Much has been said about Digital PR, and although the definitions of it may vary depending on who you ask, there is a common factor in which all Public Relations specialists must agree: Digital PR cannot exist without SEO.
But, how to implement SEO tactics to our PR in order achieve great digital results? The answer is very simple and can be divided into 3 fundamental points:
SEO 101
Let's start with the basics. SEO or Search Engine Optimization refers to content optimization, in text and images, to improve its performance in search engines, mainly Google.
When some of us or some of our consumers search for products or services on the internet, they will find, in a matter of seconds, 10 possible results of which only the first place will take 60% of the total clicks on each search. What does this mean?
If you want your brand to compete for the traffic generated by search, you must position both your web presence and content related to your products and services in the first places of all the results.
Let's think about it as a consumer. When was the last time you clicked the second page of Google results? Or the third or fourth? To be more accurate, NEVER.
How do we manage to position our content on the first page? Well, there are only two ways, the first one is through Adwords (meaning, paid advertising within the Google network), and the second one is through SEO.
The SEO itself is divided into two types:
- On-site: factors to consider in building your website and its content; and
- Off-site: external factors for building your digital reputation from the outside.
Off-site SEO is where Digital PR can really stand out.
SEO TACTICS WHICH EVERY BRAND MUST CONSIDER FOR ITS PR STRATEGY
To visualize all the SEO potential that PR materials involve, first we must understand the concept of “digital reputation”. For Google's search algorithm “digital reputation” is measured from several points, including the antiquity of the domain, quality of content within its domain and, in what we are going to focus today: redirection, how your brand digital presence is connected with third party domains.
To build a brand reputation relevant to Google, you have to get links and brand mentions. This can be achieved through 2 specific tactics, both that should become key goals within your overall PR strategy.
Linkbuilding: Placing links in third party sites (meaning, web presence not linked to our brand) that lead directly to the site that we seek to boost in SEO ranking. For this tactic to be effective, there are several subjects to consider, the first and most important one: the domain authority of sites where we want to place our links, the better authority the site has, the greater the value of this tactic.
It is worth mentioning that this tactic generates the most valuable types links for SEO, known as dofollow links, that is, direct links coming from great authority web pages that pass their SEO values to the site which is addressed.
Implied Link or Brand Mention: It is considered as a brand mention or "implied link" any digital content piece that mentions the name of a brand in text appearance. Even without having any type of link associated to this mention.
A couple of years ago it was revealed the Google’s search algorithm, known as Panda, takes into consideration plain text brand mentions as a valuable factor to help determine the domain authority of said brand; it was a surprise for many who only believed in the value of dofollow links.
¿What does this means? That each brand mention helps your SEO positioning.
Although, in this case, success depends on both the number of brand mentions your brand generates monthly, and the quality of the mentions; how good is the domain authority of the sites that mention you.
HOW TO START OPTIMIZING MY PR CONTENTS?
Now that we've covered the basics, let's talk about tactics. To apply SEO to your Public Relations plan, there are dozens and dozens of best practices to incorporate, but certainly the first thing is to consider your PR materials as digital content pieces. Everything must be optimized. To start we leave you three simple tactics:
- Key Messages = Keywords: In Public Relations we are constantly talking about brand key messages, but we rarely talk about keywords associated to a brand. It is advisable to transform these messages into a keywords selection (longtail and shortail) that we want to position along with our company. So each PR content includes them all the time.
- Links Links Links: When creating a material, for example a press release, it will be useful for your agency to add dofollow links within the text. In this way, the media can easily incorporate them into their notes.
- Make Images Count: Another important and simple way to consider SEO factors within your communication creation is to name and correctly tag the visual assets that are sent to media.
These three tactics are a great start; however, the real key to success and modernization of your PR strategy is to approach an expert agency. If you want to know more about this subject, do not hesitate to contact us.