Stop Chasing Links: The Human Side of PR
Alexandra Tachalova didn’t plan to start her agency. She just reached a point where the next step at her previous company wasn’t aligned with her vision. That moment of divergence led to Digital Olympus, a Netherlands-based digital PR agency that helps brands build real visibility with search engines and humans.
In this episode of Smart Route, Alexandra joins host Andrew Clark to talk about how she rebuilt her agency’s strategy around what AI can’t replicate: real brand connection, relevance, and the human side of PR.
When Digital PR Doesn’t Deliver
Alexandra’s first experience with digital PR was a disaster. At the time, she was working at Semrush, where she was one of the first 10 employees. Her team hired an expensive agency to run a campaign, only to walk away with one link on Search Engine Journal and a few others, she jokes, “even Google doesn’t know about.”
It was a major professional setback—and enough to make her swear off digital PR. At least, until she learned how to approach it differently.
From Semrush to CEO
Alexandra stayed at Semrush for several years, working on everything from influencer marketing to webinars to integrating Salesforce and Marketo. But eventually, she hit a ceiling. She wanted to lead marketing at a higher level. Her CEO had other plans. Instead of waiting for a promotion that wasn’t coming, she made her move to start her own company.
This company, which she runs to this day, is Digital Olympus. It has a clear focus: pairing PR strategy with realistic expectations. Her team doesn’t promise placements. Instead, they educate clients on what kind of stories actually resonate with journalists, especially in B2B.
The Turning Point: SEO, AI, and a Strategic Shift
That early digital PR misfire planted a seed. As the SEO landscape continued to shift, especially with the rise of AI, Alexandra started to question whether traditional link building still made sense.
“Link building just isn’t the same anymore,” Alexandra explains. AI has added a new layer of unpredictability to how search engines rank and retrieve content. Where SEO once felt like a reliable long-term investment, it now comes with more caveats and fewer guarantees.
But here’s what she has seen consistently deliver value: brand mentions.
“LLM models don’t care if something’s a link. They care if your brand shows up repeatedly across credible sources.”
In other words, visibility matters more than technical signals. And that’s exactly where digital PR shines.
From Sweet Spots to Real Talk
The shift away from link building also meant confronting some industry illusions.
As Alexandra points out, LinkedIn and Instagram often make agency life look like a highlight reel: photos of revenue growth, client wins, and sunny work-from-anywhere days. But the reality is far less glamorous.
Digital PR is hard. It takes time. It takes the right clients. And it takes a willingness to push back when expectations don’t match reality.
Advice for New Marketers
So what would Alexandra say to someone just getting started?
“If I were just starting out now, I probably wouldn’t go into content,” she says.
Not because content isn’t important—but because it’s hard to compete with AI at scale. Tools like ChatGPT can already produce decent drafts, especially for entry-level work.
Her advice? Specialize. Find something that requires real human logic, structure, and critical thinking. Learn to write, sure—but pair that with subject-matter expertise. That’s where AI still can’t compete.
Where to Connect with Alexandra
Connect with Alexandra In-Person on September 11, 2025, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands → Digital Olympus Event
About Alexandra Tachalova
Alexandra is a frequent speaker and the founder of the digital PR agency Digital Olympus. She also organizes a marketing conference in Europe. In addition, she regularly contributes to leading digital marketing blogs, including Moz, SEJ, Salesforce, SMExaminer, and many others.
Transcript
Andrew Clark: Hey everyone. This is Andrew Clark with the Smart Route podcast, back with another episode.
Today, I’m joined by an overseas guest based in the Netherlands: Alexandra Tachalova. She’s the founder—and if I’m remembering correctly, the current CEO—of Digital Olympus, a digital PR and backlink-building agency.
We’re going to dive into what exactly that means and explore some of the broader themes in digital marketing today. I’m really excited about this one—it’s a timely conversation, especially as digital PR sees a resurgence and AI continues shaking up the marketing world.
Alexandra, thank you so much for joining us! We had a few scheduling challenges with the time zone difference, but I’m glad we made it work. I think this is going to be a great discussion.
To kick things off, can you briefly introduce yourself and share a little of your background with our audience?
Alexandra Tachalova: Hello everyone!
Today’s a beautiful day here. I’m based in Eindhoven, which is about an hour’s drive from Amsterdam. So no, I’m not in Amsterdam itself! (laughs)
But every time I mention the Netherlands, people immediately assume I mean Amsterdam, right?
There are other great cities here too—and I’m actually quite close to Belgium.
Andrew Clark: Of course!
Alexandra Tachalova: To be precise, I’m about a 30-minute drive from the Belgian border.
And thank you so much for having me—it’s a real pleasure to be here today.
I’ve been working in digital marketing for almost 20 years now. It’s been quite a journey—I’ve seen a lot, I’ve tried a lot, and learned so much along the way.
For the past 10 years, maybe a bit more, I’ve been running my own agency. We started out focused more on traditional link building, but now we’re firmly positioned on the digital PR side of things.
I’m really excited to talk about that today—and anything else, including our favorite buzzword: AI.
Andrew Clark: Yes!
Alexandra Tachalova: To be honest, I think the more accurate term we should be using is “LLM models”—large language models—but I get it. We all love the word “AI.” So I’m happy to roll with it here too.
Andrew Clark: Absolutely. And could you tell us a bit more about how you got started in digital marketing? What did you study in university that led you to this career?
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah—okay, I’ll skip a bit so this doesn’t get too long. I’ll jump straight to SEMrush, because that was my first real marketing job.
But to be completely honest and transparent, Semrush didn’t actually hire me for a marketing role at first.
Andrew Clark: Oh wow.
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah—they initially brought me on to integrate Salesforce into their business processes.
And let me tell you—once you bring Salesforce into your business life, you’re stuck with it. (laughs)
It becomes a long-term commitment. It’s very hard to get rid of enterprise-level tools like that once they’re integrated.
So I started on that side of the business. But eventually, I got the opportunity to shift into marketing.
I ended up staying at SEMrush for about six or seven years.
You can double-check the exact timeline on LinkedIn—that’s probably the most accurate source. But I think it was around six years.
Andrew Clark: Mm-hmm.
Alexandra Tachalova: After some time at Semrush, I just wanted to try something on my own.
It wasn’t some big master plan—I just wanted to experiment a bit. And that’s how I ended up founding Digital Olympus.
We originally started as a link-building agency and stayed in that lane for almost a decade. But now, we’ve shifted into digital PR, which is a bit different, but still closely related.
And funnily enough, I actually have a degree in traditional PR—so in a way, this feels like I’ve come full circle.
Andrew Clark: Sure—very cool.
Alexandra Tachalova: Speaking of closing loops—I’ll be speaking at the SEMrush event in Amsterdam this October. So that’s another nice “full-circle” moment in my career. Though sometimes those loops come with a bit of extra trauma, too! (laughs)
Andrew Clark: Yes! (laughs)
Alexandra Tachalova: Because when you’re preparing to speak at an event like that, you start reflecting on everything that’s happened in your career—every win, every tough moment. It’s a lot.
Andrew Clark: For sure.
Thinking back to when you were at Semrush and then decided to start Digital Olympus—can you describe what that period was like?
Some of our listeners might be younger and may not remember when SEO and even PPC looked totally different, before AI really entered the picture.
What was it like being at a company like Semrush at that time? Especially before their acquisition?
Alexandra Tachalova: Oh, I joined Semrush when the team had just 10 people.
Andrew Clark: Wow—so they were still really early stage.
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah, I was one of the very first hires. Back then, the whole team was literally doing everything. We all wore multiple hats.
There’s this funny meme I love—it shows Rihanna on stage saying, “Let me ask my team,” and then cuts to a shot of just her again, like, you are the team.
That was me. (laughs) I’d say, “Let me ask my team,” and then realize—oh wait, that’s also me.
Andrew Clark: (laughs) Just yourself—classic startup life. That’s very cool.
And I know you eventually headed up an entire region. That must’ve been both exciting and kind of nerve-wracking. What were you working on more specifically in the marketing space?
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah—let’s skip the Salesforce part. We’re not on that kind of podcast today! (laughs)
In terms of marketing, I was mostly focused on a mix of influencer marketing and lead generation.
We ran a lot of initiatives—webinars, virtual events, some in-person event marketing as well. I was leading a team responsible for building those campaigns and making them cohesive.
We also did some content marketing, mostly technical. And there were integrated campaigns, where we’d start with something offline and then move online—or vice versa.
Oh—and email marketing! I forgot to mention that. Besides Salesforce, I also introduced Marketo to the company.
Andrew Clark:
Wow. So you really were doing it all!
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah—my husband still teases me about that period. He calls my past work history a “trigger script” and jokes, “Are you planning to write another one?” (laughs)
And I always say, No, I’m still traumatized from the last time!
Andrew Clark: Oh no! (laughs) So, during all of that—wearing multiple hats, building experience—when did you decide you were ready to start something on your own?
Was there a specific moment? Or was it more of a gradual build?
Alexandra Tachalova: That’s a great question.
I think it was something that grew over time. It’s not like I didn’t like the company, or the people, or the vibe at SEMrush. I really loved my job.
But you reach a point where you start to feel like you’re not quite the right fit anymore. It’s like being in a long-term relationship—maybe things were really good, but eventually, the dynamic shifts.
Andrew Clark: Right, totally.
Alexandra Tachalova: It’s not that there’s anything wrong, it’s just… it’s not as exciting. The connection changes.
And then you have one of those “relationship moments,” where you have to decide: Am I going to keep trying? Or is it time to move on and start something new?
For me, it was kind of a mix of things. I felt like I didn’t want to keep doing what they were suggesting for my role. I had different ambitions.
There was also a bit of a conflict of interest—I wanted to move into a VP of Marketing role, but my manager, who at the time was also the company’s founder and CEO, didn’t want to promote me into that position.
Andrew Clark: Mm-hmm.
Alexandra Tachalova: So we weren’t aligned. He had one idea of my future, I had another. And that created some tension.
At that point, I had to make a decision. Do I stay and keep trying to prove myself? Or do I take everything I’ve learned and go build something on my own?
And I’d already tried for a while. So eventually, I thought, Okay—it’s time to move on.
Andrew Clark: Yeah, I can totally relate. I’ve been in situations like that. And you’re right—it becomes a personal decision. Do you want to keep pushing? Or do you take that leap of faith?
Alexandra Tachalova: Exactly. And even if it’s not starting your own thing, sometimes just changing jobs can be the right move. Any kind of change can be a healthy reset.
Alexandra Tachalova: It’s not that you have to go start your own business, because honestly, running your own thing is not a piece of cake.
Andrew Clark: No?
Alexandra Tachalova: No. And plenty of people warned me about that. But who listens, right?
Especially when you open LinkedIn—it’s all sunshine. You see people posting about running agencies, celebrating wins, showing off revenue growth… everything looks like a dream.
Andrew Clark: For sure.
Alexandra Tachalova: But that’s LinkedIn and Instagram. Reality? It’s a little different.
Andrew Clark: One hundred percent.
Andrew Clark: And I think that’s the perfect segue into what you’re doing now with Digital Olympus.
You mentioned that it started with more traditional backlink building—what some might call “offline SEO,” which I love hearing people talk about. That’s actually more my passion, too.
I find SEO to be infinitely more challenging than PPC. (laughs) Sorry, everyone—that’s my hot take!
Over the years, you built out your team, and I’ve actually had the chance to interact with them through your Slack community, which we’ll definitely link to. It’s been awesome getting to engage with such a global group of SEOs.
Alexandra Tachalova: Thank you!
Andrew Clark: I’ve learned so much from just being part of that space.
You mentioned earlier that you have a background in PR. So, when it came time to evolve Digital Olympus, was there a specific moment when you thought, Now I want to shift into digital PR? What was your thinking behind that pivot?
Alexandra Tachalova: Ironically enough, back when I was at SEMrush, we tried digital PR.
At that time, remember—we were a tiny startup. Budgets were tight. I think the entire budget for that PR campaign was about $20,000.
Andrew Clark: Sounds like a lot.
Alexandra Tachalova: It was a lot, especially for a small company’s marketing budget.
So, we hired this fancy digital PR firm. And what did we get?
One paid link on Search Engine Journal—and a few others I honestly don’t want to mention. (laughs) I doubt even Google has crawled some of those sites.
Andrew Clark: That was it?
Alexandra Tachalova: That was it.
And right after, I had to go back to the founder and explain why we spent $20,000 and got basically nothing.
It was one of the hardest conversations of my career. I walked away from that experience thinking, Digital PR is a scam. It’s the biggest rabbit hole ever.
It felt like the biggest failure of my professional life.
Alexandra Tachalova: And now? I run a digital PR agency.
Andrew Clark: (laughs) Right!
Alexandra Tachalova: It’s so ironic. So, so ironic.
Andrew Clark: Yep; it’s a complete 180 from where you started.
Alexandra Tachalova: Totally. But my mindset has changed a lot since then.
Link building is still important—but with all the uncertainty AI brings to the search marketing world, I don’t think link building holds the same value it once did.
Andrew Clark: Sure.
Alexandra Tachalova: A lot of businesses are starting to realize that SEO, as a channel, no longer guarantees long-term returns the way it used to.
Yes, SEO has always been a long-term play. You invest with the idea that it’ll pay off down the road.
Andrew Clark: Sure.
Alexandra Tachalova: But now—with AI and large language models entering the mix—so much of that long-term value has been called into question.
SEO is starting to feel like a channel where you invest… but you don’t really know if or how it’s going to pay off. There’s less clarity around what the outcome will be.
You might understand the general mechanics, but there’s no longer that clear, satisfying sense of this is what you’ll get back.
Andrew Clark: Yeah.
Alexandra Tachalova: And link building? It’s just one sub-activity under that broader SEO umbrella.
Speaking not as a link builder, but as a business owner—it became really hard for me to continue selling link building services with confidence. I just didn’t feel secure promoting it anymore, given all those shifting factors.
Andrew Clark: Yeah.
Alexandra Tachalova: I wanted to offer something I could truly believe in—something I felt was solid, reliable, and valuable for any business.
With digital PR, you can invest and see results that take different forms. And often, you get instant gratification—your brand gets featured on respected media outlets.
Andrew Clark: Right.
Alexandra Tachalova: That’s a great feeling for any business owner. In B2B, that might mean getting your company on Forbes or another top-tier publication.
That creates a sense of pride, of credibility—it’s emotionally rewarding.
Alexandra Tachalova: And beyond that, from an LLM perspective, your brand also gets credit for being mentioned on high-authority websites.
That’s why I believe digital PR is the better way to deliver link-building outcomes today. It aligns with the current landscape—strategically, emotionally, and algorithmically.
Andrew Clark: For sure. I’d love to dig into what you mentioned earlier—you and your team are on the front lines, working directly with clients.
What are some of the most common objections or pushback you hear around digital PR?
You’ve already touched on a few from your time at SEMrush—getting burned by other agencies, overpromises, and underdelivering. But what are you hearing now from businesses considering digital PR?
Are they skeptical? Are they fully bought in? I’d love to hear more about that.
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah, well—it really varies. Every client is different.
Some are very skeptical, usually because they’ve had bad experiences with other agencies. They’ve been promised big results—like getting featured in USA Today, The New York Times, or BBC—and none of that ever happened.
Andrew Clark:
Of course.
Alexandra Tachalova: And the thing is, those kinds of results are extremely difficult to deliver. It takes a ton of work.
And not every business is even a good fit for that kind of media exposure, for many reasons.
Especially in B2B. A lot of people hear “digital PR” and instantly think of major consumer-facing outlets like USA Today. But that’s usually not realistic.
Andrew Clark: Mm-hmm.
Alexandra Tachalova: Sure, you can try to build a campaign that’s more consumer-oriented—but most B2B companies just don’t have a story that fits that mold.
Even though founders might think their story is mission-critical, to a national journalist, it might be relevant to less than 1% of their readership.
So the first challenge is managing those expectations. Helping clients understand where their business actually fits—and whether what they have to offer is something journalists will be interested in.
Alexandra Tachalova: Then there’s a second category of clients—they’re not necessarily skeptical at first, but they’re not very realistic either.
And when we start to educate them on how digital PR actually works, they become skeptical. They think maybe we’re trying to avoid delivering results, or they assume we’re just another agency making excuses.
Andrew Clark: Sure.
Alexandra Tachalova: That’s also very common. And then there’s a third issue—many people don’t really understand what kind of deliverables to expect from digital PR.
Especially clients who come from a traditional off-page SEO background. They’re focused on links—follow links, specifically.
So when you tell them, “Hey, your brand got mentioned on the BBC,” and it’s not a do-follow backlink, they’re disappointed.
Andrew Clark: Which is wild. That’s huge coverage!
Alexandra Tachalova: Exactly. You shouldn’t be complaining about that.
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah, but they think that it’s not valuable. But I want to just say something about LLM models and AI.
Andrew Clark: Yeah, go for it.
Alexandra Tachalova: I’m not in agreement with them, just because based on what I see in AI-generated summaries, like in Google, or the results we see across various AI agents, I think brand mentions play a similar role to links.
AI models don’t really look at whether it’s a link or not.
So the coverage, the density of how well your brand is distributed across various sources, not only top-tier media, is what matters.
There are different levels, different layers. You need to be literally everywhere. Brand mentions are very much counted.
That’s more about AI and the current state of search. To be completely honest, we don’t really do SEO—just a small part of it.
Andrew Clark: Sure.
Alexandra Tachalova: But based on my observations, and what I’ve heard from SEOs I trust and have known for years, they agree: it’s working a bit differently now. Brand mentions are finally starting to be as valuable as links.
Andrew Clark: Absolutely. And I can attest to that firsthand.
I often experiment with LLMs myself—just typing in relevant queries to see how we rank. Like you’re saying, I’m seeing a correlation between those brand mentions and broader awareness.
To me, it feels like we’re returning to some basics of marketing.
Things like big investments in a brand—they don’t always have to be monetary. But I think what you’re talking about—the impact, being hyper-targeted and relevant to the media you’re pitching—that’s essential.
And I think that’s where an agency like Digital Olympus really—
Alexandra Tachalova:
Yeah, yeah, true.
Andrew Clark: —can flex its expertise and say, “Look, we’re going to be your partner in this, but we’re also going to push back a little. We want to make sure you’re going in the right direction, not just taking a scattershot approach that doesn’t align with expectations or deliverables.”
And from what I’ve seen in your Slack community, your team has been sharing some great lessons, like the BBC mention you brought up earlier.
Alexandra Tachalova: Well, actually, that one came with a link—but it was nofollow.
Which isn’t bad! I think there was another really big one where they didn’t even include a link at all.
But again, our clients understand the value of brand mentions.
And it’s important for us to work with the right clients—the ones who don’t block the process or create drama out of nowhere.
Because to deliver something meaningful, something high quality, you also need clients who are aligned with that process. Otherwise, you’re constantly stuck trying to please everyone instead of actually doing the work that will get results.
You end up spending so much time managing expectations that it takes away from the execution.
Andrew Clark: For sure, absolutely. And as we’re approaching the end of the episode, I’d love to ask something we always like to include—especially since many of our listeners are just starting their careers in marketing.
What advice would you give to someone fresh out of university? What would you do differently or more of if you were starting out today?
Alexandra Tachalova: Honestly? I don’t think now is the best time to enter the marketing field—at least not digital marketing.
Andrew Clark: Yeah?
Alexandra Tachalova: There’s just so much uncertainty right now, especially in areas like search marketing.
There are more stable, straightforward areas—like PPC, for instance—that will continue to evolve and thrive. Google is still making most of its money from ads, so PPC isn’t going anywhere.
Andrew Clark: Yeah.
Alexandra Tachalova: But I wouldn’t recommend going into content right now. It’s becoming very hard to predict what kind of content strategies will keep you employed, especially with tools like ChatGPT doing a pretty good job.
If you’re not doing advanced or strategic work, you risk being replaced.
Take DeepSeek, for example—we have a paid account, and even then, we only get a few high-level searches. But those results are really solid. If you use just the basic ChatGPT, even that does a decent job.
Andrew Clark: Right. Mm-hmm.
Alexandra Tachalova: And honestly, if you go on Upwork and pay someone $100 for copy, chances are that what you get back won’t be any better—and sometimes it’s worse—than what AI can already do.
So to be a truly valuable copywriter today, you need a broad skill set. You need a clear, logical mind, strong analytical thinking.
Andrew Clark: Mm-hmm.
Alexandra Tachalova: And an analytical mind. It’s not just about writing.
Sure, writing is important—but especially when we’re talking about more advanced topics, you need much more than that.
That’s where real copywriters still stand out. Because for basic content, tools like ChatGPT can do a decent job.
But when you’re dealing with high-level topics, the writing needs depth, and that’s when having those broader skills becomes critical. Analytical thinking, structure, clarity—those are things you add writing on top of. Not the other way around.
Andrew Clark: Absolutely. That subject matter expertise—that human touch—still matters. And I think that’s a great way to end the episode, actually.
Because despite all the changes coming with AI, there’s still something essential about having a unique perspective and using your strengths—something no LLM can replicate.
So Alexandra, thank you so much for being here today.
Alexandra Tachalova: Definitely, definitely.
Andrew Clark: I want to give you a quick opportunity to plug where people can find you—where should they connect?
Alexandra Tachalova: Yeah, sure—sorry!
I’d say LinkedIn is the best place. I’m pretty active there, so feel free to follow or reach out.
I post regularly—sometimes good jokes, sometimes bad jokes, and hopefully something useful in between. I think everyone can find a little something valuable there.
Andrew Clark: Great. We’ll also make sure to link to Digital Olympus and your Slack community, for anyone who wants to join or learn more.
Thanks again for your time, and wishing you lots of success going forward.
And thank you to our listeners—thanks for subscribing, following, and tuning in. We’ll catch you next episode. Take care!