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It’s no secret that PR and SEO are a power couple. When you combine PR’s eloquence with that of SEO’s competitiveness, you get a complementary match. Marketers forget about this for two main reasons: 

  1. They do not understand the importance of it

  2. They do not know what steps to take to bring it to life

This blog post is designed to remove those excuses. 

There are a number of advantages to converging digital PR and SEO. It supports every aspect of full funnel marketing based on the type of content and messaging created. From improving brand awareness online to generating a larger volume of quality leads/sales, this compatible duo has the ability to elevate your marketing game. 

The executional tactics in the next section outline how to boost a brand’s searchability and move the needle on engagement and conversion levels. 

1. Understand what each of you bring to the table

PR’s key function is to promote and deliver awareness about a brand and its offering. This can be in the form of a new service/product, event, or organisational announcements. SEO serves to boost visibility, which in turn helps elevate rankings on search engine pages. It’s the first port of call when a user is searching for a product or service.

2. Collaborate and play to each other’s strengths

For PR, finding the right angles and formats for effective content coverage is paramount. For SEO, identifying the best set of keywords to rank for through research and competitive analysis will be essential. 

3. Map out a clear plan of action

  • Step 1: What is the opportunity presented to the PR team?

  • Step 2: Pair up with the SEO team to discuss the brief on hand.

  • Step 3: SEO team to define keywords related to focused products based on relevance, authority, and volume to support with rankings.

  • Step 4: SEO team to review how competitors are ranking for these terms and evaluate the list of proposed keywords accordingly.

  • Step 5: SEO team to share outcomes with PR team to inform content creation process. 

  • Step 6: PR team to consider dynamic content (infographics, videos, interesting research reports) when creating the coverage piece. This will result in a higher chance of convincing journalists to dish out follow links.

  • Step 7: PR team to work with digital team to produce a hub to host the content. This allows for a clear CTA on the content to a branded destination for journalists and readers. Additionally, it opens a window of opportunity for the brand to capture traffic for retargeting. And if you need more reasons, it provides real estate to deepen the content and support with compelling visual elements. 

  • Step 8: PR team to curate a list of publishers to reach out to. It’s helpful to secure follow links from sites with high domain authority (DA) to get more eyes on the content. Utilise tools such as Moz and Ahrefs to determine the DA score for your curated list of publishers.

Top tip – always ask if it’s possible to get a follow link from media publishers. It’s worth noting that these links can always be added retrospectively. 

4. Execute in harmony

Don’t stop there. Get social into the mix to amplify your content, allowing it to be seen by many more thereby driving impressions. 

So how do you know when you’ve got it right? An increase in qualified, organic leads and web traffic are the key metrics to measure success. You can also measure the impact of PR towards your overall goals, by evaluating the earned backlinks for their quality referring domains and follow vs nofollow ratio.

As with everything digital, nothing is certain. Remember to assess and optimise. Keep up to date with the latest algorithm updates. Most of all, be mindful of the long-term engagement this symbiotic relationship can bring when consistently fulfilled. 

Felina Tan is an account director based in London