Off-site SEO, Digital PR, and link building campaigns have grown rapidly in recent years, largely because Google has continued to place increased emphasis on backlinks from authoritative third-party websites, a focus that was further reinforced by the Google leaks in 2024.

The problem is that, heading into 2026, building links purely for Google rankings is no longer enough. Search is no longer a simple act of “Googling” something. Instead, it has evolved into a far more fragmented and complex landscape that spans Google, Reddit, LLMs, and social platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. 

This shift is already reflected in user behaviour. A recent Adobe report found that 24% of Americans now start their search journey on ChatGPT. Among younger audiences, discovery is increasingly social-first, with 67% turning to Instagram and 62% to TikTok for information. Even Google has recognized the change, noting that AI-driven search sessions tend to last two to three times longer than traditional searches.

So, the question as we head into 2026 becomes this: how do we create off-site campaigns that not only build links but also drive visibility across multiple platforms?

Well, to answer this, we firstly have to address the challenges this new way of search is having on brands:

Let’s start with the obvious. AI-driven search is becoming increasingly popular, and that comes with one major consequence: fewer direct clicks.

A recent Seer Interactive study highlighted the scale of this shift. Their data showed that CTR is down 65% when an AIO is present in the SERPs and you are not cited, and down 49% when an AIO is present but you are cited, compared to 46% when no AIO appears.

As zero-click searches continue to rise, off-site campaigns need to work harder than ever, not just to support Google rankings, but to drive traffic and visibility from social platforms and LLM-powered search experiences as well.

The challenge, as I see it, is that the vast majority of off-site campaigns are still designed solely to build links for Google, without targeting the wider opportunity, leading to a huge missed opportunity.
Most campaigns follow a very basic formula: brainstorm an idea, turn it into a blog post, outreach to journalists, and secure a handful of backlinks. In my 12 years in the industry, I’d estimate that around 99% of campaigns are built this way.

Campaigns can no longer be about throwing a story at the media and seeing what sticks. Yes, we still need to earn high-quality links, but we also need to target LLMs and social platforms to counteract the rise of zero-click search.

That means rethinking how campaigns are planned and executed:

• Instead of producing a single blog post, content should be created in multiple formats, such as short-form video or reels.
• Instead of reaching out to just journalists, campaigns should also engage creators, influencers, and community voices across platforms like TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Reddit.
• And any content published on-site should be optimized not just for keywords, but also for AI prompts and conversational search patterns.

I have included a diagram below to showcase this exact approach:

So, let’s walk through exactly how to do this, from developing ideas that resonate across platforms to executing campaigns that drive visibility, authority, and real business impact across the entire digital landscape.

Step 1: Define relevant campaign ideas for off-site campaigns that work across the entire digital landscape

We all know that in link building, relevance is king. In 2024, the Google leaks confirmed that one of the strongest ranking signals when determining a “good” link is relevance.

The question is: if we want our campaigns to perform across multiple platforms, how do we actually define what is relevant and what will genuinely engage users? This has long been one of the biggest challenges in the industry. In my experience, most brands and agencies tend to define off-site and link relevance in one of two ways.

1. Topical alignment

How people currently measure relevance this way: Is the placement or link featured within content that is topically aligned with the products or services the brand offers?

The challenge of measuring relevance this way: The problem with this approach is quality. For example, if I work with a brand that sells kitchens and the linked content discusses kitchen trends, it may appear relevant on the surface. But if the site hosting that content is low quality or openly accepts paid links, does that really make it a good placement? In most cases, the answer is no.

2. Authority-first placements

How people currently measure relevance this way: Is the placement or link featured on a high-authority website or profile?

The challenge of measuring relevance this way: The challenge here is the opposite. If the content itself is completely irrelevant to the user’s intent, authority alone doesn’t make it a strong or meaningful placement. For example, if we work with a brand that sells kitchens and we get a link from a national newspaper, it may appear a good link on the surface, but what if the content is talking about something your customers would never engage with such as garden furniture. This means the link is not passing relevance no matter what site hosts the content.  

Pro tip: Moz’s Keyword Explorer tool can help you identify the search intent for a keyword so you can make sure your content meets your audience’s needs every time.

How to measure true relevance within off-site campaigns: For me, true relevance sits within the customer journey itself. Rather than looking at relevance in isolation, we should be mapping the journey our audience goes through and identifying the questions they ask and the channels they use as they move towards a purchase decision.

This aligns closely with Google’s concept of the “messy middle”: the phase between trigger and purchase, where users loop between exploration and evaluation. During this stage, people compare options, read reviews, seek social proof, and consume content across multiple platforms before committing.

That behaviour isn’t limited to Google anymore. Users might be:

• Searching TikTok for product recommendations
• Reading Reddit threads or reviews
• Watching YouTube comparisons
• Asking questions directly in LLMs

The key is understanding what questions are being asked, where they’re being asked, and at which stage of the messy middle they appear. A visual example of this journey is shown below.

If we can consistently answer those questions in a way that works for media, social platforms, and AI-driven search we can be confident that our campaigns are truly relevant. More importantly, they gain the ability to influence decisions, not just earn links and mentions.

Step 2: Monitor the whole search opportunity (Google, LLM, and social) to create campaigns that drive commercial impact

For this step, let’s imagine we’re working with a cruise brand selling Caribbean cruises.

The first step is to define which areas of the market we actually want to target. This matters because any visibility we drive needs to translate into commercial impact, not just rankings.

For too long, I’ve seen SEOs focus on visibility graphs and celebrate when the line trends upwards. The issue with this approach is simple: if that growth comes from non-commercial keywords, visibility increases, but revenue doesn’t.

Instead, I recommend using a traffic index.

A traffic index shows the percentage of available market share a brand captures across different products or categories. To illustrate this, I pulled a sample dataset of 573 cruise-related keywords and grouped them into four categories:

• General cruise terms
• Destination-based terms
• Deals and discounts
• Booking-related terms

I then analyzed where different brands ranked for those keywords and overlaid a click-through-rate model.

The resulting score is relative: a brand ranking in position one for every keyword in a category would score 100%, representing the maximum organic traffic available. Rankings in positions two or three reduce that score accordingly. This view makes it much easier to identify which themes and categories offer the greatest commercial opportunity.

Note: domains in the table below have been blurred to keep the data confidential.

Expanding beyond keywords: understanding LLM demand

Once we’ve identified the topics and themes that are commercially valuable, the next step is to understand how those themes surface within LLM-powered search, not just traditional Google keyword results.

To do this, I recommend using a tool such as STAT or llmrefs.com.

Coming soon: LLM Visibility is coming to Moz Pro! Keep an eye on this space for more details about this exciting new feature.

This tool allows you to input your brand and see your share of voice across different LLMs. More importantly, it also reveals the prompts people are using, along with estimated search volume.

For example, when analyzing the prompt “Where can I find last-minute cruise deals?”, the tool shows whether (and where) your brand appears within LLM responses for that query.

By this stage, you should have a clear view of:

• The keywords that matter commercially
• The prompts that influence AI-driven search

From here, the final step is to layer in social listening. This helps uncover the wider conversations, questions, and behaviors that customers demonstrate across social platforms and communities, giving you the insight needed to build campaigns that genuinely influence the entire customer journey, not just search rankings. 

Using Social Listening to Ensure Your Off-site Campaigns Work Across Social Platforms and Traditional Online Media

Social listening is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated and underused tactics in off-site SEO. The reason is simple: it shows you where people are engaging, which channels they use, which influencers they follow, and most importantly, the questions they are actively asking. That insight provides incredibly powerful input for campaign ideation and planning.

The tool I most commonly recommend for this is Brandwatch, a social listening platform that allows you to analyze conversations at scale across social networks, forums, and communities.

Sticking with the cruise example, I input a mix of cruise brands and related themes into the platform. This immediately helps uncover:

• Which influencers and creators are driving conversations
• Which platforms deserve the most focus
• What topics audiences care about most
• How people naturally talk about cruises, destinations, deals, and experiences

This data removes guesswork from campaign planning. Instead of relying on assumptions, you’re building campaigns based on real audience behaviour.

Step 3: Turn insights into campaign ideas

Once this data is in place, you can move confidently into the brainstorming stage armed with insight rather than opinion.

A quick tip for you all is scraping Reddit. We already know that Reddit is a highly influential source for LLMs, as well as a trusted space for peer-to-peer recommendations. What many teams don’t realise is that you can actively scrape subreddit conversations within Brandwatch using Boolean search.

For example, if we wanted to analyze discussions within the subreddits r/Cruise and r/Cruises, we could use a query such as:

This query pulls conversations where users are openly discussing the best and worst aspects of cruising, exactly the type of insight that fuels relevant, high-impact campaign ideas.

From here, it is a simple case of relying on AI – take all of the keywords, prompts, social posts you have pulled, and ask AI to summarize them. In my case, it revealed the below:

Once you have this data, you know that the topics are relevant, but you will want to then ensure its media and social-friendly before moving into outreach

Step 4: Ensure the content works for the media and social

Now we’ve got a strong concept for a multi-format idea that can earn links, spark social engagement, surface in LLMs, and build real awareness and traffic. That’s a great start, but it’s not the full picture. For an idea to actually land, it needs to be packaged in a format that journalists, platforms, and audiences already respond to. So how do you determine which formats will work for your campaign and audience?

To give your campaign the best chance of success, I always recommend following the data. Look at what’s working right now and let that guide the way you create and position your content.

A really useful tool for this is BuzzSumo. It’s brilliant for seeing what performs well in the media and what gets shared most on social. Just search your topic (or similar topics) within BuzzSumo to see what’s getting traction.

From there, you’ll see which formats pull the most engagement. You can filter by language, location, platform, and date to narrow it down to what matters for your campaign.

For example, when looking at content around cruises on Reddit, BuzzSumo showed that list-style pieces perform best, followed closely by interviews. So if Reddit is part of your strategy, that’s the kind of format you should be leaning into.

And for media outreach specifically, BuzzSumo will also show you the content that has attracted the most links. Just search your topic, review the top-linked pieces, and you’ll see: 

• Which journalists covered similar stories
• What angle or format worked best
• How you should shape your own idea to maximize coverage

This approach makes it much easier to find the right hook and present it in a way that aligns with what the media is already running with.

Step 5: Perform effective outreach

So by now you have your idea, you have (hopefully) created the content to work over multiple platforms, and it's optimized for LLMs and SEO. You just need a way to get it out to the media and social media profiles… sounds easy, right?

Well, not really. Outreach is a skill that takes time to master, but there are a few things you can do to speed up how long it takes you to learn this art form.

My first piece of advice is to use a tool called BuzzStream. Think of it as a CRM for media outreach. You can upload templates and even track link clicks and email opens.

A quick note before we go any further, though, and it’s an important one. Firstly, never activate the link-click feature. This will add a code to the URL, and if a journalist simply copies and pastes it from your email, it will mean the link passes less SEO value.

Secondly, and this is the most important point:never, and I mean never, bulk send emails. Outreach should be personal, well-researched, and it should take time. Don’t try and take the easy way out, or you’ll risk annoying the media and burning bridges for future coverage.

In BuzzStream, what you can do is upload the list of journalists and social profiles you want to contact. You can then easily tag them and organize them.

Finally, make sure you activate the email-open tracking feature. This way, you can trial different subject lines and email styles, and A/B test your outreach. If you find that option A is getting more replies or pick-up, you may want to use that style more often.a

Step 6: Report and track results

As the links, social posts, and media mentions start flying in, you’ll want to make sure you’re actually tracking the impact this activity is having on visibility and performance. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of notifications and name drops, but without measurement, you’re essentially guessing at success.

Remember, vanity metrics are nice, but that’s all they are: nice. They feel good, they look good in a deck, but they don’t always reflect real business or brand impact. You shouldn’t be treating link status or domain metrics as core KPIs. They can support the story, but they shouldn’t be the story.

Instead, focus on what actually matters: visibility on Google and social platforms, how often you’re being surfaced in LLM responses, changes to site traffic, and most importantly, what this means for leads, conversions, and revenue.

Also, remember that results aren’t always instant. It may take a month or two for a campaign to fully show its impact across search engines, social algorithms, and LLM visibility. That’s normal. In your reports, make sure you’re not only presenting outputs (the things you did), but also outcomes (the results that happened because you did them). This is where the real value lives.

Outputs (what you did)

• Number of links secured
• Domain Authority (DA) of referring sites
• Number of mentions
• Link status (follow/no-follow)
• Landing pages used for coverage and traffic generation
• Social engagement (likes, shares, comments, etc.)

Outcomes (the impact it had)

• Increased social following / community growth
• Increased traffic to the website from earned channels
• Increased conversions, enquiries, or assisted conversions
• Improved brand sentiment and visibility in conversations
• Increased market share in Google & LLM search results
• Higher frequency of brand responses in AI answer engines

To summarize, 2026 will, in my opinion, be the year when off-site campaigns finally get the attention they deserve. Why? Because they’re becoming the biggest differentiator between brands in the eyes of social platforms, LLMs, and Google. Anyone can produce content. Anyone can optimize a landing page. But brands that actively build authority beyond their own website through media coverage, social buzz, community influence, and external signals will be the ones that stand out.

Running outreach, PR, and campaign activity across multiple touchpoints will grow in importance as we all work to build brand presence, influence customers wherever they spend their time, and drive traffic from as many trustworthy channels as possible, especially as AIOs and AI-driven search engines continue to reduce traditional clicks.

So as we move into 2026, think bigger than rankings. Think bigger than clicks. Think about being present wherever your audience looks, listens, scrolls, asks, and searches. That’s where brand strength will come from, and that’s where the future winners will be decided.

The brands that adapt early won’t just survive the shift; they’ll lead it.