How Can Public Relations Increase My SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not something you can really learn overnight. It takes a while to truly understand a lot of what goes into it. With that being said, no one is expecting you to be an expert in a day. There are some basics that are going to be essential when putting together a good SEO approach. You will basically be taking your other media relations understandings and applying those to the front-end of optimization. By using other sites with more credibility and authority, you will want to create a link back to your website or blog in which Google places priority on. In turn, this creates trustworthiness of your company. 

Using Media Relations

There are a few steps to make sure to hammer down before simply diving in to “improving” your SEO.

1. Determine Keywords and/or Phrases. Assuming you do not have a PR or SEO team, put together a list of keywords. The best way to go about this is to write down a list of questions that customers, prospects, and others might ask. Then look for the common phrases. Done.

2. Google Keyword Planner. Head over to the Google keyword planner and input your words or phrases. For example, input “PR Tips” and see how many results pop up. If it’s over 175, that’s good. On the other hand, you don’t want a keyword or phrase with too many visitors, then you’ll be competing against many more websites and articles. Focus more on a topic that brings high quality customers rather than random people researching just for fun.

3. Search Google. This step is simple, just search your keywords and phrases. 

4. Create a Spreadsheet to Determine Competition. Three columns: Website, Domain Authority, and Can Compete? Domain authority is a ranking that determines how well a website will rank on search engine result pages. There are a few good options to learn rankings, the most popular being MOZ. Once you learn your domain authority (ranks from 1-100), then you can decide on which websites you can compete with. For example, if your ranking was 50, you could compete with any sites that are 70 and lower.

5. Pitch List. Use the media outlets and blogs that already rank for your targeted phrase to create a new release. The reason for this is because they’re already talking about the subject in your phrase. If they rank higher than you, that’s even better.

6. Personalized Link. when putting together articles, new and repurposed, make sure to include a link to your website and/or blog. This will help drive traffic back to your website. Without adding a link, the SEO will not work. The whole purpose is to bring in more traffic and awareness to your website, increasing your domain authority and improving your rank.

7. Measure. Now it’s time to measure your results. We can now track who visits the site from each media outlet, not to mention figure out which outlet is the best lead generator and where the visitors go after clicking on the initial link. What you want to do is to attain stats through a landing page. Make sure your Google Analytics account is set up, if not, do it now. Once that’s done, sign in, click on Acquisition, then All Traffic, and then Referrals. When you get to this page, you will see a search bar. Input the URL of the media outlet or blog that pushed out your story or news release. This will tell you how many visitors that story brought you, how long they stayed on the site, and how many pages they visited. Score!

Good luck and let us know how everything turns out. Click here to schedule a Complimentary Brand Consultation.