Although PR and SEO are two separate entities, using them together can bring you phenomenal results.
These two forms of marketing have similar purposes, and are often used to achieve the same goals including lead generation, social sharing, social proof, brand awareness, brand consistency and trust.
There are many ways you can use the two together. For instance, PR benefits from SEO analytics and strategy development, and SEO benefits from peer connections to drive relationships that build links.
In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at how PR and SEO can catapult your brand’s website traffic.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
How does PR support SEO?
PR and SEO used to be seen as entirely separate marketing methods with vastly different features. These days they work closely together, increasingly sharing similar goals in today’s evolved and integrated digital space.
This shift is happening because of the similarities of the skills required to create great content and reach out to other websites to develop relationships.
SEO used to be powerful on its own, but that has changed thanks to the advent of content marketing and the constant changes to Google’s algorithm.
Google is placing more and more importance on content quality, relevance, and authority of the websites that link to yours. This means that, in order to secure high rankings in the search engine results pages, you have to create and share content that is appealing and insightful to get links from authority websites.
So, as you can see, high-quality links and content are the glue that binds public relations and search engine optimization together. You can’t have great SEO without great PR.
Where PR and SEO goals overlap
With today’s digital marketing landscape in constant flux, businesses must find newer, smarter, and more unique ways of developing a strong presence online. This is where PR and SEO team goals tend to overlap. Working seamlessly together, these two entities benefit each other.
Joint PR and SEO goals will help you develop stronger digital marketing strategies that will assist in the ultimate achievement of your business objectives. Just some examples of joint activities where PR and SEO blend their skill sets and work collectively together include:
PR and SEO goals blend together to produce exceptional results in generating links for your business.
Backlinks still play a huge role in how Google ranks website pages. By effectively using PR and SEO together, you will boost your ability to create connections to obtain quality backlinks for your site.
PR strategies to get backlinks and boost traffic
More marketers are recognizing the importance of PR strategies in acquiring backlinks to raise their search engine rankings.
As seen in the graph below, many tactics are used by marketers for building links and brand recognition, some of which are more effective than others.
Listed below are six strategies that will help you get more quality backlinks and boost your website traffic. While it may be difficult to understand how to prioritize these strategies, rest assured that all of them will yield positive results if implemented correctly.
1. Creating quality content
Your PR needs content marketing. That’s because quality content earns links naturally. Creating quality content infused with your target keywords allows you to develop mutually beneficial relationships with your ideal customers, the public, and other websites.
When you create content that resonates with your target audience, you make it a lot more likely that other websites in your industry will want to link to yours.
The backlinks you earn will also provide you with additional PR opportunities beyond the reach of your website and social channels.
2. Getting earned media coverage
Getting earned media coverage is another great way for amassing backlinks to your website.
PR is all about connecting with people who can assist you in securing media placements and backlinks. This includes links to your website through mentions of your business, opportunities to guest post on other websites in your niche, and so on.
But remember, you must ask for backlinks.
Don’t assume that just because you publish awesome content, people will automatically link to you. Reach out to influencers, marketers, and authoritative websites in your space and ask for backlinks.
For instance, if you’ve built a lifestyle blog that has a highly linkable blog post about a specific place you’ve traveled to, it’s a good idea to reach out to travel bloggers to let them know about the post and ask them to link to it if their audience would find it helpful.
If you catch your outreach targets at the right time, your content might be highly relevant and simply telling others about it can result in a backlink.
3. Obtaining product or service reviews
Reaching out to publications to solicit product or service reviews leads to better SEO. This tactic is a great way to drive new visitors to your product/service page, and it can greatly increase the number of backlinks to your site.
As previously mentioned, if you want something, you have to ask for it. The same goes for securing reviews from other sites in your niche. Instead of waiting for publications to notice your product or service and review it, get in touch with them first to get the ball rolling.
Or, if you have a membership-gated website with an engaged following, ask the members to create reviews for you. These are usually some of your biggest brand advocates, and can be activated to get you positive results.
Just remember to research the publication first and ensure that your product or service is a good fit for their audience.
Find out if they do print reviews, and make sure you are reaching out to the right people in the organization. Also, they must agree to do a review and to include a backlink to your site.
4. Securing guest posts
A lot of things have changed in the digital PR arena over the past few years. However, guest posting remains among the most effective ways for PR professionals to accumulate valuable backlinks.
The key to success with this marketing tactic is to contribute to influential websites in your niche (ideally those with good SEO ranking) and then include your own backlinks. You can also contribute guest posts to lesser-known blogs with significant targeted audiences.
Here are a few things to keep in mind:
As evidenced by the graph below, guest posting is ranked by marketers as one of the most effective link building tactics:
As a PR professional, you can earn backlinks to your site by securing interviews in a variety of formats, including blogs, podcasts, YouTube, FB Live, etc.
Pitch ideas for content creators to interview you on their platforms, and try to use a unique pitch in order to secure the interview. For instance, if you are a specialist in buying retail items and selling them online, you would want to pitch a story about how you turned $100 of retail items into $500 of profit, or something similar.
The idea is to create a pitch that’s compelling to their audience, not necessarily to yourself.
You can also interview other thought leaders in your industry on your own website to gain even more high-quality backlinks.
Additionally, you can create roundup interview blog posts on some of the most popular industry topics that resonate with your ideal audience.
After posting the interview on your blog, ask the interview subjects to link back to the post on their sites. Often, the people being interviewed will post on social media to let their audiences know they have been interviewed, gaining you even more visibility and traffic.
6. Brand recognition
Strong brand recognition, including lots of mentions outside of your own site, improve SEO. One of the main reasons why PR is crucial to SEO is that it can help you obtain influential links and social proof that can boost your marketing efforts.
If you get coverage on larger publications in your industry, newspaper sites, industry magazines, popular regional websites, and so on, it can greatly elevate your website’s SEO performance.
Over the years, Google’s results for some of the more competitive phrases have increasingly favored big brands. That’s why it’s important to get featured on third-party websites and establish your website as more of a brand so you stand a better chance of competing in your space.
Get your brand name mentioned on social media, news sites, and various other places on the web and you will boost your brand recognition, trust—and ultimately rank better. You can also use tools like Twitter marketing tools, LinkedIn marketing tools, etc for social media growth.
The bottom line is, although PR and SEO are two separate entities, they should be used together to help your brand gain additional visibility, website traffic, and earn more revenue.
You definitely need both to get high-quality backlinks to your site.
Ron Stefanski is an internet entrepreneur and marketing professor at National Louis University who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business. You can learn more from him by visiting OneHourProfessor.com. You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin.
