Unifying SEO and Public Relations Strategies for Better Traffic and More Revenues

Companies looking for guidance on how to drive meaningful web traffic are often getting mixed signals from their providers, and separating the SEO function from public relations and other marketing initiatives. The result is a fractured strategy with confused goals and a situation where the SEO group is often not held to the same standard as the PR group.

The conventional wisdom on search engine optimization (SEO) offered up by many SEO consultants is that SEO is a separate practice from public relations, that link building is the primary tactic for SEO, and that link building is accomplished through content marketing. This approach further sees content marketing as a practice in which the articles created as part of the strategy as merely vessels for containing inbound links, with all of the actual content being nothing more than a wrapper. This entire approach is both misguided and dangerous.

SEO is part of the public relations function

Driven by this type of thinking, companies see SEO as a programmatic practice which can be accomplished by routine, automated practices, and which is marked by a set of KPIs that revolve around the number of inbound links which can be generated, even if those links are from an artificially created website that exists only for the sake of links. The more creative tasks of generating and placing high-quality content that passes editorial scrutiny is left to the public relations department. In reality, SEO and link-building are really an outgrowth of the public relations function and should be delivered in conjunction with a PR specialist who enjoys solid relationships with established journalists and editors.

“Links are still crucial, but only the right kind of links,” said Jen Van Iderstyne, Senior Strategist at Overit, a New York digital marketing agency. “Not only will low value links not help a website, they have the potential to hurt a site’s positioning. This is bad news for those who viewed easily acquired links as a way to short-cut other marketing and optimization tactics. But for those who focus on getting links in the way Google intended it is only a validation of their process.” Artificially created sites that are created by SEO consultants may be a quick way to get links, but according to Van Iderstyne, “we must seek out links that lend credibility to our site. Even in a tumultuous time where media sources are at the center of conflict, news outlets are still authoritative sources for links. This means PR, news coverage or even being the quoted expert source on a story is a highly valuable link. For this we must cultivate relationships with journalists and periodicals.”

Content first, links second

The best practice for link building is to see link building as a secondary and organic outgrowth of other marketing activities. Amanda Kaestner, Senior SEO Specialist at Lucid Software, includes a link building strategy into every marketing activity as a secondary objective. Kaestner explains, “Lucid wanted to engage with the students and the educators who already enjoy our product by offering them a scholarship opportunity. In order to spread the word and increase the number of applicants, we asked high school and university financial aid departments to post links to our scholarship program. In this way, we were able to introduce our product to students, increase sign ups and registrations, drive engagement, and create a new PR opportunity. Our goal wasn’t backlinks, but backlinks were a great side effect.”

Lucid’s successful campaign didn’t just focus on the narrow objective of link metrics. “The aim of these campaigns was to create content that’s useful, informative, or entertaining to our users. The backlinks were an additional win in the overall success of these projects, but not the focus. Quality over quantity is the way to go for long-lasting value; the opposite puts you at risk for penalties and lowering your site value in exchange for short-sighted wins.”

What is content marketing?

“Content is king” is an often misunderstood trope that some marketers and SEO providers bring out when trying to justify generating large volumes of spammy articles. In fact, the strategy of having lots of content is meaningless and potentially harmful unless that content is written to professional standards, and placed in legitimate outlets.

“Within that context, content can include many different things besides articles,” said Jeev Trika, CEO of CrowdReviews.com. “User-generated content is increasingly becoming an important part of content strategy. While potential consumers will respond to an informative, useful, or entertaining article in a popular media outlet, consumers are increasingly looking to their peers for advice on what to buy. As such, a user review strategy must be included in the overall mission of every marketer.”

Trika notes that, as is the case with article content, user review content won’t work if it is artificially generated. “Some marketers make the mistake of using paid review services, which almost always result in meaningless five-star reviews by people who know nothing about the product. If you really want to engage consumers, those types of reviews are useless.”

Getting meaningful reviews organically, and from real customers, can sometimes be a challenge, though, and marketers struggle with figuring out how to encourage customers to write reviews. “Sometimes the best method is simply to ask,” said Trika. “If you have satisfied customers, encourage them to write a review, and make it easy for them by providing them with a one-click link to a review site. And once the reviews start coming in, monitor them regularly, and respond to them – whether they are positive or negative – to create a real, two-way dialogue with your customers.”