Digital PR strategy: Why two minds are better than one
From digital marketing meet-ups and conferences to PR events, the term ‘PR SEO’ is increasingly a topic I hear people talking about.
Only a few years ago there used to be a budget scrum between the various elements of the marketing mix. With drastic changes happening to the Google Algorithm over the last few years the nature of how SEO needs to be executed has shaken up both the practice of and the type of the agencies that provide these services. Hybrid consultancies are on the rise and the consensus seems to be that it is necessary to blend PR with SEO in order to safely optimize on Google in 2015 and beyond.
Having worked in house in a digital marketing role and now agency side at Dynamo I can see from both perspectives why PR and SEO go hand in hand.
To put it simply, PR builds, crafts and helps to give brands more exposure to the public. For sometime SEOs have understood that Google gives preference to brands which are popular, as can be seen below.
If you take a look at the key ranking factors Google uses to order who’s hot and who’s not, you can see that six out of the nine major factors can be influenced by what we would think of as traditional PR activity. With a little tweaking of the ‘old fashioned’ PR processes, the combination of PR and search marketing can be further enhanced. For example prioritising press lists not just on the publications circulation and target audience but also considering the SEO value the client will receive from the publication.
Reporting in the PR industry has until recently revolved around AVEs, but the online metrics that Google Analytics and reporting tools like Majestic offer have a much wider reach in understanding RIO. Pulling data and figures is all well and good, but it is only of use if you can tie this into measurable KPIs. Knowing that an article from E-consultancy drove 100 visitors, 20 of which then bought your product, is something that circulation alone just can’t do. Equally, understanding that a specific PR campaign moved rankings for key search terms from page two to page 1 is highly valuable and impacts the spend clients allocate to PPC, which is directly quantifiable in monetary terms.
PR campaigns like bathroom sweets where we created the world’s first bathroom made entirely from chocolate for Bathrooms.com is an example of how traditional PR can have outstanding results by utilising SEO tactics.
The campaign built over 50 links of DA 40 and above in sectors spanning from food, interiors, lifestyle and design; capturing the attention of audiences across the UK , Europe and in the even the USA.
Google algorithm updates, like Panda and Penguin mean a squeaky-clean link building strategy is the only way to ensure the hard work and investment you are putting into your PR and SEO now really goes the distance and provides long-term ROI.
This multidiscipline knowledge base can also help inform PR strategies too, determining what type of articles, publications and activities your key audiences are most receptive too.
