Public Relations (PR) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be seen as those distant relatives you saw once a year at awkward family gatherings. But with the industry continually evolving, PR and SEO may be seen as siblings due to their overlapping worlds.
Upon entering the job field, one must be prepared for anything. Being a PR newcomer, understanding SEO could help you achieve success in your field. Also, it can equip you with the tools that allow you to make the best possible choices in your work
Backlinking
Think of backlinks as an endorsement that SEO professionals use to spread their content to other websites. Backlinking can easily be summed up as when an external website provides a link to your site.
PR professionals are seen as the key to generating more backlinks. When organizing a PR campaign, other websites can produce material that backlinks to the company. These backlinks will help generate traffic and help the company earn a better place in the search engines’ organic results.
For instance, if you were hosting a charity gala as a Public Relations campaign and a Forbes representative shows up to the gala, the representative may then write an article about the Charity Galas contribution. This article, once published, will then backlink to your company.
If a PR professional understands the importance of backlinking, their campaign efforts could be driven to invite more news sources and reporters. This creates more awareness about the brand. SEO professionals can work with the PR team to generate traffic to the company.
Keywords
SEO is all about understanding the best keywords to use and how to manipulate them to earn traffic. Keywords are tricky to choose. Multiple variations must be produced and analyzed to determine the best one. A great and free resource to use is google analytics. Google Analytics can track keywords and analyze what keywords to use when up against your competition.
PR teams can work with SEO teams when promoting keywords. The PR team can include the keyword in interviews, campaigns, and social media posts. By generating the keyword throughout the company’s business efforts, the company can slowly start branding that term. By continually keeping this term in their campaign efforts, they can earn a better ranking in organic results because the search engine sees the relevance between that specific keyword and the company.
Campaign Analytics
SEO professionals have the tools to analyze campaign effort results. They can see if there was a rise in traffic and if they received a higher ranking in the search engine.
The PR team can use these results to examine their efforts and see if they completed their task. The knowledge of the SEO team can help the PR team learn what they can do better or learn what they are doing correctly.
Social Media
The SEO team works hard to stay ahead of trends in their specific industry in order to stay ahead of their competition. SEO enthusiasts most likely knew the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” was trending before anyone else did, simply because its keyword was trending off the charts and they have been observing trends for the upcoming months.
By working with the SEO team, Public Relations professionals can find out what is trending today and create social media content around that. This relationship can help boost the brand and gain traffic.
If you think about it, the SEO team knows what will be in season fashion-wise before anyone else. So, if your SEO co-worker is wearing scarves again, that means scarves are back. Wear a scarf tomorrow, or better yet keep a scarf in your office at all times.
Press Releases
The PR team knows how to piece together a creative and impactful press release to help expand their business—with help from the SEO team. PR professionals can find out what is trending today and the best keywords to use. The teams working together will generate more traffic for the company.
As mentioned earlier, the SEO team knew about the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” rising popularity before anyone else. If the SEO team informed the PR team about this growing trend, that company could be the first business to post about it.
When working together, the SEO and PR team can find out what is increasing in popularity and make a move on it. They can help boost a company and generate traffic. So, become friends with those in SEO and learn some tips. These tips can make you go from “new kid on the block” to “one of the regulars” in the office quickly.
Lucy Long is a Strategic Communications major with a Data Analytics minor at Texas Christian University and is currently interning for Magnus Opus. She also spends her time writing for Carson Leslie Center blog and is a regular guest contributor at Social Media Delivered.
