What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd
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What Does “What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd” Talk About?
This episode of The James Dooley Podcast features a candid conversation between host James Dooley and Fery Kaszoni, founder of Search Intelligence Ltd, diving deep into what it takes to succeed and stay ahead in the competitive digital PR industry. Fery opens up about the frustration of watching competitors copy Search Intelligence's website text, service structure, and even invoice language, but explains how he reframes that frustration into motivation. Rather than viewing imitation as a threat, he sees aggressive competition as the force that compels him to build better backend systems, develop truly unreplicable service models, and maintain a relentless drive to innovate.
The conversation also explores how digital PR became a mainstream part of SEO strategy, and Fery offers a surprisingly humble take on his company's role in that shift. He credits agencies like Rise at Seven and Carrie Rose for making digital PR exciting and desirable, and cites Reboot Online's Shai and James as personal inspirations. What Search Intelligence did, in Fery's own framing, was industrialise the discipline — simplifying it, lowering the price point, educating the broader market step by step, and making it accessible to the masses. This distinction between making something sexy versus making it available at scale is one of the episode's most thought-provoking ideas.
“We don't want to be the wolf relaxing at the top of the mountain. We want to be the hungry, blood-seeking wolf climbing the mountain all the time. We never want to stop.”
— Fery Kaszoni
Who Are the Guests on “What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd”?
Fery Kaszoni is the founder of Search Intelligence Ltd, a digital PR agency widely recognised for scaling and popularising digital PR link-building services within the SEO community. With a background in traditional link building, Fery transitioned his agency toward digital PR and built a model focused on accessibility, education, and systematised service delivery. He is known for openly sharing processes, press release templates, and campaign strategies to help others in the industry learn and grow. His transparent approach and competitive mindset have made him a prominent voice in the UK SEO and digital PR space.
James Dooley is the host of The James Dooley Podcast and a well-known figure in the SEO and digital marketing world. He is an entrepreneur and SEO expert who uses his platform to interview industry leaders and extract practical, experience-driven insights. Throughout this episode, James plays the role of an informed interviewer who challenges Fery to reflect on competition, innovation, and his legacy within the digital PR industry.
What Are the Key Takeaways From “What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd”?
Here are the key points discussed in this episode:
- Copying and imitation from competitors, while initially upsetting, can be reframed as a powerful driver of innovation and strategic investment in backend systems that cannot be easily replicated.
- Maintaining a hungry, climbing mindset is essential for long-term success, as complacency at the top of an industry is the fastest path to irrelevance, much like what happened to Nokia.
- Search Intelligence's most significant contribution to digital PR was not making it glamorous but making it industrialised and accessible to a much wider audience through education and simplified pricing.
- Rise at Seven and Carrie Rose, along with Reboot Online's Shai and James, were the real pioneers who made digital PR exciting and aspirational within the SEO community before Search Intelligence scaled it.
- Sharing knowledge openly, including press releases and step-by-step processes, helped grow the entire digital PR ecosystem and created a larger market of practitioners posting wins and driving further interest.
“We didn't make it sexy. We made it available to the masses. We simplified it. We educated people so they could do it themselves.”
— Fery Kaszoni
Is “What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd” Worth Listening To?
This episode is worth listening to for anyone trying to understand the mindset behind building a market-leading agency in a fast-moving space. Fery Kaszoni's perspective on competition is refreshingly honest and actionable — he does not pretend the copying does not sting, but he walks through exactly how he converts that frustration into strategic fuel. The wolf climbing the mountain analogy is memorable, but the real value is in understanding why Search Intelligence continues to invest in invisible backend infrastructure precisely because competitors are always watching the visible front end.
Beyond mindset, the episode offers genuine industry history. Fery's willingness to credit Rise at Seven, Carrie Rose, and Reboot Online rather than claim sole credit for digital PR's rise is both credible and instructive. It paints a more accurate picture of how industries evolve through multiple contributors, and it positions Search Intelligence's specific role, industrialisation and mass education, as distinct and meaningful. For SEO professionals, agency owners, and digital marketers, this is a rare combination of competitive strategy, industry context, and entrepreneurial honesty in a single conversation.
Who Should Listen to “What is The Key to Digital PR Success? Fery Kaszoni at Search Intelligence Ltd”?
This episode is ideal for:
- SEO professionals and agency owners looking to understand how digital PR fits into modern link-building strategies
- Entrepreneurs and business leaders who want to develop a healthier, more productive relationship with competition and imitation
- Digital marketers curious about the history and evolution of digital PR as a discipline within the UK SEO industry
- Founders and team leaders interested in building systems and service models that are difficult for competitors to replicate even when surface-level details are copied
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What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?
“Fery's reframe on competition is something I needed to hear. The moment he talked about becoming Nokia if you get complacent hit me hard. Really practical perspective from someone who's clearly lived through the frustration of being copied.”
“I loved that Fery gave credit to Rise at Seven and Reboot Online rather than claiming he invented digital PR. It made everything he said feel a lot more credible. The distinction between making something sexy versus industrialising it is genuinely insightful.”
“The wolf climbing the mountain line is going to stick with me. But beyond the quotable moments, this episode gave me a much clearer picture of how Search Intelligence actually built their edge through backend systems rather than just front-facing marketing.”
James Dooley (0:00): So when you then talk about, let’s say, the challenges that you kind of put the kids in, and obviously you keep trying to get them to evolve and improve… Back onto Search Intelligence — you’ve got challenges of competition. You’re up there, you’re at the forefront, people wanting to copy everything of what you do. What do you think about competition? Do you embrace competition? Do you like it? Does it annoy you that people are out there trying to copy what you’re doing now? Or do you love it, and does it make you want that competition to push yourself to keep climbing — even though you’re at the top — to keep innovating? What’s your thoughts on competition within the digital PR industry? Fery Kaszoni: So initially when I see things like, oh somebody copied our website or copied text from our website, or even copied text from our invoices that we sent them previously and they put it on their website… I'm of course upset like anyone. But after that moment passes, I just want to say thank you for all the competition who is copying us or who’s trying to grab market share — because it’s a business, right? It’s a football field. And I want to say thank you because that’s what's pushing me to think: How can we now become a monopoly? How can we show them that we can be better? How can we build better systems? How can we create a service so unique and powerful that even if they copied everything on the forefront, they would never be able to replicate the service? If we didn’t have that competition, we would not invest money into what we invest in — building everything on the backend that isn’t even visible. That’s why I’m trying to embrace competition. I love it because they slap me in the face every time somebody does something I don’t like. Maybe it’s not unethical — maybe they’re just undercutting us with prices. Initially it’s upsetting, but after I'm like: yes, we need this. We need aggressive competitors because otherwise we’ll become Nokia — we’ll become complacent. We don’t want to be the wolf relaxing at the top of the mountain. We want to be the hungry, blood-seeking wolf climbing the mountain all the time. We never want to stop. James Dooley: In my opinion, you've revolutionized the digital PR industry. You’ve made digital PR sexy for the SEO community. How have you managed to do that? How have you managed to break into all these SEO experts and SEO agencies that were obsessed with do-follow links — and now you've made digital PR an essential part of people’s SEO campaigns? Fery Kaszoni: One thing I have to address — it wasn’t us who made digital PR sexy. I actually got inspired by other agencies. It was Rise at Seven. I would say Rise at Seven and Carrie Rose made digital PR sexy. It was booming in 2020 and 2021 — that’s when DP became really sexy and everyone wanted it. I got lots of inspiration from there. Also Reboot Online — Shai and James — they were my inspiration. I admire them. Even at Search Norwich, I mentioned a Reboot campaign I liked because I admire them. What we’ve done is: We didn’t make it sexy. We made it available to the masses. Because I’ve been doing link building before. We simplified it. We educated people so they could do it themselves. We made the service available at a lower price, with a different simplified model. We popularised it by teaching others how to do it step-by-step — sharing our press releases, sharing everything we do granularly so people could replicate it. We helped thousands of people earn links themselves. Digital PR is now a hot topic because: • many people can offer it, • many people can do it, • many people are now posting their digital PR wins. So Rise at Seven made it sexy… We industrialised it. That’s how I like to think about it.
Creators & Guests
Host
James Dooley is a UK entrepreneur.