Once upon a time, SEO and PR were two vastly different aspects of marketing that functioned entirely separate of one another. Over time, as search engine algorithms changed and common goals became more plainly visible, PR professionals and SEO strategists alike began to see positive results when collaborating on their efforts.

There are two main ways that PR and SEO work together, which are:

  • Brand recognition
  • Backlinks through online media placements

Brand Awareness

It goes without saying that the more well-known a brand is, the higher the number of visitors will be on their website. The role of the PR firm will be to attain media placements for their client’s brand – whether this is on local or national television, radio, newspapers, magazines or online news sources. The more often the general public is hearing or reading about a particular company, the more brand searches will take place in search engines, thereby influencing the client’s rankings and organic traffic to their site.

CyberOptik, a Chicago SEO agency, states: “Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing strategy you can’t afford to ignore.” This couldn’t be more accurate. The role of the SEO strategist is to guarantee that the website itself is readily found when a user is searching for the client’s brand name, as well as to ensure the user is having a positive experience once they land on the website. This involves optimizing the pages on their website with meta data, improving the overall site speed, organizing the site structure in a way that is easy for both the user to navigate and for Google to crawl, and developing new content on the site that targets high-ranking keywords while also giving the user information on the company’s products and/or services.

The PR agency and the SEO team should work together to boost the credibility of their client’s brand and to drive more organic traffic to their website.

Backlinks in Earned Media Placements

Another way that PR and SEO work together is simple: links. Your client’s website should be credible – but how can a search engine know that the brand has authority? You guessed it – their backlink profile.

The more quality, authoritative websites that link to a website, the higher Google’s trust in that website and brand will be. Thankfully, part of the role of a PR agency is to attain earned media placements for their clients, and many of these placements are within online news sources and high-ranking blogs.

When a person or brand is mentioned within an article, it presents the opportunity for a link to exist. Often times, the person publishing the article will implement a link for readers to go directly to the website. But sometimes, a backlink is not immediately provided, and this is referred to as an “unlinked mention.” The role of the SEO strategist is then to find these articles that mention the client’s brand and reach out to the writer or editor in an effort to have that backlink implemented.

The PR team works to first attain these media placements for their clients, and the SEO strategist then seeks to ensure a backlink to the client’s website was provided. True, legitimate backlinks are gold, and they are a huge part of improving a site’s credibility, traffic and rankings on search engines.

Contact Pace PR for Your PR & SEO Strategy

Since one is not complete without the other, Pace Public Relations offers both PR and SEO services. You can rest assured that you will get both earned media placements and that your website is being optimizing for users and search engines.

For more information, contact us online or gives us a call at 212-254-4730 to learn more! We look forward to hearing from you.