Most PR searches are about learning, not hiring.

Short answer: Most people who search about PR want to understand it or do it themselves. In our study of US Bing searches from August 5 to November 2, 2026, 82% of PR searches were about learning (what PR is, how to write a press release, personal branding) and 3% about hiring a firm, a publicist or reputation help.¹ The single most searched how-to was "how to write a press release", with 4,055 searches in three months.¹ Buyer searches exist, but they are many, specific and small.

What we looked at

We started from 86 phrases about PR, press coverage, press releases, publicists and press for O-1, EB-1 and EB-2 NIW visas. Bing's keyword tool returned 4,438 related US searches with their number of searches over three months (August 5 to November 2, 2026). 1,193 passed a first relevance check, and we grouped the 217 that are really about PR into topics.¹ We also asked Google's autocomplete for suggestions on 115 phrases.

Bing's numbers are counts of exact searches on Bing only, which handles a smaller share of US searches than Google, so read them as a comparison between topics, not as total demand.

Learning beats hiring, by far

Of the PR searches in our study (visa searches are counted separately below), 27,528 were about learning how PR works, 4,818 about doing parts of it yourself (newswires, HARO, launches, AI search) and 1,168 about hiring help.¹ That is 82% learning against 3% hiring.

The questions people ask

42 of the 217 searches we kept are questions, and they make up 24% of all searches in the study.¹ Most are definitions: what PR is, what it stands for, what a press release or earned media is. The one practical question that stands out is how to write a press release.

Buyer searches: many variants, few searches each

Searches about hiring a PR agency or a publicist added up to 596 on Bing in three months, mostly the single word "publicist". Questions like "how much does a PR agency cost", "PR agency for startups" or "PR agency NYC" barely register in Bing's counts.¹ Yet Google's autocomplete suggested 72 variants for these hiring searches: by city, by industry, by price.¹

That pattern is typical of buyers: each one types something specific, so no single search is big, but together they are many. A page that answers one buyer question clearly can still win the few people who are ready to hire.

Visa searches are a big group of their own

Searches about the O-1, EB-1A, EB-2 NIW and EB-1B visas added up to 7,265 in the same three months.¹ Most are general ("o1 visa", "eb2 niw requirements"), not about press; press is one part of the evidence many applicants need.

What it means

• Most people want to understand PR first. Clear explanations, templates and examples are what they look for. That is why we publish a press release template, a PR glossary and a PR guide.
• Buyers ask specific questions. Cost, city, industry, a named publication. One honest page per question serves them better than one page that tries to say everything.
• Doing it yourself has limits. Writing a press release is easy to learn; getting an editor to choose your story is the hard part (see what journalists want from pitches).

Questions

Sources

1. Keyword study: Bing keyword data, US, August 5 to November 2, 2026, Edamame PR & Strategy (data from Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools).

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