You’ve heard of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the process and tools used to boost the performance of your website.
And you’ve heard of PR, the ability to improve your brand awareness, trust and visibility in the public domain.
But what about SEO PR?
Each skill is very different, but when tied together, they can have huge benefits when trying to improve your business’ online presence.
As we know, the better your website performs, the more visibility your pages have in search result engines like Google.
SEO is used by the likes of Google to determine and rank websites higher than others based on the topic searched for and the state of the website targeting those keywords.
Used correctly, SEO can provide a cost-effective way to put your business in front of customers who would have never heard of or found you before - much like PR does.
The higher up you appear in targeted search results, the more likely you are to grab the attention of potential prospects and drive them to your website.
SEO PR has risen in prominence as websites have become the number one sales tool, playing a much bigger role in empowering brands and businesses online.
Rather than simply gaining press coverage in glossy magazines and broadsheet newspapers, SEO PR has evolved to provide more tangible results outside of vanity metrics and coverage numbers.
PR has long had issues proving the value of investment versus results, but it is now becoming much closer to more data-driven roles of marketing and SEO.
Marketing managers want, or rather need, insight, data and efficient measurement from their PR campaigns. To keep pace, PR professionals have had to learn new skills outside of the typical writing, storytelling and pitching of more traditional practices.
For example, many top tier publications have strong ‘Domain Authorities’ - a ranking mechanism from 1 to 100 and first scored by SEO software provider Moz. Domain Authority tries to predict how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages.
The stronger the Domain Authority of a website, the more likely it is to appear first. It’s the reason why when you type in ‘news’ into Google, you’re likely to see renowned and trustworthy outlets rather than ones you’ve never heard of.
By earning PR coverage in an online publication, you are raising the potential of having those news articles pop up in highly competitive and targeted search terms - search terms which your website might not be currently ranking for.
Simply put, just one piece of online coverage can provide just as much, if not more, SEO benefit than a keyword targeting strategy, online campaign or paid media management software tool.
Whereas traditional PR was used to raise the awareness of a brand to just about anyone in the hope that a few potential customers will see it, SEO PR is a much more targeted tactic to increase trust and present a direct trail of breadcrumbs from unknown news readers to potential customers.
So, when ‘ACME Corp’ moves from 43rd to 1st on search term results, we can say with a certain degree of accuracy that the additional traffic, leads and sales they received have come from a sustained and targeted SEO PR campaign.
SEO PR is no longer a topic for the niche. It is a core principle for the new age of B2B Digital PR strategies.
Read more on how to integrate SEO into your PR campaign here