Today’s media wins often disappear into the void, unless they’re discoverable where people actually search.
Are PR wins losing their primary importance nowadays? This question has just recently become relevant.
Appearing in the media has always been one of the greatest ways for companies to reach their potential customers. However, in 2025, search behavior is completely shifted, and so is the customer journey.
Today, just appearing in a media source isn’t enough if the source isn’t available on the platform where people actually search.
Time when Google had an absolute monopoly on search seems to be over. People rely on more sources now than ever: TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, Amazon, and now, AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini to find trusted answers.
This is a very natural process orchestrated by the high quality of content posted on the mentioned platforms. Social media, forums, marketplaces, and AI allow us to consume the same information as Google offers, but more quickly.
This evolution in user behavior is what’s fueling the rise of Search Everywhere Optimization, and it’s rewriting the rules for PR and marketing. Google isn’t going anywhere, but ranking for it isn’t enough anymore. Therefore, marketing and PR have also adopted new responsibilities: now they need to help brands position themselves EVERYWHERE.
What Is Search Everywhere Optimization, And Why It’s SEO 2.0
Search Everywhere Optimization is a completely new term. It has just appeared in the marketing industry. SEO Sherpa was one of the first SEO agencies to adopt this term and offer Search Everywhere Optimization services to their clients.
SEO 2.0 is a strategy of optimizing for visibility across all major search platforms, not just Google. Since search has become more complex, so has the optimization strategy.
A new way of optimization isn’t only about keywords anymore.
It’s about search intent, authority, brand awareness, strategic positioning, storytelling, AI optimization, and honoring the algorithm of each platform.
This new phase blends traditional SEO with all of the above-mentioned. It doesn’t ignore Google, but prioritizes it ALONGSIDE other platforms, not above them.
Here are a few examples of “everywhere”:
TikTok search
Sometimes, TikTok is the first platform where people start their search journey (especially Gen Z and Gen X). The main reason is that TikTok provides quick insights, allowing watchers to determine whether they really are interested or not in a few minutes. For instance, if someone is interested in content production, their first intention might be to define how hard it is to do it. TikTok is a great platform to absorb quick tips and emotions.
YouTube snippets
YouTube snippets might seem like simple descriptions, but they play a much more important role. They are one of the main tools for YouTube optimization alongside visible and hidden captions, video headlines, and audio.
YouTube sometimes is the 2nd step of search: after people feel like they are up for something they searched on TikTok, they try to learn more about it through YouTube while still avoiding spending too much time on it.
Amazon rankings
In many cases, customers take their search journey to Amazon after doing the initial research. As soon as they know exactly what they are looking for, they skip Google and trust Amazon rankings and reviews.
Optimizing for Amazon is quite specific. General product descriptions don’t do the trick anymore. The descriptions also have to show the purpose of the product.
“Wireless microphone for video” recording ranks better than “Mini microphone”.
Reddit threads
Reddit is a space for most genuine tips and recommendations. Appearing on Reddit means that your brand has somehow gathered more trust than others.
There is no optimal trick for optimizing for Reddit. If your brand is authoritative, trustworthy, and easy to remember, it has a higher chance of appearing on Reddit, which leads us to the importance of brand awareness and brand mentions.
Google’s AI Overviews
As for Google’s AI Overviews, they can be a part of both: the end or the start of the buyer’s journey.
In any case, appearing in Google’s AI Overviews takes almost the same criteria as for Reddit: brand awareness, authority, storytelling, right positioning, and optimization for search intent, instead of for keywords.
Google’s AI Overviews send way less traffic to the website they source the information from, but they send way more leads to the brands that appear in these overviews.
AI Search Is the Game-Changer PR Can’t Ignore
PR has always been about what others say about your brand, not just how you position yourself. The easiest way to track your PR efforts was always through Google, but not anymore.
A lot of people are now asking LLM models for recommendations, especially ChatGPT and Gemini. Some people don’t even need to ask Gemini; they might ask Google and still receive a Gemini summary at the top of their search results.
So, now PR experts have to worry about more things than ever… Yesterday, ending up in the top media publications was enough. Today, we care if their media publications have their platforms optimized well enough for their content to end up in the AI search.
PR teams can directly shape what AI tools learn and recommend by ensuring content is strategically placed, clearly tagged, and structurally optimized. This isn’t just about making stories compelling; it’s about making them findable and usable by algorithms.
For example:
- Embedding consistent brand mentions and factual details across multiple sources helps AI models recognize and recall your brand.
- Using schema markup, transcripts, and well-labeled assets increases the chance your content will be surfaced in AI-generated responses.
- Partnering with publications that already appear in AI summaries boosts the probability of your coverage being cited.
AI models are essentially curators. They prioritize authority, consistency, and contextual depth over sheer volume of mentions. This means PR success now depends not only on where you land coverage but also on how that coverage is structured for machine retrieval.
PR’s Traditional Model vs. the SEOx Reality
The Problem: PR has historically optimized for media hits, not search traction.
A feature in a top-tier publication may be valuable for reputation, but if it’s not indexed by AI tools, discoverable on social search, or embedded in relevant Reddit threads, its lifespan is short. The story may have influence on the day it’s published, but it quickly fades if it can’t be found where people are actively searching.
The Shift: In the SEOx reality, search-anchored visibility becomes the primary metric.
- In the past: Success = Coverage in a high-profile outlet.
Now: Success = Coverage that continues to surface across AI summaries, TikTok feeds, YouTube search results, and niche community forums.
Why It Matters: Studies show that fewer people are clicking through to full articles. Instead, they consume key information directly from snippets, summaries, and search overlays, bypassing the original source entirely. Without strategic optimization, your PR wins may influence fewer people than you think.
What It All Means for the Future of PR
The PR industry is at a turning point. The days when a single feature in a well-known outlet could sustain months of brand credibility are gone. In today’s search ecosystem, visibility is only as powerful as its ability to be found repeatedly, and across multiple surfaces.
This shift has three major implications:
- Discoverability is the new currency of PR. Your content’s ability to be surfaced by AI, social search, and niche communities directly impacts its reach and influence.
- PR professionals must think like search strategists. Understanding keywords, search intent, platform-specific algorithms, and structured data is no longer optional; it’s essential.
- PR and SEO are merging disciplines. Communicators who can integrate storytelling with multi-surface optimization will lead the next frontier in brand visibility.
The winners in this new era will be those who see earned coverage as the beginning of the visibility process, not the end. Every story needs to be distributed, adapted, and positioned so that it appears, and reappears, wherever your audience searches.
Final Takeaway: You’re Not Just Pitching the Press, You’re Training the Algorithm
PR in 2025 is no longer just about building relationships with journalists. It’s about building a digital presence that algorithms can recognize, trust, and serve users at the exact moment of interest.
That means:
- Structure: Use formats and markup that make your content easy for machines to read and summarize.
- Repetition: Ensure consistent brand mentions, descriptions, and key messages across all surfaces.
- Relevance: Align every piece of content with the real questions and needs your audience expresses in search.
Your ultimate goal isn’t just to appear in a headline; it’s to train search engines, social algorithms, and AI tools to associate your brand with the topics and expertise you want to own.
If your brand isn’t findable where your audience is searching, it doesn’t matter how impressive your media hits are.
The next era of PR belongs to those who optimize for people and the machines that connect them.
Now is the time to embrace Search Everywhere Optimization, before your competitors train the algorithm first
.
