Traditional PR, Social Media and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – what could they have in common?
If you were doing any online search, perhaps searching for a local Auckland lawyer or social media company, would you typically enter your search and then trawl through the multiple search result pages. Perhaps not! You would probably only scroll down page 1, 2 or 3 and then review your search criteria. So let us therefore consider any business that is serious about establishing an online presence, how important do you believe the achievement of first page status within Google search results are for their chosen keywords. The answer – VERY important.
Through recent Google algorithmic updates have boosted the importance of editorial quality and referral sites. One way to achieve authentic referral sites is the publication of great articles and information. Great content rich articles are typically generated by reporters and PR companies. So yes – two professions that have typically been so far removed from one another are starting to emerged as having similar and parallel practices. The ultimate goal of any campaign is more publicity, whether online or offline for that particular business’s advantage and branding.
SEO is evolving into a PR and content focused industry not forgetting the social media networks that assist any online material reaching a far greater audience. Traditional professions that can work synergistically with each to achieve better campaign results and improve their business online reputation.
What is the role of blogging as part of your Marketing and PR Strategy?
1. More Search Engine Indexed Pages: The search engines treat every blog post as another web page. The more “web pages” your blog has means that you can optimize and be found for a wider range of keywords, thus expanding your search engine reach.
Even if your articles aren’t well optimized for keywords, high quality, industry relevant written published content ( and yes this is where the PR becomes important), you are sure to stumble across both broad and long tail keywords that will be found and turn up on the search engine results pages. However consider the benefits of your PR and SEO specialists working together to create the content for your business, injected with appropriate keywords and then shared within online network reaching out to social influencers and relevant online forums. An interesting statistic tells us that 80% of searches across the internet have never been planned for so this again favours blogs which are typically filled with keyword rich content covering a multitude of related topics and therefore key phrases.
2. Link Building: Back links are still the fuel for search engine ranking. However, it has become more important than ever that those back links are high quality, and naturally occurring.
The regular production of high quality content allows more opportunities for other sites to find and link to your website. Those links act as an endorsement of your company, service, or product.
3. Social Sharing and Social Media: Social signals are playing an increasingly influential role in search engine results. Blog articles offer fresh, original content that can be shared, endorsed and commented on in the social media networks. Again an extension of reach of audience for your business.
4. Fresh Content: the search engines like fresh content, and rewards businesses that deliver it. Most content on websites, over time, starts to suffer “decay” in the eyes of the search engines and preference in search results is given to websites with regular updates and great information. Regular blogging encourages the search engines to crawl your site more frequently, and helps to keep your important keywords and phrases in the search engine spotlight.
The trusted press release – could this be impacted?
A press release prepared by a media / PR agency has great value for credibility, branding and news sharing. Now consider the same press release that is compiled and written to include your relevant and targeted keywords, optimized to include multimedia components such a video and linking to your social media channels. Optimised content is king and yes we reference the concept of quality content yet again.
Content, content and content.
Whether you are in social media and online marketing, SEO or a PR company, the underlying importance of high quality content remains your primary focus. From a search engine perspective Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine focuses on on-page content, its relevance and usefulness to the subject matter, it’s “shareablility”, and the metadata relating to that online page that contains the content. These elements are of parallel interest to your SEO, social media and PR partners. Web copy of any published content whether it be published in traditional media or online media should be search engine friendly, informative and unique to provide you with the a high ranking and to gain the attention of the online searching community.
PR, social media, SEO and Online Marketing requires a committed effort when focused on separately, jointly combining the efforts of multi skill sets will only work to your business advantage. This age old quote comes to mind. ‘Two minds are better than one’.
Article by Cathy Mellett . Cathy is the director of the social media, online marketing and SEO company Net Branding Ltd based in Auckland | New Zealand.
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