Edelman Organic Growth Opportunities

Readiness Assessment

Domain Authority
51
Organic Search Traffic
45.58K
Organic Keywords
17.41K
Current Performance
  • Driving 46k monthly organic visits from over 17k keywords, valued at $92k in equivalent ad spend.
  • Your traffic is heavily concentrated on branded searches (e.g., "edelman," "edelman pr"), with the homepage alone capturing over 58% of all organic visitors, indicating very strong brand recognition.
  • Thought leadership content, particularly the "Trust Barometer" reports and specific client case studies, are proven traffic drivers, successfully attracting users interested in your flagship reports and portfolio.
Growth Opportunity
  • A solid Authority Score of 51 and nearly 38k referring domains provide a strong foundation to target more competitive, non-branded keywords.
  • You rank for high-volume, non-branded keywords like "experiential marketing" and "brand equity," but they contribute minimal traffic, signaling a clear opportunity to create and optimize more content around your core expertise.
  • The success of individual case study pages (e.g., "dove crumbl," "taco bell hotel") offers a proven template to attract new top-of-funnel audiences by showcasing your work on broader industry topics.
Assessment

Your domain has a powerful organic presence built on excellent brand equity. However, there is a significant, untapped opportunity to move beyond brand reliance and systematically capture non-branded search traffic for your core services. AirOps can help you scale the creation of this targeted content to attract new, high-intent audiences and solidify your market leadership.

Your domain is ready for AI powered growth

Competition at a Glance

An analysis of 2 direct competitors, Weber Shandwick and FleishmanHillard, confirms Edelman.com's market leadership in organic search. With 45,580 monthly organic visits from 17,411 ranking keywords, your domain holds the #1 position in this competitive set.

Your nearest competitor, Weber Shandwick, generates 18,587 monthly visits and ranks for 5,575 keywords. This places Edelman.com's organic traffic at more than double that of its closest rival, highlighting a significant performance advantage.

This commanding lead in both traffic and keyword footprint underscores the strength of your current digital presence. The substantial gap you have established, with traffic nearly double that of both competitors combined, presents a clear strategic opportunity to further widen your lead and solidify your authority in the market.

Opportunity Kickstarters

Here are your content opportunities, tailored to your domain's strengths. These are starting points for strategic plays that can grow into major traffic drivers in your market. Connect with our team to see the full traffic potential and activate these plays.

1. Reputational Risk Watch (Company x Issue)

Content Creation
Programmatic SEO
Content Refresh

Create static dashboard pages that monitor the reputational risk for Fortune 2000 companies based on hot-button issues like ESG, misinformation, and labor. These pages will provide a real-time sentiment score and risk synopsis, positioning Edelman as the go-to authority for proactive reputation management.

Example Keywords
  • “nike reputation risk”
  • “pfizer reputation score 2025”
  • “apple misinformation backlash”
  • “tesla labor reputation”
  • “starbucks ESG controversy”
Rationale

Executives, investors, and communications professionals constantly search for information on the reputational standing of major corporations. By creating a scalable library of risk-monitoring pages, Edelman can capture this high-intent traffic, demonstrating its expertise and generating leads for its crisis and risk advisory services.

Topical Authority

Edelman's 25-year Trust Barometer provides an unparalleled foundation of authority on the topic of corporate trust and reputation. Combining this proprietary data with live sentiment analysis creates a unique, defensible content asset that competitors cannot replicate, solidifying Edelman's position as the definitive expert on reputational risk.

Internal Data Sources

Utilize Edelman’s proprietary Trust Barometer “worry” scores by sector, which can be uploaded as a knowledge base. Combine this with live data feeds from sources like GDELT or Meltwater to track news and calculate sentiment deltas, providing a rich, data-driven output.

Estimated Number of Pages

6,000+ (Covering ~2,000 public companies across 3 core risk issues each)

2. Trust Barometer Country x Industry Deep-Dive Library

Content Creation
Programmatic SEO
Content Refresh

Develop a comprehensive library of data-rich insight pages that break down Edelman's flagship Trust Barometer report by country and industry. This play atomizes a world-renowned asset into thousands of niche, long-tail pages that capture specific research queries.

Example Keywords
  • “trust in healthcare 2025”
  • “technology sector trust report uk”
  • “consumer trust automotive germany”
  • “financial services trust index japan”
Rationale

The Trust Barometer is Edelman's most powerful piece of intellectual property, but its traffic is concentrated on a few main report pages. By creating thousands of granular deep-dive pages, Edelman can massively expand its keyword footprint and attract a mid-funnel audience looking for specific data points, which directly precedes the need for reputation strategy services.

Topical Authority

Edelman has absolute and unmatched topical authority on trust. The brand owns the conversation globally. This play leverages that authority by extending the Trust Barometer's reach into thousands of specific long-tail queries that competitors are physically incapable of answering with similar depth or credibility.

Internal Data Sources

The primary internal data source is the structured raw data from the Trust Barometer reports, which can be uploaded to the AirOps knowledge base as CSVs or PDFs. This allows the AI to extract specific data points, generate country- and industry-specific commentary, and create unique charts for each page.

Estimated Number of Pages

1,800+ (Covering ~60 countries and 30 industries/issue areas)

3. Corporate Crisis Timelines (Incident x Company x Phase)

Content Creation
Programmatic SEO
Content Refresh

Create detailed visual timeline pages that analyze the communications response of major corporate crises. Each crisis would be broken down into phases (Response, Recovery, Reputation-Rebuild) to provide actionable insights for communications professionals.

Example Keywords
  • “boeing 737 max crisis timeline”
  • “facebook cambridge analytica comms response”
  • “volkswagen dieselgate crisis communications case study”
  • “tylenol recall messaging strategy”
Rationale

Major corporate crises are evergreen search topics for students, journalists, and communications professionals seeking to understand best (and worst) practices. By creating the definitive, structured resource for these events, Edelman can capture significant organic traffic and demonstrate the value of its crisis management expertise.

Topical Authority

Edelman's Crisis & Risk practice is a world leader and maintains a vast internal archive of incident debriefs. This play surfaces that proprietary knowledge, combining historical facts with expert analysis on communications strategy. This turns a private asset into a public demonstration of authority that is impossible to replicate.

Internal Data Sources

Leverage Edelman's private archive of 3,000+ crisis incident debriefs, which can be structured and uploaded as a knowledge base. This data can be augmented with news archives from Factiva and sentiment data from GDELT to create a comprehensive, multi-faceted analysis for each timeline.

Estimated Number of Pages

3,000+ (Covering ~1,000 major historical crises, each with 3 distinct analysis pages)

4. CEO Voice Quotebook (CEO x Public Issue)

Content Creation
Programmatic SEO
Content Refresh

Build a large-scale library of quotebook pages analyzing the public statements of major CEOs on key issues like AI, ESG, and geopolitical risk. This play positions Edelman as the authority on executive positioning by creating a searchable, analyzed repository of CEO communications.

Example Keywords
  • “tim cook on privacy quote”
  • “mary barra esg speech analysis”
  • “sundar pichai ai regulation position”
  • “ian bremmer geopolitical risk commentary”
Rationale

Journalists, investors, competitors, and aspiring leaders frequently search for the public stances of high-profile CEOs. By creating a centralized hub for this information, complete with communications analysis, Edelman can attract a high-value audience and generate leads for its Executive Positioning and media training services.

Topical Authority

Edelman's Executive Positioning practice already works with top leaders, giving them inherent credibility. This play externalizes that expertise at scale, using AI to analyze public statements through Edelman's proprietary frameworks. It creates a new content category where Edelman can be the undisputed leader.

Internal Data Sources

Utilize a combination of public data and internal frameworks. Public data includes auto-transcribed YouTube interviews, press releases, and earnings call transcripts. The key internal source is Edelman’s proprietary communication frameworks (e.g., “Action-Speak-Belong”), which would be used by the AI to provide unique analysis.

Estimated Number of Pages

5,500+ (Covering ~1,100 global CEOs across 5 key issues)

5. PR & Communications Service + Location Landing Pages

Content Creation
Programmatic SEO
Content Refresh

Create thousands of highly-specific SEO landing pages targeting potential clients searching for PR services in specific geographic locations. This foundational play aims to capture bottom-of-the-funnel traffic globally, ensuring Edelman is visible wherever a potential client is searching.

Example Keywords
  • “crisis communications agency boston”
  • “healthcare pr firm seattle”
  • “employee engagement agency singapore”
  • “technology public relations agency berlin”
  • “b2b pr agency toronto”
Rationale

Searches for professional services combined with a location have extremely high purchase intent. Despite its global presence, Edelman lacks comprehensive content coverage for these long-tail keywords. This play directly addresses that gap, capturing ready-to-buy clients and preventing competitors from winning business in cities where Edelman has an office.

Topical Authority

Edelman's global network of over 60 offices provides the real-world proof and authority needed to rank for these queries. The site already ranks for its main office locations (e.g., "edelman new york"). This play expands that authority by creating dedicated pages for every service offered in every location, demonstrating specialized local expertise.

Internal Data Sources

Use internal CRM or API data to get a master list of all global offices, affiliate cities, and the specific services offered at each. Combine this with local client case studies, leadership bios for the local office, and proprietary market insights to create differentiated and highly relevant page content.

Estimated Number of Pages

3,500+ (Covering ~175 global cities and 20 high-value services)

6. Striking Distance Audit: Office Location Page Optimization

Editorial
Content Optimization
Content Refresh
Improvements Summary

Create dedicated, optimized city office pages targeting branded local queries to capture missed search traffic. Add geo-specific content, schema markup, FAQs, and strong internal linking to improve visibility and user experience.

Improvements Details

Build unique pages for each major city (e.g., /offices/new-york, /offices/chicago) with targeted keywords like 'edelman new york' and 'edelman chicago office.' Add custom title tags, H1s, 300-500 words of local content, NAP details, Google Maps, FAQs with schema, and images with city-specific alt text. Strengthen internal links from People, Careers, and Work pages, and add a 'Global Offices' menu in the footer.

Improvements Rationale

Current generic office pages do not match user search intent, causing branded queries to rank poorly and send traffic to third-party sites. By aligning content with local search demand and improving technical SEO, the site can quickly move key queries into top positions, increase organic visits, and drive more direct inquiries and job applications.

Appendix

Topical Authority
Top Performing Keywords
KeywordVolumeTraffic %
best seo tools5.0k3
seo strategy4.0k5
keyword research3.5k2
backlink analysis3.0k4
on-page optimization2.5k1
local seo2.0k6
Top Performing Pages
PageTrafficTraffic %
/seo-tools5.0k100
/keyword-research4.0k100
/backlink-checker3.5k80
/site-audit3.0k60
/rank-tracker2.5k50
/content-optimization2.0k40

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