How PR & SEO Can Work Together For Your Company’s Success

We all know what SEO is. But have you ever considered how SEO can boost your PR strategy ahead of your competitors? 

Companies have been running PR campaigns for years, but it’s only recently that we’ve started hearing a buzz around SEO. While both are their own unique practices, when you use them in tandem, they can work wonders for your business, both in terms of audience reach and brand recognition. 

At PressKitHero, we want to make sure that small businesses have the tools they need to leverage a killer PR strategy so that you can show how valuable you are to your industry. Read on to find out how SEO can be essential to your PR. 

What is PR in SEO?

PR in SEO means combining the strategies of SEO (keyword rankings, search intent, site optimization, meta-descriptions, content updates, and link building) with the strategies of PR (guest posting, sponsored posts, regularly contributing to industry insights, and interviewing on different media platforms). 

Think of it like this, if SEO is a fire, then PR is the fuel.

With a combination of SEO and PR tactics, you can expand the effectiveness of each respectively. You’ll be able to effectively assert your brand message and ensure your site is visible to organic traffic. Essentially, they strengthen your chances of being noticed in the industry. 

SEO vs. PR: What’s The Difference? 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) improves aspects of online content and websites to ensure a high ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Whereas good PR (public relations) aims to improve your business’s public perception. They’re both different, but when used together, you can achieve great success for your small business. 

PR can benefit from SEO because businesses are now operating in a digital world, and SEO can elevate your content in the digital space. 

Why is SEO Important for PR? 

Garnishes Higher Trust and Authority

The trust and authority you gain from a successful PR campaign will pass on to your company’s website. The best part is Google will pick this up because it aims to give searchers trustworthy and high-authority websites in the first search engine results pages (SERPs). 

The more your site keeps coming up at the top of results when searching for keywords about your industry, the stronger your business’s credibility becomes.   

Expands the Target Market Reach

SEO makes your content more visible, ultimately increasing the number of people exposed to your company’s message. 

Your content isn’t just the articles you’ve written or are featured in. It encompasses anything you want your audience to see, such as; your website, whitepapers, your social media, press releases, and webinars. Basically, anything your company is involved in appeals to different nuances in your audience. 

Also, when you include influencer outreach in your PR strategy, it raises your business’s number of backlinks and mentions, allowing a wider audience to learn more about the products or services you have to offer. 

SEO Insights Strengthen PR Initiatives

Even though PR is essentially results-driven at its core, you’ll still need a reliable way of identifying the ideas and relationships that are worth your time. SEO helps provide that direction and momentum for your PR strategy.

Adding keyword research, competitive analysis, backlink research, and using SEO tools like Semrush or Ahrefs will give you the ammunition you need to boost your PR. 

Here are a few more reasons why SEO is important for a successful PR strategy: 

• Improves your website’s keyword associations
• Manage your brand reputation using SEO to add positive information to your search engine results pages. 
• Effective SEO incorporates content gap analysis to help you create engaging and shareable content
• SEO helps you achieve brand consistency in your messaging because your key messages will go to the right platforms
• Combining your PR strategy with SEO can strengthen lead generation for your business

How to Leverage SEO in Your PR Campaigns

Step 1: Understand Your Target Keywords

The core of any SEO strategy is invested in keyword research. It identifies the words or phrases that people are already searching for online. You’ll need to choose the right ones for your industry so that your content has a higher chance of being shown to your audience.

It’s important to keep updating your target keywords regularly so that you stay on top of industry trends. 

Here’s how you can conduct keyword research:

• Create a list of about 5-10 broad topics that are relevant to your industry.
• Expand on each topic using a list of phrases you think your audience might type in the search bar.
• Find related search terms that correspond with the ones you’ve selected - you can use Google’s suggestions to help you with this by going to the bottom of the page.
• Use a keyword tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Wordtracker to analyze the strength of your keywords. You can check for the exact search term, how high the search volume is, how much competition there is, and any related terms you may have missed.
• Decipher how you rank in your industry so you can alter your strategy and choose less competitive keywords.
• Verify search intent. Are people searching these keywords just for information or to purchase a product or service? Make a note of this, as this is important if you want to convert readers into customers with your content.

Step 2: Use Keywords in Press Release Titles

Once you know the keywords to include, you now need to put them in the right places. Titles are a great place to start, and you should use your target keyword here. 

Make sure to also use the keyword once at the beginning of your content and then use variations of it throughout the rest. Try not to overstuff your keyword because your content then becomes awkward and spammy. Search engines also frown on this practice, which can see your page getting ranked lower in SERPs. 

Step 3: PR Content

Your PR or SEO strategy isn’t going to work without high-quality content. Your audience is looking for value and relevance, so give them that. 

In PR, journalists will only select quality content worthy of sharing. Similarly, Google is only going to prioritize content that is high-quality. 

PressKitHero can help you share your high-quality content in a unique press kit that you can easily send to journalists to help them share your story. Every small business PR strategy can use a press kit to back up its value. 

Step 4: Leverage Your Network to Obtain Backlinks

When a website adds a link in their content to your website, that’s a backlink. They’re super useful in SEO because search engines see these as an endorsement for your website. The more you obtain, the higher you can rank.  If a website does feature you in their content and doesn’t link to it, reach out to them and get them to add it. 

Step 5: Strategic Media Coverage & Guest Posting

Guest blogging is when you encourage someone outside your company to write a blog to be shown on your website, and it remains one of the most effective link-building strategies. It’s still worth doing, even though it’s harder to get those articles backlinked. 

Here’s how to find places that allow you to publish your guest post: 

• Establish the websites you want to publish your PR content. Of course, you’d select the ones with high traffic and trustworthiness. Just search your keyword and “guest article / write for us”.
• Analyze your list by running them through any of the SEO tools we mentioned earlier.
• Reach out to the blog manager of each website and see if they’re willing to write your guest post.

Step 6: Take Advantage of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT)

PR does almost the same thing as SEO algorithms in prioritizing expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. It aims to build a positive and trustworthy perception of your brand to get the public interested. So, collaborating with well-respected and influential publications is a huge boost for your PR, which translates to SEO too. 

One of the best ways to ensure you get these collaborations is by building high-quality digital campaigns that would be attractive to them as well as your audience. It wouldn’t hurt if you had an in-depth press kit to prove you take your PR seriously. 

Conclusion

The bottom line is even though SEO and PR are different entities, they can be an effortlessly powerful team to help you get the best marketing results. 

The best ways to leverage SEO in your PR campaigns are choosing your keywords wisely, creating content that matters, growing your network to encourage backlinks, trying guest posting, and not being afraid to reach out to major publications. You’ll be surprised just how much SEO improves your PR strategy. 

At PressKitHero, we’re always looking out for how small businesses can boost their PR tactics to help them get the visibility they deserve. If you’re still struggling to create a unique PR kit for your business, we can help you do just that! Try our free trial to get a feel of what you can achieve.