Public relations (PR) and search engine optimisation (SEO) should work together to give you the right brand coverage and marketing success. But do you know how to achieve this? Digital marketing expert, Nick Brogden explains.
Google loves brands. Bigger brands enjoy higher rankings, new content ranking boosts, and they also remain unaffected by negative SEO attacks.
PR, or public relations, is a process where businesses tie-up with journalists and bloggers to spread information about their products or services. PR helps to manage the reputation of a company. The higher the publicity, the greater the reputation of the brand.
Google sees brands as the solution, not the problem. Hence, it prioritises brands in the search results. For example, when you search for a nearby pizza store, you are most likely to see Dominos because they are a multinational pizza restaurant chain covering almost 50 per cent of the market.
Hence, PR is crucial for SEO because it helps to convert your business into a brand. More prominent brands ultimately have authority links, better engagement on their site, lower bounce rate, high social reputation, and massive direct traffic. These are metrics that Google loves.
The top 5 ways public relations assist SEO
1. PR helps to earn editorial links
Editorial links are links that are created by choice and are not paid for. Google values such links the highest because they are not easy to earn.
When you run PR campaigns, you have the best opportunity to earn high-quality and organic links to your website.
A single editorial link from a high-authority website such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, TechCrunch, or Inc is far more valuable when compared to a hundred links from low-authority sites and spam domains.
2. PR assists to improve branding
PR helps to portray the best side of an organisation before the target audience. You can easily connect with your fans using storytelling as an effective medium.
Every brand has a story to tell. You can share your story with people who will understand and engage with your business. Your PR person or team can craft impressive and authentic stories that let the audience connect with the news.
Not just storytelling, PR also helps you strengthen the business relationship with your customers and prospects. Content is king, and the right public relations strategy can enable your business to become a leader in the market.
User engagement is a critical element of SEO. Businesses that have more users and direct visits to their websites are considered popular. With positive PR, your business engagement improves, and your SEO strategy receives a direct benefit.
Google sees your brand as a leader in the industry because people directly engage with your brand, like your brand on social media, share blogs on their personal websites, share stories on relevant platforms, and leave reviews and comments. Google takes into account brand mentions and picks up the most engaging brand to display in the search results.
3. PR increases relevant affiliate traffic
PR helps you to publish your content on several reputed and high-traffic websites. Hence, not just backlinks, you also receive relevant affiliate traffic. More traffic leads to better engagement, resulting in higher conversions.
SEO and affiliate marketing should work in balance to generate revenue for the business. With public relations, you can sync both these mediums together for a common goal.
4. PR leads to more branded search queries
Branded search queries are those queries that include your brand name. Some examples of branded search queries are:
- “How to become a seller on Amazon”
- “How to get more Facebook likes”
- “Salesforce pricing”
- “Buy Tommy Hilfiger shirts”
- “McDonald’s burger near me”
An increase in the number of branded search results is an indication to Google that people are directly searching for your brand.
For example, when there is a hike in the number of searches for Tommy Hilfiger shirts, Google algorithms know that people like Tommy Hilfiger shirts and whenever someone searches with a query like “buy shirts online”, Google might display results from the Tommy Hilfiger website.
PR is the best way to increase the number of branded searches because a popular business is often the most searched business in its category.
Hence, this correlation between public relations and branded search queries is something you should not miss. Branded searches up your SEO strategy.
5. PR enhances the reputation of your brand
Corporate social responsibility plays a significant role in enhancing the reputation of the brand. Nowadays, netizens favour businesses who care for society.
For example, Google’s data centre uses 50 per cent less energy than others, while Ford is helping to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by introducing 40 variants of electric cars by 2022. The PR team of Google and Ford are doing their best to spread this message to the world.
When businesses play their part in making the world a better place to live, people start following them. PR is the best way to educate people about the efforts your business is making in the area of corporate social responsibility.
A positive reputation leads to better engagement and brand popularity, which are a boon for SEO. Moreover, positive public relations strategies help to get rid of negative SEO and boost the online reputation of the business. For example, any negative stories about the company are replaced by new PR stories.
If you are not leveraging the power of PR in your SEO strategy, you will find it harder to get positive results. The only way for smaller businesses to compete with larger firms is public relations.
Media mentions are hard to get, especially the link equity it brings to up your SEO game. Join hands with a PR specialist if you are looking for faster and long-term gains from your SEO strategy.
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