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Can SEO be merged with PR to help build more links?

By: admin | Comments: 3

Can SEOs and PRs work together to fight the good fight?

A bit of context…

While I do freelance, I must highlight that all of the experiences and advice that I discuss in this piece is largely related to my in-house work.

Having worked both client and agency side during my time in digital, I know firsthand that it isn’t always easy for SEOs to work seamlessly with a PR team. Even the so called top SEO agencies struggle to do it effectively.

I currently work for leading experience day company Buyagift.com, but I recall that, when working at a supposedly leading UK agency a couple of years ago, I was literally thrown into meetings with the PR agencies for huge companies – including a major international insurance firm in the city. I can honestly say that we wasted hours of time just sitting there, with them telling me what they were up to, and me having very little idea of how to harness it for SEO. This was probably partly because it all felt a little hostile – with many of them simply not being able to understand why we would need to step into their world. But, much of it was definitely the result of both parties working completely separate from one another.

And now…

Have things progressed? It depends what you mean by progression. I think PRs have become more ‘web 2.0’ savvy in the last couple of years – meaning they are now beginning to understand why we as SEOs would need to engage in online PR activity. But if I’m completely honest, I still don’t think it’s possible to operate together without blurring some lines along the way. Ultimately, link building has evolved in such a way that any link builder worth their salt will be targeting news sites – while PR peeps have also cottoned onto the value of prolific bloggers. Therein lay the crossovers that simply need to be accepted. But experience has shown me that there are definitely ways to make it all work for you so that you truly can reap the benefits from a link and visibility perspective.

Facts to consider…

Fact 1: The bread and butter of a PR is to secure coverage for a brand through a multitude of mediums – which incidentally includes online.

Fact 2: The role of a link builder is to secure strong, contextual links from leading websites – the holy grail of which would be top-tier news sites.
Now do you see why you should be all over your PR team/agency like a rash? They chase high authority sites as part of their own remit – sites that you mightn’t have the contacts or means to target yourself.

It’s good to talk…

In order to benefit though, you absolutely have to keep all lines of communication open. Any teething problems I have experienced or have heard about from other SEOs have been the result of a plain and simple lack of conversation between the two. For example, I noticed after some weeks of them coming onboard, that when our agency was getting us anchored links in their pieces, they were providing the authors with product links that contained the PPC tracking – not ideal. But it was my fault, I hadn’t checked, nor spoken to them about it beforehand. Talking to them about it stopped this from happening again – simple, but a great case in point.

While on the topic of anchor text choices, many PRs will naturally accept whatever the journalist opts for. But what if they are too focused on exact match without realising? I am seeing this more and more, where other link builders have got journalists into the mindset that exact match is good. This may have either been back in the day when we all did it, or they may just have been working with gormless SEOs, but either way, some might be in the habit of using overly targeted text under the false impression that this is almost a favour to us.

As you know, this will damage your link profile and leave you open to our good friend the Penguin. Being aware and keeping on top of that is also important, and while seemingly simple, it’s something many people forget about.

It’s not what you know….

Something I touched upon earlier was their contacts. They will undoubtedly have a little black book bursting with journalists that provided you have a strong enough working relationship, they mightn’t be aversed to sharing with you. You might be extremely creative, but just not well connected in media circles. Maybe you plan to organise a bespoke press and blogger event in order to try and secure some PR links? Call them and up and get them onboard – it’ll pay off. To reiterate (and I apologise now because I will keep on about this) – you need to have regular calls and meetings with them. We have weekly telephone meetings with our PR guys, and I actively encourage our SEO agency to do the same.

Low hanging fruit from your PR team

In any other context I’d be loathed to use that term (I hate it), but I think it’s quite fitting here…
Whether you have an internal PR team or you work with an agency, I guarantee that they will be doing things that you can tap into. Perhaps they carry out regular studies to support their own campaigns? These stats are gold dust to SEOs like us. They can be used to build shareable infographics, to develop newsworthy press releases and even to help flesh out your own outreach articles. Pick up the phone – you’ll soon see the value of doing so. For example I am putting together a campaign in order to secure some strong news site links to a particular set of categories for Buyagift.

I plan to do this through offering journalists the opportunity to ‘face their fears’ when trying out a selection of bungee jumps, skydives and creepy crawly handing experiences – and I’ve had a good level of response from them so far. However, every one of them has suggested I find them a news hook if they are to pitch it to their editors.

This is perfectly understandable, but having struggled to come up with one, I got straight on the phone to our PR agency who suggested we put together a full study on phobias. The stats from this research would serve as a fantastic hook – bingo!

Their coverage could well be your links… so talk to them!

Further to this, PR teams write press releases – and probably quite regularly. Once written, they’ll inevitably be uploaded to a selection of top press release distribution sites such as PR Newswire and PR Web. Often these sites allow you to include links within the release, so I’d recommend you (a) speak with the PR agency/team to see if you can optimise these releases by tweaking the titles to include your target terms where possible, and (b) discuss the potential inclusion of a link to at least your homepage. While the jury is very much out as to whether that’ll offer you any SEO benefit any more, it’s worth doing, because if the release is used by journalists and bloggers, they might well be inclined to include the link that you placed in the release, within their own article – it’s worth a go.

More and more PR agencies are recognising the value anyway, but if it’s needed, educate them on why you need these links. It’s not realistic that they’ll be able to get you lots of great ones to your deeper pages, but by making sure they understand the value of having one at all, they are more likely to push for at least a brand link in their coverage.

PSSSST… Sneaky madcap James theory alert: One thing that may persuade them to ensure there is a link in their pieces is to speak to your Marketing Manager or whoever manages them, to set up a referring traffic KPI? Could any direct sales their articles generate be rewarded with commission? If so, what do they need to increase the chance of sending traffic to you? That’s right…. a clickable link…

As I say, this is something I’ve just been considering, and not anything that has been tested here. I’ll keep you posted on that. I’d be interested to know if anybody else has done this.
Granted, they mightn’t actually go for it because they may be more inclined to opt for an affiliate tracking model – but again – it’s all worth a go..

What about my own experience of it all…

I have traditionally secured links through a combination of what I’ll call blogger and journalist outreach.
As a company, we hadn’t invested a great deal in PR as such, and I therefore had a pretty blank canvas to work with.

For a around a year I had a good level of success; I built links on sites such as Mail Online, Independent.co.uk, AOL, Sun.co.uk, iVillage and Huffington Post – all through a variety of activity that I’ll discuss in another post.

It wasn’t long though before management wanted to harness this success through the use of a PR agency (who would of course have very different KPis – meaning far less emphasis would be placed on the link and anchor text within the coverage). While this was of course a positive move for PR, it has meant that I have had to reign in some of my journalist based activity in order to avoid any cross over. The problem with this is that while they are of course more than capable of securing some fantastic coverage for us, they aren’t obligated to secure a link. In this sense, I feel a little stifled as a link builder. Have any of you had any experience of this? I’d love to hear from you.

And there we have it… until next time, SEO folks!

Link building SEO SEO and PR