SEO PR: Buzz-Worthy Or Just Hype?

advertisement

SEO PR is a buzzword that is both over-hyped and under-hyped at the same time. What I mean by this? SEO PR is currently in Buzz overkill mode in the Search Engine Marketing industry, but is drastically underutilized in the traditional PR world. Many traditional PR agencies are informed about Search Engine Marketing in general and are completely surprised by SEO PR specifically. So what is it? Search Engine Optimization Public Relations (PR SEO) is a mix of search engine visibility and traditional public relations that the message of a company spreads over the Internet using online media and search engines. SEO PR not only helps spread the message of an organization, but it also includes search engine-friendly communications techniques such as optimizing copy in online content such as press releases, articles, white papers, blogs, RSS feeds and websites. A successful search engine public relations engagement harnesses the power of search engines by focusing on relevant keywords within the content being created and distributed. Careful attention should be paid to the contents to ensure a careful balance between search engine-friendliness and good copywriting. Ultimately readers must be able to understand the message without being bombarded by keyword spam, or copy loaded with keywords that readability and comprehensibility. As with any marketing campaign, the integration of other marketing initiatives is crucial. A good SEO PR-heavy campaign complements any Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns in place while strengthening the brand of a company. Some traditional PR firms begin to partner with SEO firms that service added to their portfolio and vice versa. This is good news for many companies as the marginal costs of adding SEO PR to existing marketing activities should be relatively low assuming that both SEO and PR services are already in place. Much of the extra work is simply connecting the SEO efforts with the PR effort. The logical first step is to integrate press release activity with search engine marketing. By optimizing and distributing press releases online (assuming the right online wire service is used), not only will have the opportunity to release picked up by thousands of sites, but it will often be collected and archived by Google News, Yahoo! News and a variety of other sites that pull relevant news feeds. This means that the message of the press release getting online visibility and SEO efforts are also strengthened by having strategic keywords included in the release copy, the main link to your website with relevant anchor text. Besides the link-building benefit, the relevant anchor text makes this “off the page” SEO activity very powerful. Moreover, the sites likely to get your online release are usually relevant to the content being distributed. There is a point of diminishing returns. You can not keyword spam or links to dozens of adding a release. The press release should first and foremost a press release that makes sense to readers. Second, if you nest the release with too many links, it is likely that the big search engines will actually punish you in terms of rankings. In addition to press releases often provide only for SEO purposes will not be likely to achieve the desired results either. Press releases are newsworthy. Otherwise they will not get arrested, even online. The following steps can be easy, depending on whether content generation and distribution are part of your current marketing activities. By the same approach as described for online press releases (minus the online wires), content, such as white papers, articles, “micro-sites” and / or advertising sites, etc. can be optimized, distributed online and used to both enhance brand and enhance SEO results. The same principles apply with online press releases. Keep the content focused on the purpose of education, technical, marketing-oriented or a combination thereof. Again, avoid keyword and link spam. A word of caution when looking for ways to make your online content for SEO purposes to share: Avoid companies that offer services where you pay your whitepapers or optimized content host. These companies can deliver leads in many cases by different mechanisms that they usually control, but the content usually disappears after you stop using their service. Such companies can accommodate a demand generation program, but I advise them not to use your goals as a solid, long term SEO when you can easily lift up finish in a situation where a substantial amount of your content disappears the moment you end of the relationship. Many sites, directories, online media companies and industry sites are usually open to distributing content via their electronic outlets as of a certain quality, adds value to their readers and meets editorial guidelines. Like a traditional PR agency is a target media list, the same needs to be done for your online media efforts. Like traditional PR can, SEO PR is difficult to measure in some respects, but usually easier to measure in other ways especially when it comes to ranking, online press release pick-up and the traffic generated by the release search. SEO PR can be much more involved than the basic ideas discussed above, but most organizations can gain immediate benefits just by combining their existing SEO and PR efforts. More information about SEO PR I suggest checking resources such as Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch. Com), SEMPO (http://www. Sempo. Org), Wikipedia (http://en. Wikipedia. Org / wiki / Seo_pr) or just search in your favorite search engine for terms like “SEO PR,” “Search Engine Public Relations”, “Online Reputation Management”, “Online PR” and related phrases.