PR stands for Public Relations.
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.
Two completely different acronyms. Comprised of totally different letters.
And two entirely different things, altogether.
Right?
Well…maybe not. Especially here in 2013 America.
One thing PR people have traditionally done – with varying degrees of skill and success – is talk and write to their contacts at various publications and sites, with an eye toward getting a story written on their business or brand sometime soon.
This often works, of course. Especially if the PR person is highly connected, motivated and likable. But even when it does work, it’s hard to ever really know just how truly effective the resulting coverage is.
And, frankly, in ever-evolving, social media-savvy 2013 America…it’s really just not enough.
No, to survive and thrive in today’s fragmented, frantic media world, your company’s PR person really should work on becoming an SEO Master. Or at least an SEO Expert.
Of course, this is far from merely our own opinion.
As Forbes.com contributor Cheryl Conner opined in a recent blog post, “PR Is The New SEO.”
And one of the top tips offered by Conner in her very detailed and thorough post is, “Get credible PR coverage (with back links when possible).” Conner goes on to explain that coverage is “credible” when “the information is relevant, true and non promotional. It appears in a credible location…It’s what you’d tell your best friend, person to person, if they wanted a real and unvarnished look at a viable idea or solution.”
Here at Amplitude Digital, we agree with this smart strategy. And we think it sounds a lot like social media – especially Twitter – and especially that last part about “person to person…real and unvarnished.”
It also supports our theory that “inbound links” – one of the three core elements of good, old-fashioned SEO – should be the realm of your organization’s PR person, not your SEO.
We spoke about this topic a good bit in a previous blog post, where we expressed our opinion that a company and its SEO and PR people should focus less on “getting links”…and more on “getting coverage.”
And again, we’re not alone among savvy digital marketers in this sentiment. This author of this blog post on CommPRO.biz wisely opined that “media relations is the ultimate link building strategy,” and offered the sage advice that, “the more good media coverage you can get, the more visibility your content will enjoy in the search engines.”
In other words, like anything worth doing, PR and SEO are both worth doing right. And the more organic, natural, real and valuable your approach…the better. And the more you can lead by consistently generating strong, valuable, memorable information and content (another of the three core elements of SEO), the more you’re likely to get BOTH media coverage and inbound links.
So you can see how PR and SEO have a good bit more in common than they might appear to at first blush. And why a wealth of detailed blog posts on their similarities continue to crop up in the business and marketing climate of 2013 America. Like when respected site Search Engine Watch dubbed PR a “Must-Do For SEO in 2013” in a late 2012 blog post.
Here at Amplitude Digital, we firmly believe that it’s in your company’s best interest to educate all of your existing employees and team members – especially “senior” ones – in the many nuances of viable, powerful, “traditional” SEO. In fact, whenever we work with a new client, we make it a point to impart a good bit of SEO knowledge to their key team members.
And we recently authored another blog post – as well as a full ebook that you can download for FREE – on ways you can do just this, applying the successful principles of “Moneyball” in a SEO context.
So no matter what position you play your PR person at – or where you bat him or her in your company’s SEO lineup – that person should play a vital, active and aggressive role in helping you secure more and more big wins.
We’d love to talk to you more about this topic. Feel free to drop us a line to see how we can help you seamlessly and successfully blend PR with SEO. Follow and interact with Amplitude Digital on Twitter.
And feel free to share your own success stories or questions in the comments section below this blog post. We’d love to hear from you today!
