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Thursday 12 December 2013

SEO and PR - 5 reasons why they should be supporting each other in 2014

Even up to 2013, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) was popular as a standalone technique adopted by internet marketers to promote online sales of products or services. But with Google making significant changes to their search engine ranking and result listing algorithm throughout 2013, the SEO marketplace has undergone a significant shift from link building strategies towards a more comprehensive methodology that also affords equal importance to the quality of content. Amongst other things, Google rates the quality of content based on the number of users who have shared the particular content in the online and social media space.


1. Modified SEO ranking methodology to be adopted by search engines in 2014

With the changes to the SEO ranking methodology adopted by Google, SEO and PR have moved closer than ever to each other.  Going forward from January 2014, SEO and PR agencies feel that both the functions will be required to support each other. They must complement each other’s actions in order to get good search results.


2. Creating and optimising the content

In the 'old days' when creating content, SEO professionals used to focus mainly on keywords when writing content. These days it's all about providing answers to questions. More and more people are using Google to find answers to their questions... "how to I..." and "where do I find..." etc. Content must be engaging and be of real value to readers. Of course it's still important to have relevant keywords within the copy in addition to LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing).

And any decent PR agency will be singing from a similar hymn sheet... give your readers something of value, something they can share socially with their own followers, word of mouth from a trusted source is one of the best forms of marketing. And done well it's relatively low cost.


3. Social engagement and SEO

With the rapid proliferation of social networking sites, it has become imperative for SEO specialists to make their structured content socially engaging (as mentioned in the paragraph above). This is where the role of an experienced PR professional would come in handy. A PR specialist is able to understand the different types of structured content available for marketing including blog posts, case studies and white papers, brand information, website content, product reviews, and company profile videos. In order to make it socially engaging, the PR professional works on the language and style needed for a blog post to have the maximum impact. This means that content can be used from both an SEO and PR perspective.


4. Monitoring and measuring Search Engine Results

Both PR and SEO professionals use processes that require the effective monitoring of search results. SEO specialists use tools for monitoring the effectiveness of search campaigns, and PR specialists perform similar analysis on PR campaigns and social media. Looking merely at a campaign from an SEO perspective alone could make a successful campaign look like a failure without taking in account the PR perspective, and vice-versa.

SEO specialists traditionally collect data relating to the number of visits and the conversion rate to measure the effectiveness of search engine marketing campaigns. PR specialists can include metrics at the engagement level including bounce rate, the time on site, and the page views per visit. PR professionals have a better idea about the company’s goal and objectives and can come up with additional search engine metrics that can relate to the overall business objectives of the company.


5. Reducing cost

In essence, when a company is able work with an SEO agency and a PR consultant, the CPA is often much reduced as each visitor is more 'primed to buy' from your brand as opposed to your competitors. It now makes perfect sense to run PR and SEO together as closely knitted as possible.


How can we help?

For more information on how angelfysh can help your business be successful in Google, please get in touch with lisa@angelfysh.com.

And to talk to the North East's leading PR consultant +Sarah Hall about how to build your profile and your profits contact Sarah here.

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