The Role of Traditional Public Relations in SEO
Public relations (PR) and search engine optimization (SEO) might sound like oats and fish. But, there is a point of connectivity between both the different aspects of a business that makes it difficult for one to survive in the absence of other.
In fact, the truth about your digital marketing strategy – SEO is that it partly covers some of the major aspects of the traditional PR. Search engine optimizers and webmasters, who have been doing SEO as per the strategies laid out by Google very well are aware of how one drives the other.
Provide better public relations user experience
Google’s focus is on ensuring the best user experience and in the attempt to offer an enhanced user experience, Google has been dumping all the old and outdated ranking accomplishment tactics and filtering the algorithm toward better user experience. Precisely, any website that offers the best experience will rank among the top ones, while the others have to strive hard to please Google.
How to build links?
Many easy and simple link-building tactics were available in the past that would drive site rankings to the top, but now your site’s ranking does not merely rely on these simple strategies, though inbound links are still considered to be an imperative part of SEO campaigning. (Effect of Penguin updates that went against the traditional link building tactics, comprising guest blogging, link purchase and link insertion within themes or plugins from Google.)
But, the organic method of link building still persists and it is something that has been carried forward from our good old tradition and these include the links that are acquired from authoritative and genuine sites, experiencing a high volume of traffic.
Now, link acquisition gets interesting as we are hunting for better methods to accomplish traffic flow. It can be divided into two sections:
The first section is something that is a very old technique, which we all have been following all the while and are bored of being reminded every time. Nothing but – the finger is pointing to the king of online business – content.
Unless you are ready to offer some interesting content, why do you think someone would want to link to your site?
Now, the second section gets interesting – this is where traditional PR has an important role to play – let us welcome the game changer – no one will read your interesting content until they know that it exists. Google has been reminding us every fortnight to develop good content, but there is more to reaching out, apart from curating interesting content.
Implement successful outreach campaigns
Link building is a complicated process if you observe it closely. Outreach – how do you plan to coordinate with your people and the effect of your coordination on your people – all play a great role in link building. For executing link building’s outreach strategy successfully, you need to be familiar with your audience and their traits. Understand what influences them, including both editors and contributors. It all depends on how you connect with them, craft your pitch and then, showcase it clear as to how you can help make things easier for them – summarized in a description of about 100 or fewer words, which is not as easy as it might sound.
This is one of the phases, where a lot of people are bound to fail. But, if you are skilled at pitching through your words, then, you have won more than half the battle. Ensure that your contribution finds a way into one of the popular international publications, such as the Entrepreneur or Forbes, then your job just got easier. This will ensure that contributors or editors from the other similar popular publications notice you and the rest will follow.
You can consider this as a platform for exposure toward publications that will pursue you with an intention of providing coverage, which in turn will bring further exposure and prospects of more links. This is a cycle that will repeat, provided your part is being dealt with well. And, how do we generate trust?
Social proof is an important factor
Social proof is something that plays an important role here. This is a cycle again. We human beings are copycats in one way or other. We like to depend on the comments and ideas expressed by others and many a time, our decision-making is dependent on the thoughts others share with us because we consider it to be authoritative and genuine.
Google’s search algorithms
PR and link building are closely connected and both together, drive the evolution of Google’s search algorithms. Unlike the traditional old days, when we were least concerned about user experience, the source of link acquisition was disregarded. All people wanted were links, regardless of whether it came from websites with minimal or no traffic at all or from websites over swarming with visitors.
And, the bitter fact was that Google used to rank all the sites that had a lot of links with them, no matter the authoritativeness of the site that provided them with the links. But, with Panda and Penguin updates falling into place – paved way for a new scenario for link building.
Now, the rankings are primarily based on quality, user experience and by examining whether it is capable of meeting the user intent.
So, now let us make way for PR that majorly works on the concept of acquiring authoritative links that comes from the effort of real people engaged behind the scenes. When you have a true tale to tell, it adds value, which will generate inbound links, rather than the trash that was unnecessarily being added to your site.
Also, here you can give your competitors a run for your idea because it is not an easy task to reproduce your links on their site as these have been acquired through relationships.
Let us find out how we can get our people talk about us:
This starts with your content. You need to actually bring in a sweet point in your story, which is possible only if you can think about it from your reader’s perspective because it’s them that matters here and nothing else.
How do you find out whether you are writing what they want?
Engage in a conversation with your editor or contributor. Everyone has ideas and we don’t know which will fit into your package. During your conversation with these people, you can actually find out whether your ideas sync and you have a place to position your ideas on their platform.
Try to find out whether your ideas can help them in their present situation. If not, let us move on to plan B, which is getting references. Check whether they think they know someone, who can benefit from your ideas.
When you find out that you are somewhere, where your contributions do not matter, do not walk away. Be good to all. You can even support them – it can help in the long run because they will be obliged to offer you something in return for your courtesy at some point in time. Each effort of yours counts.
Here, we will provide you with a brief insight into your pitch structure
You have a value proposition with you – which needs a perfectly precise introduction – let them know why this is what they are looking for. You can connect your story with some relevant information, adding some cheese to it, while you tell them that it’s your pleasure to be sharing this valuable piece of information with them, which is perfectly combined to help save their time and effort.
Provide them with a source of reaching you out – your contact number or email id.
Now this seems interesting to them and they decide to publish your story – so, what next? Do you just leave? No, never ever do that. There is a long way to go if you want real authoritative links flowing to your site. Be courteous. Share it on the social media, if there are other relevant websites that you are handling, then you can link it to those and keep in touch with your contributor. Also, make it a point to share more content that they develop, and you feel that this could be relevant to your audiences too.
All this takes us to one point that SEO, link building, and traditional PR are closely linked and revolves around a single point – content. If you have quality content, then you are already on your way to building new relationships, acquiring authoritative links and finally, driving more traffic.
About the Author
Vipin Nayar is the Digital Marketing Head at Acodez IT Solutions. A social media, SEO, SEM and conversion expert with over 8 years’ experience in online marketing, helps clients enhance their online presence and open up new business avenues. Keeping in step with social media trends, he uses his keen insight into customer behavior to formulate innovative strategies that help companies to increase traffic to the website and improve conversion utilizing a wide range of techniques. In addition, he shares his knowledge and passion through frequent writing on latest trends and developments in digital marketing.