SEOs are from Venus and PRs are from Mars - will the planets ever collide?

A presentation for SAScon17th May 2012

FIRSTLY, LET’S GET OVER THE BASICS...

INDUSTRY ANALYSTS HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS THAT PR AND SEO WILL CONVERGE...

WHY IS SEO AND PR CONVERGING? PR CAN INFLUENCE ALL THESE SEARCH ENGINE RANKING FACTORS...

PR

PR

PR

PR

PR

PR

WHY IS SEO AND PR CONVERGING? TAKE A LOOK AT THE LINK

EQUITY OF THESE BIG ONLINE BRANDS

SOME OF THE HIGHEST VALUE LINKS TO EXPEDIA AND MONEYSUPERMARKET ARE ALL PR LINKSSEE BELOW

SO PR IS GOOD FOR BUILDING LINKS FROM AUTHORITY DOMAINS...

AN SEO DREAM

SO WHY HAVEN’T SEO AND PR JUMPED INTO BED ALREADY...

IS IT OUR PERSONALiTIES? OR DO OPPOSITES ATTRACT?

PRs

SEOs

CREATIVE

OPINIONATED

EGOTISTICAL

EXTROVERT

ANALYTICAL

TECHNICAL

PRACTICAL

COMMERCIAL

seo is grounded

in tangibility and

measureability.

pr less so.

IN MY OPINION, THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PRs and seos:

the skills gap

although intangible, ‘pr outcomes’, such as brand building and reputation, have a high perceived value with shareholders and boards of directors

the size of the uk pr industry

billion

for prs, brand and reputation is big business

however, inbound links sadly mean nothing to many prs. most don’t even report the links that they generate

they lack the skills / knowledge to do this

FOR MANY SEOs, measuring reputation and brand is outside their web analytics’ comfort zone

but measuring brand and reputation can be done. it is just expensive

SO how can seos and prs get it on13 actionable insights

Actionable insight

1.prs: if you don’t understand search yet then start learning now.

innovate or die(if you really are a beginner see appendix 1 for suggested links and further reading)

Actionable insight

2.seos: forget pr tactics and start by talking the language of ‘outcomes’ for brand, reputation, profile and measurement (tactics will follow)(see appendix 2 for some useful links)

Actionable insight

3.a new set of metrics needs to be created for seos and prs to really integrate

- track search metrics, opinions, brand, reputation metrics and the impact of these on shareholder value

Actionable insight

4. at the very least, learn to measure the basicsSEOs need to measure  PRs need to measure 

Enduseropinionsandsen-ment

andtheimpactonbrandand

reputa-on

Brandedsearchtraffic

Realworldmetrics,e.g.foo<all Domainauthority

Keymessaging Inboundlinks/linkequity

Shareofvoice Searchresults/conversions

Referraltraffic

SERPs

Actionable insight

5.as well as focusing on measurement, prs and seos need to get more aware of each other’s tactics

Actionable insight

6.seos need to think less about press releases and think more broadly about a range of tactics that can generate links

Actionable insight

7.be news-worthy (link-worthy)

create news-worthy content which has:- proximity- timeliness- human interest / novelty- conflict - eminence and prominence- consequence and impact- visuals (press photos, video footage)

Actionable insight

8. seos: understand appropriate messaging and use of controversy

Good Bad

Actionable insight

9. it is not just press releases that generate linksConsumer media  Trade / B2B 

Newsandfeatures Thoughtleadership

Stunts Guestposts

Features Research

Productreviews Contentmarke>ng

Compe>>ons Newsandfeatures

Advertorials Marketreports

Research

Actionable insight

10.provide a reason to link back to the website. link to further information / source of research in your release

train your spokesperson to mention the resource and link in interviews

Actionable insight

11.as well as using anchor text, write the url out in full

journalists often don’t cut and paste anchor text so the link is lost

Actionable insight

12.Less can be more. Don’t write 20 blog posts, instead spend the same amount of time turning this original content into one definitive industry report (link bait)

Then PR the content. (You can turn it into 20 blog posts later)

Actionable insight

13.PRs: don’t just be ‘white hat’. Manual link building works! A website which is visible to search brings traffic, aids social sharing and discovery by journalists

Let’s broaden our skills, the strategies that we deploy and what we measure

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Crawford is the Managing Director of PR Agency One and has a keen interest in the space where SEO and PR meet.

For more information about James and his business visit www.pragencyone.co.uk

Call him on 07793 441 6986

Twitter: @jamescrawford

thank you

appendix 1

PR beginners guide to SEO

How to create compelling content that ranks in search engines

Link building lessons for PR

SEGMENT SOCIAL MEDIA TRAFFIC USING GOOGLE ANALYTICS

appendix 2

Some good PR basics are in here (a bit basic in parts)

Link building lessons from PR

COI’s guide to PR measurement

AMEC guide to PR evaluation (A bit academic)

Why reputation matters

How to measure reputation