How PR and SEO will help our clients in 2019
At Cherish, we enter this New Year full of anticipation, fresh thinking and some brave new solutions too (yes, Prime Minister – take note!). It’s 2019. Lets talk PR and SEO.
Last year, our work with innovation brands, entrepreneurs and digital disruptors showed us what our agency needs to do to make life easier for our time poor clients.
Gone are the days when clients have the space or energy to engage several different agencies for individual pieces of communications work.
For 2019, our ambition to reduce our client’s work pressure is to build on our own integrated services. From digital growth strategies to increasing visibility online, we will go further beyond our client’s expectations and match their business needs, exactly when they’re required.
This pledge leads us to one of the often talked about but rarely delivered collaborations between PR and SEO.
Some PR agencies like Cherish are integrating the two strategies and winning though. Admittedly some of the challenges are about educating clients that PR and SEO are now intrinsic, but that is now being proven.
In a nutshell, great narrative and strategic SEO will increase the propensity for target audiences to find and engage with brands through a strategy that is time efficient and effective.
We think it’s a ‘win win’ for all and to help spread this positivity, here’s our own top tips for making PR and SEO collaborations work.
FIVE TOP PR AND SEO TIPS
- What’s the word?
It starts with research but it is worth the effort. Whether you’re at an agency representing a client brand or running communications for your own brand, you’ll already have the best understanding of your business category and your customers. So understanding associated key words and phrases for your industry sector will be instinctive to you.
Create a short list of key words you think are relevant to your business and then enter these into a keyword research tool such as Google Keyword Planner.
You will see lots of related keywords, along with monthly search volumes. These will help you craft a list of most popular key words and phrases used when people search for related information. The descriptive words or phrases are often really obvious but its sometimes surprising what twists you will find.
- Quality and Quantity
Whether you are writing a blog, online journal, website copy or a piece of thought leadership, you now know the words that will help engage, interest and intrigue your customers. Be mindful and natural when you integrate these words into your copy. Cramming key words into copy to optimize search results will be penalized by Mama Google!
However, the highest searched terms are also the most competitive, so it’s often better to look at the ‘long-tail’ of keyword research – the terms with lower search volumes that are easier to rank for. These are also most likely to be the more specific keywords to your business.
Remember that when writing online content, quality and quantity go hand in hand. The current view is that an average 2,000 words will rank well on Google search but the content has to be interesting, insightful and engaging and that’s really the primary goal.
- Who are you talking to?
Just like any strategic PR plan, you need to think about your target audience. This helps you correctly tailor the article/story, blog or words you use in a way they’ll find interesting, relevant and understandable.
4. Make friends and share nicely
Google likes to see that your online article or blog is being shared and referenced by other credible sources. To help make this happen, you will need to generate some valuable backlinks.
SEO experts often look at Industry Directories to generate backlinks but this is actually where PR expertise really comes into play.
For example, we have found that an organic (non paid) tagged post from a credible Instagram Influencer can drive more engagement and visitors to a clients’ website than a paid Google Adword campaign.
Either way, it’s a no brainer to make sure your target publications include your website details in their online review copy. You may also want to add trackable codes so you can see how effective that article is (or isn’t) in driving people to your website.
Once you’ve written your article or release, your aim is now to get it in front of as many relevant people as possible. This can happen in a number of ways. Offer to write the article yourself (many technology, business and industrial/IT media want interesting copy and are happy to take from PR or brand experts). Otherwise share the article across your social media channels and ask your own network to share.
If you have posted the article on your blog or owned social channels, ask business contacts to link to the article on your site or even reach out to journalists who may be interested in using the article, or making a reference to it.
- Topicality and timeliness
As with any good PR, it is important that your content
is useful and informative to the reader. All search engines like to see written content that is tailored
towards a human audience. Add topicality too by linking the piece to a forthcoming event or moment.
Summary
Suffice to say, PR and SEO can work as a perfect marriage in any communications strategy. And the best news is that an agency that offers both PR and SEO together will help their clients’ time and budgets too!
For more information on how PR and SEO can work for your campaign, contact Gaby at Cherish gabriele.jesson@cherishpr.com