Can PR Affect Your SEO Activities?

SEO and PR – how do they go together?

In a nutshell, SEO is about optimizing websites for search engines. It comprises all activities performed in order to make a page being displayed high in the search results. Properly conducted SEO activities have a positive impact on traffic to the site and its visibility online. Below you can see a simplified scheme describing SEO activities:

Public Relations, meaning the activities of a company or brand which aim at creating and maintaining its positive image in public opinion, are the second most important segment of online marketing (just after SEO). They’re applied by specialists to effectively promote a given company. A simplified scheme describing PR activities:

As you can see, these two areas have something in common. Content is one of the main reasons for browsing the net. Users are looking for specific pieces of information characterized by high cognitive quality and uniqueness. The fact that SEO and PR go together is a perfect proof that combining these segments can give really lucrative results!

How can PR support SEO?

Both SEO and PR focus on creating useful, meaningful and unique content that will attract recipients. It’s worth taking a closer look at linking and its value as this is one of the leading activities in SEO. It’s been known for a long time that it’s not about the quantity but the quality and this principle applies also to SEO. This is exactly how PR supports SEO.

PR specialists publish content only on high quality websites which are appreciated by Google robots. They don’t incur costs when posting articles, as they usually publish them in the form of free press releases. Moreover, the links placed in these press releases look very natural – and this is the main feature characterizing texts created in accordance with SEO principles.

Therefore, PR can really affect the results of your SEO process, especially when it comes to:

• ranks of the services selected for publication,
• reducing publication costs,
• ensuring that linking texts sound natural.

As you can see, PR is a great tool for obtaining links! From the very beginning it can help you to attract organic traffic to the website and create valuable content. However, it isn’t a one-sided relationship.

How can SEO support PR?

PR is never about publishing itself. Even the finest amount of texts won’t help the company unless they’re tailored to the target group, attract interest and are properly placed. So how can SEO support your PR activities?

First of all – optimize! It goes without saying that PR texts don’t aim at being specific. Therefore, it often happens that they simply get lost in the sea of other articles which are constructed better. SEO can help you in this aspect as optimizing PR texts properly ensures that they’ll be displayed in the search engine not only for specific keywords, they’ll also last longer and be shown to users who didn’t come across the publishing website before.

Second of all – generate… good PR! Yes, SEO can support PR in managing the e-image of the company. Bad PR is always harmful but proper SEO activities and accurate linking will help you to promote the already existing positive reviews or to create new flattering opinions that will be shown in the search engine.

A properly selected SEO strategy will make the company more recognizable and consequently it’ll help you to build trust of both users and Google robots!

How to make your PR activities attractive for SEO?

In order to make your PR activities support your SEO strategy, you need to make sure that your PR publications meet basic SEO requirements:

• The content mustn’t be plagiarized. Neither Google nor users like it. Moreover, duplicate content equals much less valuable linking. Your messages ought to be meaningful and unique.

• Press releases should be accompanied by graphics and videos.
• A well-written press release should include a link to the website you want to promote.
• Outbound links should have a dofollow This will make them influence your SEO activities more.
• The content itself should apply accurate keywords, you can create an anchor with a dofollow link. These keywords should be used not only in the texts but also during interviews.
• Consider including “about the company” tab and place links to your website in job advertisements.

Search Engine Reputation Management

Since you already know that SEO and PR help to successfully build your brand image online, it’s worth taking a closer look at another concept related to these two fields. So what is SERM? Well, actually this term has been functioning for some time now and it simply combines basic SEO and PR activities.

In a nutshell, Search Engine Reputation Management is about creating a positive brand recognition by managing its reputation in the search engine. So, it undoubtedly combines classic SEO and e-PR in order to develop as many positive opinions on the company you want to promote as possible.

In order to ensure that your SERM activities make a killing, you constantly need to monitor comments displayed in the search results and at the same time do your best to make the negative and false ones less visible online. However, creating new, valuable and positive comments that will simultaneously promote the brand is also essential. This incorporates both whisper marketing and Google Ads campaigns.

Running any SEO PR activities should be preceded by conducting a thorough analysis and preparing a proper strategy which will take into consideration both the target group and details of subsequent activities. Meticulously prepared and engaging content is the key to SEO PR. Apart from optimizing the main content, you should also make sure that your title and meta description tags are correctly formulated so that they encourage users to click on the link.

Make sure that you distribute and advertise your content in an effective way. Get as many valuable links as possible and this will help you to reach the maximum number of potential recipients.

And last but not least – monitoring! Even the finest strategy and the most valuable content won’t bring you satisfactory results unless you monitor the changes and keep an eye on the whole process.

Tools that are useful in SEO PR

Remember that you can master each of your SEO PR activities. Just take advantage of the tools that will help you to improve your website visibility and monitor how effective your SEO PR actions are.

Keyword Planner (Google) and Ubersuggest can be very helpful for keyword analysis. These tools allow efficient selection of the most clickable phrases. To monitor mentions and comments concerning your company, you should go for Brand 24 which allows quick reactions to feedback published on the web. Consider Ahrefs Alerts that enables monitoring selected phrases. Moreover, using a tool created by Schema.org which helps search engine robots to recognize the structure of the website, its subject matter and nature can be also helpful in SEO PR activities.

Senuto is another useful platform that enables comprehensive support of SEO PR activities when creating keywords, analysing traffic to the site and its visibility or writing transparent reports.

On the other hand, if you want to publish your content, go for WhitePress that gives you the possibility of creating a virtual press office and publishing articles or even cooperating with influencers.

SEO PR – a perfect match

As you can see, SEO and PR are constituents of online marketing which go together very well. Moreover, it’s virtually impossible to succeed without implementing both of them.

Building your brand image in the search engine and working on SEO at the same time enhances your company’s chances of becoming recognized and is an effective advertising tool. If you decide to combine SEO and PR activities, it’ll definitely help you to attract the attention of potential customers, build the brand trust and gain appreciation among Google robots. The game is certainly worth the candle!