A lot of MSPs ask me the same question: "Why aren't we showing up when people search for IT companies in our city?"
The answer is usually a mix of things: weak local signals, thin content that isn't properly optimized, and an overall lack of visibility. But there's one piece almost nobody works on, and it might be the highest-leverage thing you can spend 5 to 10 minutes a day on.
Getting talked about. Brand mentions, in addition to backlinks.
Why Brand Mentions Matter More Than They Used To
Google has always treated mentions as a trust signal. When a local publication writes about your business, a trade association features you, or a podcast host names you as a resource, Google notices, even without a link. It's part of how Google separates legitimate, authoritative businesses from companies that just have a decent website.
What's changed is that AI tools have the same instincts. When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google's AI Overview to recommend an IT company in their city, those tools draw on a broad picture of who gets cited, quoted, and talked about in sources they trust. If your name only lives on your own website, you're missing from that picture.
The data supports this. An Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands found that branded web mentions had the strongest correlation with visibility in Google's AI Overviews (0.664), far stronger than backlinks (0.218). Correlation isn't causation, but the direction is hard to ignore.
Buyers are leaning on those tools more, too. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey found that use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local business recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year, and that the average consumer checks six different review sites before choosing a business.
The MSPs that win AI search over the next couple of years will be the ones with a presence that extends well beyond their own domain: publications, directories, forums and subreddits, social media, and their own industry's communities.
How to Build Mentions in 5 to 10 Minutes a Day
You don't need a PR firm or a big budget. You need consistency.
1. Connectively (formerly HARO)
Connectively is a platform where journalists and content creators post requests for expert sources. Every day there are queries from tech publications, business media, and industry outlets looking for someone to quote on cybersecurity, IT trends, remote work, and AI, all topics you know inside out.
Sign up, filter for tech and business queries, and spend a few minutes each morning scanning for ones you can answer well. A single placement in a credible publication can do more for your authority than ten blog posts, and someone else handles the distribution.
2. Your vendor and partner relationships
You already have these: Microsoft partner status, vendor certifications, distributor relationships. Most of these organizations produce content constantly and need voices from the field. Ask your vendor reps about co-marketing opportunities. Offer to be quoted in a case study, contribute to a partner newsletter, or join a webinar. These placements carry real authority, and they're often a single email away.
3. Local business media
This is the most underused option. MSPs rarely think about their local business journal, chamber of commerce publications, or regional tech community. Yet those are exactly the sources that build local authority, and local authority is what moves map pack rankings and AI recommendations in your market.
Introduce yourself to a local business reporter and offer to be a source on cybersecurity stories. Write a guest column on what small businesses in your city should know about IT security. Show up where your city's business community is already talking. (Local signals compound quickly. See what they did for one MSP in our map pack case study.)
4. Industry publications and communities
MSP-focused publications, IT industry blogs, and peer communities regularly publish contributed content and expert roundups. Getting your perspective into those spaces builds credibility with the people who refer MSPs to other MSPs. Reddit can work well here too, but be careful: moderators are quick to ban anything that looks promotional, so lead with genuinely useful answers.
5. Your niche's own spaces
If you specialize in a vertical, the best mentions often come from outside the IT world entirely. A nonprofit-focused MSP appearing on a nonprofit podcast, a dental IT provider speaking at a dental association event, or a legal-focused MSP writing for a bar association newsletter all reinforce exactly the specialization you want Google and AI tools to associate with you.
Keep Your Story Consistent
Mentions work best when they all describe you the same way. Use the same company name, the same core services, and the same description of who you serve across every profile, directory, and bio. Consistency is what turns scattered mentions into a clear picture that search engines and AI tools can trust.
What We're Doing About It at Aureatix
We practice this ourselves. Building PR and mention strategies, a core part of our AI visibility work, is one of the areas Aureatix is investing in most heavily for our clients, because SEO and AI visibility are converging. Agencies that only think about backlinks and blog posts are going to leave their clients behind. For how mentions fit into the bigger picture, read SEO for MSPs: What Actually Drives Leads Now and Google AI Search and MSPs.
If your current marketing partner has never brought this up, it's worth asking why. And if you'd like to talk about what this could look like for your MSP, book a 15-minute intro call.
