How PR and SEO Can Collaborate

Authentic link building tips

PR + SEO

How PR and SEO Can Collaborate

Connect with us

Pinterest Youtube Facebook-f Instagram

PR and SEO go well together. PR has the good content and outreach that are essential in SEO, so these two otherwise separate marketing components can complement each other’s efforts to achieve the same goal. In what ways can they do this?

Sharing specialized knowledge

Most SEO specialists know that most marketing efforts work best when they work together. In working together, the two parties can educate each other on the hows and the whys of the favors they ask of each other. For instance, the PR people can teach those in SEO about media outreach. Meanwhile, the SEO specialists can teach those who do PR about the impact of online earned media on search engine rankings.

Optimizing Links 


The SEO team should help the PR team optimize links in earned media coverage. This means using keywords and URLs that need a ranking boost. They have the technical know-how regarding what the search engines like, what they’ll penalize, and what the company actually needs.

Managing Influencer Outreach


The SEO team has to coordinate with the PR team in terms of media outreach. There shouldn’t be any confusion regarding which team and which team rep should be contacting which media entity. For instance, the SEO team can deal with the bloggers and niche authorities while the PR team can be in touch with the mass media outlets.

Conveying The Same Message 


In a manner of speaking, it’s all about keeping their stories straight. With so many people serving as sources to the media and the public, all that they put out there have to agree with each other. Sending mixed messages can prove to be very detrimental. It’s not just about telling the same story. It’s also about being on the same subject. For example, it’s counterproductive to be promoting two different things at the same time.

Optimizing Content 


Creating content is no joke, so it’s most efficient to get existing content and revise it to cater to different audiences. For instance, an infographic can be turned into a series of articles and blog posts. The PR team, on its part, can pitch the original infographic to various media sources.

At the end of the day, these collaborative efforts between PR and SEO bring in better results, deliver a stronger impact, as well as render each team individually more effective at the same time. Coordination is absolutely paramount and communication is obviously key.

4 Small Business Password Management Techniques to Try

Lastpass

4 Small Business Password Management Techniques to Try

Security is a critical issue for any business. It may be a more technologically advanced era, but that also means that there is a greater need to protect your data since there are increasing numbers of digital techniques for breaching security that you must guard against. It’s not only about protecting your data within your business headquarters. When security breaches are discussed, it is inevitable for people to think that insider company information — like their employees’ personal details, their customers’ payment information, and key corporate files — is the target. The truth, however, is that a business must also keep an eye on its social media accounts. Hacking is quite common — there have already been a number of high-profile hacking incidents involving more established companies in the past.

Digital damage

You might not lose sensitive or confidential information when an individual with malicious intent gains control of your Facebook or Twitter accounts, but think about the entirely different kind of damage that this can cause. A hacker could publish false information that gets shared in a flash, misleading everyone who reads it. Images or photos could be released, damaging the brand. Even simply preventing a company from accessing its own social media accounts could potentially result in significant losses, marketing- or profit-wise.

Keeping your accounts safe

There are ways to prevent your social media accounts and profiles from falling into the hands of hackers. Choose and protect a good password.  Effective small business password management is your first line of defense against malicious attacks. Choose a solution that would allow even multiple individuals to edit and publish content without having to enter the actual password. Monitor social accounts every single day. Keeping a close eye on your accounts is also a simple way to detect any strange activity that could indicate a hack. Have you noticed any posts that are different in subject or scope from what your company typically posts? Is there a pattern emerging regarding the times that content gets published — or has the posting schedule become erratic? Have there been changes made to the account information? Any of these could be signs that the account has been breached. Be wary of third-party apps that access your social accounts.  It has become common to access third-party apps through Facebook or Twitter for greater convenience, but pay attention to the permissions they are asking you to grant. When you agree that the app can “post to your account,” you could be opening your account up to unknown users.  Create a contingency plan. Finally, if a hacker does succeed in taking control of your social media account, you need to be prepared to take action. Consult the professionals and establish a policy that all concerned team members must be able to execute to begin recovery from the security breach.

How to run your own website audit and why it’s important

So you have a beautiful website you love, but you’re not getting any traffic. It is time for a website audit.

I was recently a guest on Mike Wood’s Marketing Impact Podcast discussing this very subject. So, if you don’t feel like reading this post, no worries, just listen to our chat here.

What the heck is a site audit?

I know, it sounds like a bunch of technical jargon that as a business owner might not make sense to you. And you are half right. But some of the tools I am going to recommend to you do a great job at breaking the data down into simple easy to understand info. At the end of the day, It’s important to have a clear picture of your web presence. We all turn to the internet when we are looking fro a product or service nowadays, which is why it is so important to step up your game when it comes to online marketing.

My Favorite Website Audit Tools

There are dozens of free or low cost tools you can use to run a site audit. I like WooRank, SEM Rush is also a favorite and & Moz.com.

Woo Rank has a free tool that pairs with Google Chrome and you can crawl each page in your site to see all of the SEO errors by page. Woo Rank does a really great job of using simple terms and giving specific instruction on how to improve your ranking. So if you are ready to tackle DIY SEO, this is a great place to start.

woo rank plug in

SEM Rush allows you to look into the traffic patterns and set up of your competitors sites in a really cool way. It also allows you to filter only organic traffic, only paid ads traffic etc. I would say SEM Rush is a little more advanced, but you can get some great insight there if you have some experience with SEO or reading website statistics.

Last but not least, Moz.com. I love Moz for a few reasons.They are so much more than a site audit tool so again a little more advanced, but a great tool. Although Moz Pro will do a great job at taking a look at your website and giving you an accurate picture of how your website looks to search engines. Moz Local, as I mentioned in a previous post is an amazing tool for local SEO. This one also has a toolbar app that shows you your domain authority ranking. Moz Pro is a little more on the expensive side for businesses at $99 per month but you can set it and forget it. You can schedule monthly or weekly audits to come right to your inbox.

Just because the three site audit tools are my favorite, doesn’t mean there are not better ones out there that might work better for you. Once you have chosen the tool you would like to use, here are some things to look for:

  • Crawl Errors
  • Duplicate Content
  • missing alt tags
  • text to HTML ratio
  • H tags
  • Meta titles & descriptions
  • Keyword ranking

    • I recommend you run your own site audit at least twice a year. The less errors you have in your website the easier it is for Google to crawl.Even if you have an SEO company you work with, check the stats from time to time on your own, it never hurts to see unbiased data and to keep your vendors working hard for you. Last, if you have website audit tools you love, leave them in the comments, I would love to hear about them! Happy Marketing!

    Non-technical ways SMB’s can boost visibility online

    Simple SEO tips for any business owner

    Looking for ways to boost your online visibility without hiring an expensive SEO firm? Don’t get me wrong there is a point where your business will need to hire someone like me to take over the SEO work needed to boost your websites visibility but if that is just not in the cards, here are a few DIY SEO tips.

    Social Media / Directory Listings

    Sometimes setting up social profiles is half the battle which is why all too often I see business owners only connected to one or two social sites. I promise you it is worth it to set up all of them, not only for SEO but for your online brand. Fast forward 5 years from now, you want to set up Pinterest for your Dental office and someone has the URL you want. Do it now, keep the content consistent, meaning same local phone number, same URL endings, same address etc.

    Set up:
    If you are on a tight budget, hire a high school student who can wiz through setting up all of the profiles you need, have them keep track of all of the username and passwords they set up

    Next step: Complete set-up with (the reputable) directories for SEO
    I love Moz Local for this. It’s $89 per year. They pull content from your Google business page and Facebook page and submit it to the “Good” directories (like Angie’s List, BBB, Super Pages Judy’s Book, Yelp Etc.) which is huge for local SEO.

    You have just invested less than $200 for some really powerful links back to your site.

    Public Relations

    I don’t want to offend any of my PR colleagues out there by pretending I am a PR expert. But I have learned enough over the years from some of the best to put a “PR lite program” together for my clients. PR is the new link building in my opinion. 5 years ago link building consisted of SEO’ spamming the internet with fake directories, fake websites and fake links to get your website to the first page of Google. Google said, no thanks and penalized all of those black hat techniques. Some SEO influencers and speakers are even saying we should lose the term link building altogether.

    What it comes down to is relationships. Every local radio station and TV station lists the reporter email addresses on their websites. Twitter is also a great place to connect with reporters. Spend some time researching do’s and dont’s of PR before you start reaching out but if you can make some good connections and eventually be featured, the link back to your site from the online version is powerful! Not to mention the great exposure. We don’t often think of PR as an SEO strategy but it is one of the strongest!

    To hear the audio version of this post tune into my podcast interview with Legal Mornings HERE.