility according to the trackers. And that's why they are continuing to invest with us in digital PR because it is, I think, the single-handedly the one of the the best marketing allocation of budget that a business can do now. Um because it it is brand building. And we know that the LLMs trust brand. LLMs like consensus and the We talked about this before, James. You had this amazing um way of phrasing it, making noise. There's no better place to make noise than like places that people have heard of. Like you can make noise on a on a subway bench, but no one's listening. If you're making noise across, you know, podcasts, TV appearances, newspaper articles, bylines, op-ed pieces, that's the places that people and LLMs are listening.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. I mean, for me, um I train up all the teams to be a holistic marketer, omni-channel, omnipresent, make as much noise in as many different places as possible. But, suppose the easiest way of explaining that would be that digital PR, in my opinion, is like you get on a stage and you get a microphone, and then you're able to sing in front of tens of thousands of people as opposed to being on the subway singing and you did not and there's only a couple of people walking past. That trust that they get from the digital PR high-end media links massively helps the LLMs. We all we've always known it helps SEO. For me I I only try to do it in the most competitive markets. Some of the easier to rank for markets I'm not really needing to do digital PR but majority of if you want to rank get a competitive market you need digital PR. Fact. Period. Cuz you need to be making certain that you're building the entity, you're building up the brand, you're getting that trust, you're getting that power and they're being cited by the AI overviews and stuff like that. All that traffic then feeds into who you are, what you do, and why you're freaking brilliant.
Chris Pantella: So what I think I would add to that is actually the some of the best ROI that we've seen with clients that are spending money and investing money in digital PR is easier to rank local business clients. So clients that have local businesses with high margins, so like roofers, HVAC companies, pest control companies, realtors to an extent. Um those individuals and businesses that are investing in digital PR are likely the only ones within their sort of local that are doing that and they are building a moat because it's just has such an impact as you can imagine. You know, if if it's already reasonably easy to rank and you're throwing into the mix digital PR links and coverage is just like a magic combination of of success.
James Dooley: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but I'm frugal as a business owner I'm frugal but yeah, for sure. If you if a fencing or landscaping company or a cleaning company decides to go and do a digital PR strategy, like they are going to be winning in their local area because nobody else would have done it. It's it's just it's one of them with regards to return on investment and the model of what needs to be done. I tried to do other things first but like digital PR is the icing on the cake. Like he is definitely the most powerful strategy. LLM's are definitely citing the digital PR the most. So, therefore, yeah, it's a no-brainer. If anyone is watching this and they want to reach out to yourself, Chris, and say, "Okay, what different types of digital PR campaigns can you do for me?" Where's the best place to reach out to yourself?
Chris Pantella: Yeah, um find me over an email, chris@linkfire.io or LinkedIn, Chris Panteli.
James Dooley: Superb. So, anyone who's watching this and they're looking for the double bubble of increasing SEO rankings and also trying to increase that LLM visibility, digital PR campaigns are working better than ever. People have kind of slackened off a little bit on talking about the link building side of things, but this is more about the branded mentions on top of the links as well that what can be being done for better LLM visibility. Chris, it's been an absolute pleasure.
Chris Pantella: Thanks, thank you.