Why combine your SEO and public relations strategies?

A company needs a good strategy to compete and stay in business. Today, the online world is clearly the space to reach your customers, since everything happens online. SEO plays a very important role in this strategy and allows sites to gain search engine visibility and attract an audience.

That said, SEO isn’t the only way to promote a company. When combined with good public relations (or PR), they will complement each other and make for an extremely effective digital marketing strategy. So here are the reasons why you should combine your public relations with your SEO strategy today to reach new heights!

Adapting PR and SEO to search engines

In recent years, Google has refined its algorithms to make it easier to identify bad SEO techniques and put the user experience front and center. SEO, which is the art of positioning web content in the first organic results of search engines, while essential, should also be supported by strategies that provide qualified content to Internet users. Websites that focus on customer satisfaction tend to be better positioned on search engines than others.

Your company will be more successful if you combine SEO ranking factors with public relations. Public relations is used to strengthen a company’s image and manage its reputation through traditional media (radio, press, television). So you need to talk about and get people talking about your business, share content with media interest and analyze and implement the technical SEO strategy. SEO and PR are therefore made to help develop a content strategy that will naturally benefit users.

The benefits of combining PR with SEO

Incorporating public relations into your SEO strategy will have extremely positive effects for website promotion. It creates online visibility and attracts influential people to a company. In short, SEO and PR together allow you to:

• Improve the positioning of content on search engines;
• Increase traffic to a website;
• Build trust in your company;
• Boost your sales.

Combining quality public relations with SEO will get you mentions on third party sites and help you gain visibility, while managing your online reputation and further persuading Internet users.

Get links from public relations

Companies use public relations to obtain links, called “backlinks”. These are links to their websites, social networks or specific content. These links are extremely important because Google sees these links as a way to determine a company’s popularity and the credibility of its website. Google prioritizes companies with the greatest number of relevant and quality links. Public relations is a very good way to generate these links and can therefore be an important factor for search engine positioning and traffic growth. In short, public relations for SEO is about strategically approaching people who can help you get placements and links.

Here is an example of a backlink to the My Little Big Web site in an article published for Isarta.

When and how to combine public relations and SEO?

As discussed above, companies use public relations to their own advantage. However, given the impact that SEO and PR have when used together, there is great interest in identifying areas where they can partner and derive maximum benefit from each other. Here are some examples where a partnership is best for a company’s strategy.

Combine PR and SEO on social media

Social networks are omnipresent and very important today. A company with no presence on Facebook or Instagram has no idea what it is missing!  SEO and PR have to work together to increase the company’s image and connect the business with users to attract and retain customers. This strategy involves leveraging social networks to get feedback, shares and links from Internet users.

PR and SEO need influencers

Making connections with influencers can be very useful for both SEO and PR. Social signals are really important for SEO and using influencers to share content is a foolproof strategy to promote your business and increase your domain authority, i.e. increase your site’s clout on search engines. An influencer can impact a large number of people and has the power to convince and persuade. The result will therefore be positive for both SEO and PR. Building a relationship with an influencer will not only get quality links from their content but also from future contacts on the various social networks.

Guest articles in your marketing strategy

Like contact with influencers, guest posting is part of both SEO and public relations. This involves publishing an article as a guest author on a blog or website. For public relations, this makes it possible to highlight expertise for the benefit of your company. When using a guest article for your marketing strategy, you need to consider different aspects of SEO, such as link building, keyword use and content optimization to make it is effective. In addition, SEO experts need the editorial and communication skills used in public relations to produce compelling content and attract audiences to the website in question.

The impact of press releases on PR and SEO

The press release, a well-known medium in the world of journalism and public relations, can be extremely effective for ranking a website if it is combined with SEO. It can have two distinct impacts:

Direct impact on SEO: Content can be well ranked on search engines thanks to the URL or link of the site where it was published, but this is relatively rare, except when it is considered as “new” on Google.

Indirect impact on PR: If the release is unique, relevant, well written and draws attention, it is very likely to be featured by a blog or third party. This results in a quality mention or link to your content.

Here is an example of a press release:

The importance of social proof

As we have seen above, SEO and PR are a winning combo for your marketing strategy. Their goal is to develop social proof, i.e. to promote your company to users, influencers or other companies. The two join forces to build a sense of trust and credibility while highlighting the opinions of others.

SEO and PR are now inseparable

On the web, you have to constantly adapt and broaden your reach. Search engines are only growing and becoming more and more demanding. Gone are the days of simply finding keywords and optimizing page content. SEO now encompasses many factors, each more precise than the next, a major challenge.

SEO experts have to respect all the technical requirements of SEO while also having a solid knowledge of public relations. They therefore have to create content, optimize it and ensure that it meets the needs of the user while strengthening their company’s image.

Get help with your SEO strategy

A solid SEO strategy is essential to successfully position your website on search engines. We recommend that you work with SEO experts to guarantee the success of your business. Don’t hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to help you develop your strategies.

Eugénie Delhaye

Cofondatrice et Spécialiste Marketing Internet et Référencement Naturel (SEO) Ma maîtrise des techniques de référencement, combinée à une analyse minutieuse des tendances du marché, me permet de créer des stratégies SEO sur mesure, efficaces et durables.