It is no surprise that at Eskenzi PR, we are getting more clients asking about PR and SEO together – since today in 2021, the two often come hand-in-hand.
Whilst PR used to be largely about getting into print, TV and newspapers, today it starts with online and getting placements into major publications has SEO implications.
PR executed well can massively boost your rankings on Google, which can generate a significant volume of leads and sales. And I mean significant volume. Some of the UK’s largest price comparison websites are pretty much SEO companies by any other name.
So it is only natural that PR and SEO are integrated together or at least put in the same conversation – and this includes putting SEO targets and outcomes into the mix and in future reports.
What is SEO and How Do You Merge it With PR?
We spoke to Eskenzi’s SEO expert, Daniel Tannenbaum who provided his insight into the merging of PR and SEO.
Tannenbaum: “SEO is very broadly the techniques that you can execute to get your website to the top of Google for a number of target keywords.
There are around 200 techniques according to Google which broadly includes how technically optimised your website is, how useful your content is relating to your products and finally, what links you have pointing back to your website from other high-authority websites.
You cannot do some of the techniques and not others. You cannot just have good content or be technically optimised. You need everything. One of the make or breaks and toughest challenge is links.
Getting a link back from another website is like getting a recommendation or citation. If you are mentioned in Gov.uk sites, the BBC and Sky News, Google is going to reward you, thinking that you are very useful and authoritative in your industry.
But not everyone can get coverage, or indeed a link on the BBC, and this is where link-building has gone out of control. Rather than looking for quality PR, you have SEO specialists looking to manipulate search results by using phoney websites, redirected domains and directories. For years and years this worked, but now Google penalties have started putting an end to this in the last few years.
So what is the best type of link building you can do? Its simple. PR.”
What Can PR People Do To Maximise SEO?
Tannenbaum: “Ultimately it comes down to links, links and more links. So when getting PR online, you need to ask the journalist or publisher for a link to be included into the article. Any news website or thriving magazine is going to be a good quality link.
You can include a link in the original piece, or if you are talking already and running an interview, you need to say very clearly before and request for a link to be included.
Equally, if pieces are just going into print, you should ask if they are going online too. And again, ask for a link to be included.
For tech PR specialists, it is good to demonstrate knowledge of SEO too – and you can start by asking about any target keywords or pages that they are looking to optimise. Any links back or mentions to these pages would greatly benefit SEO.”
Some Quick Tips:
1.Create a nice report or study and also host a version of it on the client’s blog – and then get a link back to this piece. This is a very natural way of getting links.
2. Ask for “Do-follow” links, over “No follow” links – since these pass on the Google value
3. Also mix up the words or terms that you link. Choose a guide or even the homepage
4. Some publications have a strict no-links policy, but you must ask, ask and ask!
How Do You Measure Results?
Measuring SEO results is not difficulty. You have to start with a target list of keywords – take maybe 10 or 20 as a starting point in the client’s industry.
You can run manual checks, by just looking on Google and maybe carry these out every Friday.
Or equally, you can use paid for tools to monitor SEO results and check these on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
With free trials available, consider using:
AdvancedWebRankings.com (recommended)
SEMrush.com
AHrefs.com
