How to choose a digital PR agency

• Traditional PR firms with digital teams run media relations, launches, executive profiles and crisis work. Coverage and reputation are the goal, and links are a by-product.
• SEO-led digital PR agencies pitch stories, data and expert comments to journalists to earn links and mentions that support search.
• Press release distribution services, often called wires, publish your release on newswires and partner sites for a fee per release.
• Reputation management firms work on what people find when they search your name, including reviews and negative results.
• Link vendors with PR branding sell placements on sites that accept payment, labeled as "PR" or "news" links.

The table below compares them side by side.

Whichever kind of firm you're considering, check these before signing:

• Live articles on US outlets from the last 90 days, with links you can check yourself in Ahrefs or Semrush
• Who pitches journalists, and whether that work is passed to a subcontractor
• How linked and unlinked coverage are reported, and which of them count toward any target
• Whether any placement is paid. US advertising rules expect paid content to be disclosed, and Google expects paid links to be marked sponsored or nofollow
• What the contract guarantees (a number of placements, hours of work or nothing), what happens in a short month, and how you leave

Be wary of guaranteed placements in named outlets and guaranteed rankings. No agency controls an editor's decision or Google's results.

A wire release suits news that needs a formal public record: funding, a launch, an acquisition or a disclosure. The syndicated copies usually carry nofollow links or sit on pages few people read, so they rarely count as editorial links. The value comes when a journalist reads the release and writes their own story.

Traditional PR firms usually bill a monthly retainer for time. SEO-led agencies bill monthly against a link target or per placement. Wires charge per release, and reputation firms by project or retainer.

A retainer with no delivery target can invoice a month with no coverage, while pure per-link pricing can push a vendor toward the cheapest placements. We run monthly plans with contractual minimums: Starter at $3,300 for at least 5 editorial links, Growth at $6,000 for 10 and Scale at $10,600 for 20. The package breakdown has the detail.

We're an SEO-led digital PR agency. You send the website. We research and write the stories, data and comments, pitch them through our journalist relationships and public records (FOIA) requests, and keep developing stories until your monthly placement minimum is met. Every placement is reported with its URL, a screenshot and the page it links to. If you want to compare us with other link vendors, see link building services. Agencies can resell the same work through white-label link building.

Hire someone else if you need crisis communications, media training, event PR, investor relations or a launch built around broadcast interviews. A traditional PR firm is the better fit for those. If you have a comms lead with newsroom contacts and one market to cover, building in-house can also cost less per link.