Getting others involved in your SEO strategy can sometimes cause too much confusion, but a public relations department is one place that can actually give you some real help. By enlisting the help of others, your SEO strategy can move to a new level. Public relations often has quite a few high profile connections and quite a few different avenues to help you gain visibility, so it's important not to let this department pass you by. This leaves many businesses to that simple question: Why haven't I been using public relations before, and how can I get started right away? Fortunately, the answer isn't too difficult. Once you really dive into the subject you'll be wondering why you didn't consider the help of public relations in the first place.
Top 6 Ways Public Relations Can Help Your SEO Efforts
It is first important to understand what public relations actually is and how it works online. In short, a public relations department is in charge of creating relationships and connections with large publications and other businesses that can offer publicity for a company. Amongst their many responsibilities comes online work. A few ways that they can really help your SEO include:
- Connections. The job of public relations is to find media outlets to promote a business, and these media outlets are often large publications and organizations. If you can talk with someone who has a connection at an authoritative company, you might have a better chance of getting a link on that website. Have your public relations rep write a press release and link back to your company. If that doesn't work, see if they can use their connections to find you an opportunity to submit an article or a listing.
- Content Experience. Those who work in public relations generally have a good sense of the media. They can often write things that go viral, and they know what the public wants. Have public relations read your content and help you determine what works for your readers. Search engines like to see relevant content, so although you might be doing the optimizing, PR pros will be doing more than you think.
- Traffic and Visibility. This is one place where SEO will actually help PR, and in the end both will benefit. When it comes to getting traffic for different press releases, using the right keywords will make a difference. It will help this content get featured on a SERP, and then more and more people will begin to click, see the release, and hopefully find your link and click once again.
- Reputation. If you can advertise on your site the fact that you were mentioned (or even featured) on a large publication, it is more likely that other large sites will feel you're worthy of being mentioned on their site where you would get another great backlink.
- Lessons Learned. PR pros know a lot about communication. They usually went to school to learn exactly how to communicate with others on a regular basis. This isn't something that SEOs are quite as good at (usually), so a PR agency can teach SEOs quite a bit just over a lunch or a short meeting.
- Returning Connections. Many SEOs have a bad habit of working with someone once or twice and then letting the relationship fall through once they've earned that backlink. The truth is, keeping a relationship going can really help you gain visibility over the long term, most just don't wait around long enough to find out. Having PR pros help you maintain these relationships will ensure that you get these benefits.
In the end, it isn't always the easiest to start working with a PR agency. These companies are particular with who they want to work with, and they don't focus on just SEO. They have many different responsibilities, so keep this in mind as you reach out to gain this extra help.
Do you use a public relations department to help your SEO efforts? What has been your experience?