6 Ways to Make Your Online Public Relations Drive SEO

If you think PR is dead, then you are missing out big on the brand visibility opportunities that PR in this digital age comes with. Of course, times have changed. The old tactics of traditional public relations that find expression in strategic event coordination, crisis communication, reputations management, trade shows, sponsorship opportunities, outreach, distribution of press releases and leveraging on traditional media (Radio, TV, Newspapers) — have now given way to more digital approaches.

The strategies applicable to both old and digital PR converge at the point where connections are built and managed. However digital PR comes with the added benefits of Search Engine optimization and link building across the internet while also providing measurable and tangible results and insights and producing easily shareable content.

Why Should Online PR be integrated with SEO?

SEO and PR work together in more ways than one. First, creating premium quality content can earn you backlinks to your site. Then the more media coverage your brand receives, the more link back to your site you will get. Lastly, with excellent PR process, you get to build greater connections with influencers in your industry thereby getting more links from blogs and social media posts, leading to an increase in SEO.

Because the realm of online PR is more specified than that of traditional, it will help grow your brand visibility and patronage online. However, the integration between SEO and PR becomes a lot stronger when executed strategically.

Here are 6 top ways to drive search engine optimization with Online PR.

1. Unify your goals across SEO, PR and other Marketing efforts

Each of these marketing concepts has their unique workability styles, yet their aim is the same. While SEO leverages on digital channels to connect with customers and generate more leads, PR relies heavily on media relations to generate more media coverage of the brand. In the end, their target is to reach customers – and that’s the part you should focus on the most. Only then can you harness the capabilities of the different channels.

2. Use data gotten from researching both SEO and PR to create an overall persona.

While SEO relies on audience research to create a brand personality, PR focuses on Media research to find out the kind of publications that appeal to a brands target audience and search for reporters that cover topics relevant to the brand. Combining both results will create a strong, unified persona.

3. Coordinate Content and Keyword across all digital channels to project a unified brand identity.

All your social media and blog posts, e-books, newsletters, landing pages, video ads, media messages and press releases should project the image your brand is trying to communicate.

4. Use your PR Expertise as a Guide in Crafting Content.

With proper research, PR experts get data on the kind of content their audience will find consumable, valuable and shareable. Let this expertise guide you in creating high-quality, SEO content. While SEO professionals are creating high ranking content, incorporating the most appropriate keywords and sharing them across social media channels, PR experts on the hand should be busy pitching this content and drawing as much attention as possible to it from high-quality links.

5. PR can Leverage on SEO keyword strategy

The keywords used in press releases can trigger reporters to use those targeted keywords when describing a brand, thus increasing the likelihood a business appears in searches for those specified terms.

PR needs to harness and extend SEO keyword strategy – for example, keywords and keyword phrases should appear in critical statements, press releases, media interview, FAQ documents, Social media bios, Website Meta titles and descriptions and website copy.

6. Connect with high-end influencers in your industry

Influencer marketing is non-negotiable in integrating SEO and PR efforts for your site. Connecting with influencers can earn you high-quality link backs from the media, other businesses, and pages with high traffic. Establishing connections with these influencers increases the chances that they will share your content with their audience and even link back to your site, making such content more visible, linked to and of course share.

SEO is a crucial aspect of building a sustainable online presence, but it performs better when it joins forces with PR to create strong results, A link back from Forbes for instance, even if it’s a text link carries a heavier weight than mere blog comments. So you should focus on creating high quality, shareable content. You also want to make your content is adequately and proportionally stuffed with keywords added to the fact that they have to be relevant to a target audience.