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How PR Drives SEO Results
11/07/2018
“Public Relations is the most powerful tool of all for
I want to be number one!
By now, almost everyone has at least heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the processes by which you increase your position within a search engine's unpaid results— often called natural, organic or earned results. There are two paths that can push you towards the top of the page: ‘Onsite’ and ‘Offsite’ SEO. While onsite is relatively easy to fix, offsite is a much more difficult, time consuming process and where public relations is critical for success.
Moving up in the results
When it comes to onsite SEO, an audit can show all the places where your website is coming up short. In many cases, these are small mistakes that add up to large penalties from search engines, like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Once these issues are resolved, you will increase your domain authority– hence moving up the search results, but chances are this alone will not catapult to number one.
As far as google is concerned, you may be wearing all the trendy clothes, but you’re still NOT the popular kid in school. There is still the offsite issue of no one linking to your website. When it comes to search engine results, links to your website from other sites create authority and credibility. Public relations has the ability to get great content published in quantity, and if your PR firm is forward thinking enough (hopefully they read this article) they add a link within that content back to your website. Then when it publishes online, Bam! You have your first backlink. These backlinks add up over time and the more of them that are out there, the more credibility Google gives you – hence, moving higher up the page. However, not all links are created equal. High-authority websites are exponentially better. A high-authority domain website is simply one that Google already knows and trusts. This would include all your established media websites – the same place your PR articles are appearing. One of these placements could be worth a hundred or even a thousand links from other lower authority sites.
Beware of the black hat Most companies who specialize in optimizing your search engine results want nothing to do with generating links on high-authority sites. They love it when they get them, because it makes their job of moving you up the page that much easier. However, in almost every case these SEO firms do not have the established relationships with editors to get stories posted on high-authority websites. So what some SEO firms will do is try to buy links from other sites, build fake webpages designed only for your backlinks, and other tricks that are referred to as ‘black hat’ SEO. If google finds out that you are trying to deceive its algorithm, you run the risk of getting blacklisted - where you won’t appear at all within their search results. You may as well not even exist. Furthermore, those phony PR sites that promise they can “send out your press release and you’ll dominate search engines like Yahoo!, Google, and Bing” are not going to work either. Google knows about these sites and they generate no SEO value.
No substitute for PR So, more and more companies are looking to drive organic SEO results with public relations campaigns designed to generate quality placements on high-authority sites. In doing so, companies get the value of great PR which generates credibility, brand awareness, and increased sales, but can now help you land that top spot on Google.
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