Building an SEO PR strategy can help you boost brand awareness. However, in order to build a good strategy, one must first acknowledge that SEO and PR are almost exclusively linked. This is because the things that boost SEO, such as backlinks and content, are natural results of PR. Many companies make the mistake of approaching PR and SEO as two separate things. This can reduce the effectiveness of both activities and increase expenditure for no reason at all.
How Pressfarm can help with this
Do you need help building an SEO PR strategy for your brand? The professionals at Pressfarm can help you create quality content that ranks highly in search engines. By crafting your press release, designing a branded media kit, and doing media outreach, Pressfarm can help you earn press coverage from your content.
In addition to creating this content for you, Pressfarm can also help you distribute it widely. By submitting this content to the right media outlets and startup directories, Pressfarm can boost your online visibility. With this distribution strategy, your brand will rank in relevant search results across different search engines.
As a client, you also get custom media lists and you can access a database of 1 million+ journalists, bloggers, and influencers. With these contacts, you can partner with the best people to help you tell your brand story to the world.
Sign up with Pressfarm today and start building a memorable brand image that will win clients over.
How are PR & SEO linked?
With the digital landscape evolving constantly, good content and effective outreach have become an integral part of SEO success.
One of the most important parts of SEO is still backlinks. However, it is important to get the right type of backlinks, preferably from high-authority sites within your niche. When you get earned media through PR, the article will usually link back to your site.
Content is very important in this case. If you want to rank for many positive keywords, then you need to build organic traffic through high-quality content that will generate earned media. In order to do this efficiently, you combine your SEO and PR content marketing efforts.
It is important that what users find when they are searching for your brand name creates a positive impression of your brand. Given that you want people to engage with your brand, the first impression is of utmost importance. Don’t make the mistake of only focusing on your website and social media platforms. People who are curious about your brand also want to see that you have been mentioned on high-authority websites like publications and review sites. These mentions prove that you are a credible business. A good PR strategy will help you to earn these mentions.
How to build an SEO PR strategy
Before we begin, what are the main keywords that you want to rank for on search engines?
In order to decide on these keywords, you can follow the following steps:
Step 1) Think about the best words to describe your product or service, you need to use short descriptive terms.
Step 2) Use a keyword explorer tool like SEMrush or Moz once you have figured out your words. You will be able to explore all related keywords and see the monthly search volume that they are bringing in and what their score is. As much as possible, try to focus on keywords with a high monthly search volume and low difficulty.
Step 3) From there, you need to figure out the type of content that you want to create to appeal to potential customers and users who are searching for these keywords. You can do this by typing your keywords into Google and looking at the kind of content that is ranking on page one of your search results.
Step 4) The research that you do with your keywords will not only inform you of the type of content that you need to create, it will also help you develop your PR strategy. With the information gathered, you can plan guest blogs that will boost your online presence. You can also decide on what keywords to use when you are writing press releases.
Guest posting for SEO
Guest blogging is one of the most effective tactics for building an SEO PR strategy. With guest blogging, you can build your exposure and credibility in your target market. You can also earn backlinks from high-authority websites.
What to do:
When it comes to guest blogging, there are some things that you need to remember. You can get backlinks from author byline/bios and within the body of the actual article. Nevertheless, you need to make sure that the websites that you are pitching actually have author bios for guest posts, which will generally include a backlink to the author’s website.
Another important thing to remember is that there are two types of backlinks; “follow” backlinks and “nofollow” backlinks; a “nofollow” backlink has no value to search engines. Since it doesn’t boost your SEO score, a “nofollow” backlink doesn’t benefit your SEO score. For this reason, when you are guest blogging, you should only guest post on websites that offer you “follow” backlinks. In the SEO industry, the opinion is that contextual backlinks have more value than the ones within the author byline.
When it comes to inserting backlinks to your own site, make sure that they are editorially relevant to your topic. This way, they will have value to your website.
What not to do:
It is equally important to understand what not to do when it comes to guest posting. Do NOT guest post just for the sake of earning backlinks. You need to approach every guest article with the knowledge that you are trying to establish yourself as a thought leader by providing valuable insight to your readers.
Make sure that all your content is original, and take your time to make it your own. Avoid rewriting variations of the same article to get it published on different sites and don’t submit content that already exists on any of your sites. Lastly, try and avoid sites with low domain authority. Your aim is to reach top-tier sites first.
Winning press mentions with backlinks
There are many different ways to obtain PR coverage, and what works will depend on your target audience and what your goals are. You can earn press mentions by providing journalists with a unique perspective on your industry. You need to remember that journalists don’t want to report the same news that everyone else is writing about, they want unique content and original sources. Think of the questions “Why this, and why now?” If you can answer those questions, then you will know what aspects of your story to highlight when talking to a journalist.
When a journalist uses you as a source, you will generally get a backlink and that is ultimately what you want to achieve.
Option 1: The Proactive Approach
This means that you need to know what’s happening in real-time. The second something new happens, you need to be there to add your input.
Step 1: You need to already have your media monitoring in place to keep track of everything that is going on in your industry.
Step 2: Once you have your media monitoring up and running, you need to have a list of high-priority journalists so that you know who to contact when the time is right.
Step 3: Once you have the right opportunity to pitch a good story, all you need to be is reach out.
Option 2: The Reactive Approach
This approach is basically using platforms where journalists go to look for expert sources. Make sure that you focus on the requests where you know exactly what you are talking about and can demonstrate and suitability.
When to use press releases for SEO PR
It is important that you time your press release just right. You need to make sure that whatever you are trying to announce is newsworthy otherwise there really is no point in sharing your news. Effective announcements through press releases can include; a company update that has significance to your industry, original research about a topic related to your field, and data analysis. If you are a business that processes a lot of data, then you can publish your findings on your site and then send a press release. Earning recognition for sharing quality stories in your press releases will boost your SEO score.
How to make the most of your content
The best way to maximize the content that you’ve written is by syndicating guest posts that you have authored onto your own site. However, you first need to check with the website that published your guest post if it is alright to do so. If you have got approval to repost it, make sure that you add a tag that points back to the original article. This is polite and also informs Google that what you’re sharing is a copy of the original article. Ultimately, this will help you avoid problems of duplicate content.
Syndicating content provides tons of benefits including having lots of engaging content on your website. Sharing lots of content that provides an in-depth discussion on a topic will improve sitewide relevance and help with rankings for keywords.
Sometimes when you write a guest post, it might get rejected when you send the final draft. Don’t let this get you down. Since you’ve already taken the time to write an article with good content, you can put it up on your own website where it can still capture search and gain backlinks.
Finally, it is alright to be proud of your outreach efforts. If you win media coverage in high-quality and respected publications, then be sure to share the articles on social media. This is an effective way to demonstrate social proof.
Things to remember:
1) Talk about what’s newsworthy
Newsworthiness is important, regardless of whether you’re launching a new product, announcing important company news, doing industry analysis, or sharing research. You need to constantly be thinking of new ideas and creating new things that will get people interested in featuring you.
2) Create newsworthy content based on what has been done
Create things like blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, press releases, etc. about your products/services to engage your existing clients, media outlets, and potential customers.
Conclusion
As you can now see, SEO and PR complement each other. All you need to do is remember the important elements that need to be included. Combining your PR and SEO content strategies helps you to create an effective media outreach strategy.
Creating a combined SEO PR strategy will increase both your visibility and credibility with your target market and improve your website’s organic search rankings.
Would you prefer to focus on product improvement and leave your PR and SEO strategy to the experts? Check out Pressfarm’s PR packages today and get some help with your SEO PR strategy.