Can PRs do SEO?
Charley Hayes is a public relations practitioner and social media strategist at Onlinefire, says that SEO is becoming more and more important to PRs.
SEO PR or ‘Search Engine Optimisation Public Relations’ is a term which has been banded around for a number of years, but it is only recently that the PR industry has adopted the practice in earnest.
This is mainly because there’s been a lot of controversy over who should own SEO, but fundamentally, SEO and PR go hand in hand. They work together to dramatically enhance a brand’s online presence and positively influence search.
Specifically, the aim of SEO PR is to increase brand visibility and conversation when consumers search for your products or services. After all, the first few pages of Google should return only the most relevant and positive news, reviews and commentary. You want your brand to be at the top of that list.
Link building is another important area where SEO and PR work together. Incoming quality links are a vital part of success on Google, and the value of these links to a company website cannot be underestimated.
Brands have relationships with a plethora of organisations, and PRs spend much of their time helping to promote and nurture these relationships. To successfully build your brand position on Google, it is essential to encourage relevant and high-ranking sites to link to you. This is where SEO PR again plays a pivotal role.
Whatever you believe about the debate – PR and SEO are working towards the same end goal; to achieve positive brand exposure to future potential customers.
Charley Hayes is a public relations practitioner and digital PR specialist with wide ranging client experience; from technology to travel and sports to drinks, in both business-to-business and consumer sectors. A social media strategist at Onlinefire, Charley has worked across online PR campaigns for Virgin Media, Panasonic and the Post Office.
February 17, 2010 - 10:11 am
We have found through PR that good high quality links can be acheieved through newspapers, industry press releases and sites reviewing our products.
Having said that other good link building in other areas such as social media sites Twitter and Facebook does not cost the fee that comes with hiring a PR company
February 17, 2010 - 11:28 am
Horrah! PRs talking absolute sense! Bring it on Charley! Propellernet has a search heritage, rather than coming from the Comms industry and we have been developing our online PR dept for a couple of years now. We’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with online PR being defined as “distributing via online news wires” by several of the bigger more established agencies for a while now, but we’re still finding that we need to batter down some people’s doors with exciting and measurable results that the creative comms approach combined with a keen SEO understanding can deliver – which is bonkers. With more and more of us delivering this combined message, hopefully we can all move the “online PR industry” really into a new era.
February 17, 2010 - 4:21 pm
Absolutely they can – I didn’t realise there was any doubt about that if they have the appropriate skills in-house! My thoughts are that the agency lines will need to be re-established a little over time but surely SEO will move out of media buyers (who often outsource it anyway) to online PR and SEO specialists like Propellernet or iCrossing. Those that have started with a search specialism and integrated PR will have an advantage over those doing it the other way round as they’ll be seen as online specialists. And if those companies are smart they’ll be able to make the case for why they need to own content on the sites they are promoting, taking the small/exciting/fast turnaround elements of content production/on-going editorial.
That’s the essence of social currency marketing – continual content creation and strategic link building to maximise visitors and brand awareness (definitely) and conversion (certainly – it’s just a case of whether it’s immediate or how much of a time lag there is).