Online PR and SEO - a real world perspective

Some people ask me why online media or search engine optimisation (SEO) is important to PR professionals.

It kind of surprises me that people even ask the question, but I suppose I've been looking at this issue for about eighteen months now so maybe I need to rewind a little and put things in perspective.

A good place to start it to think about what PR is all about, then see how that fits with online media. Put simply, PR is about communicating the benefits or values of an organisation to specific audience.

Looking at traditional media – print and broadcast – getting mentioned in this type of media can alter people’s perspectives of a brand. That’s pretty much how PR works in traditional media.

Looking at online media, it’s a little more complex that that. Yes – getting mentioned in online media can alter people’s perspectives of a brand or organisation. But on top of this, it can drive people directly to the brand’s website. If that site works well enough, the visitor will learn more about the brand, the brand may learn a little about the visitor and the visitor may even make a purchase.

But that’s not all. Critics of online media often say it has a limited audience. But online content works well for clients simply by being there. It doesn’t actually need to be read. Content on third party sites about a particular brand will boost that brand’s website traffic by making it come up higher on search engine results. This is search engine optimisation (SEO). This works even if very few people actually see the content.

So, in a nutshell, traditional PR influences people. Whereas online PR influences people, directs then to client websites and boosts the search rankings of those sites. Online PR gives you three bangs for your buck.

PR professionals who get coverage online are doing SEO even if they don’t realise it. So they may as well do those few little things – like using embedded links that point to well written landing pages – to make sure the SEO works well.

I predict that clients will start measuring PR performance not by column inches but by counting in-bound links and measuring website traffic as it relates to specific campaigns. When this time comes PR professionals will really have to think ‘optimisation’ in everything they do.

I’m not suggesting PR professionals should only do online PR and nothing else. Combine online with traditional ‘offline’ PR and PR professionals really have a lot to offer in this new world. Just offer offline PR, and watch your value slip away.

Comments

[Nick Garner]

I agree - to me online PR is a no brainer, which is why as a SEO guy, ive been rebranding myself as an online PR guy, since ultimately that is where things are going in terms of promoting things on the internet.

If you assume google trends is a good indicator of the 'zeitgiest' of the moment, this trends search for 'pr' for the UK is very revealing...

http://www.google.com/trends?q=pr&ctab=0&geo=GB&date=all&sort=0

[Daryl Willcox]

That link looks interesting, but not 100% sure what it tells me other than there are an increasing number of matches for people searching on 'PR'. Can you expand on that?

[Nick Garner]

In response to the last post from Daryl

if you look at the google trends graph, you will see the top part is search volume for 'pr' (decreasing) and the bottom part shows the number of new references to the term 'pr'(increasing)
in effect it being talked about more and searched for less = Google public dont care about PR like they used to,