PR ❤ SEO – 22 Facts Every PR Expert Should Know About Search Engine Optimization

Most of the organic website traffic comes through search engines. Because of this, a high ranking on search engines can really help in bringing more potential visitors to your website. To get a higher ranking, search engine optimization (SEO) is the tool to use.

Content marketing and SEO are a match made in heaven and it’s difficult to think them as separate so while thinking about your communications and PR, you should definitely keep SEO in mind.

Professionals in charge of communications and content creation have become extremely important for search engine optimization. Acknowledgement of SEO helps to get your message out there for as many people as possible. With these SEO tricks, you’ll make sure your organic visibility keeps growing.

How PR can support search engine optimization

Get the most out of press releases

1. Publish your press releases publicly online – on the company website, newsroom as well as on special platforms for press releases.

2. Share press releases on social media and offer the possibility for sharing the release further for social amplification.

3. Figure out what the best day and time for publishing press releases is. This is an important factor in how many recipients read the press release.

“Press releases should be current, meaning they must be sent to the media well before any given season is already on. When the sent press release is a ready and timely package, the greater the chance that it gets published. Research results are also valuable information that can be used as facts in an article or to depict changing trends, for example.”

Comment from our international journalist survey

4. Always insert links into your press releases.

5. Build a relationship with the contributors and opinion leaders of the brand. Find active tweeters, bloggers and journalists.

Fine-tune your website

6. Learn the basics of proper content creation for SEO: using the right styles for headlines, highlighting important words and using keywords in the naming of images and videos, so those can be found on search engines. This is called on-page optimization.

7. If the name and the URL of a website can be edited, real words should be used instead of combinations of letters and numbers.

8. Call-to-Actions shouldn’t be just called “Learn more” but rather “Learn more about the cooperation of press releases and media monitoring”.

9. Don’t be afraid of Google Analytics! Follow the success of your content and find out how people end up on your website.

10. Optimize also your landing pages – make sure that the first search results of your company have high-quality content.

11. If someone shares your content on the web, ask them to post a link to your website or tag you as well.

Utilize data and monitoring

12. Connect your content to current trends. Google Trends is an easy-to-use tool to find current topics.

13. Keyword research is the best way to understand what your target audience is looking for. Do a keyword search to find out the relevant keywords for your business. Learn what your customers and stakeholders want to hear about. You can use services like Ubersuggest and Google Ads Keyword planner (you need a Google Ads account).

14. Is there a trending event or topic that is not really relevant to your brand? Creativity pays off. Could you enter the discussion by for example launching a relevant charity campaign?

15. Advertise on search engines: Google Ads shows which words lead to your website.

16. Follow the results of press releases with media monitoring and social media monitoring.

17. Set up your monitoring tool to alert you about the use of relevant keywords in media. This way you’ll know what is going on in your industry.

Remember: content is king

18. Focus on creating high-quality content. You want to make sure your content matches the questions searchers are looking for.

19. Longer content works: the Google algorithm checks the durability and reliability of the content. This also makes sure readers dwell on your page more and increase your ranking on Google results.

20. Don’t delete outdated, but still useful content. See what content performs the best and make sure to keep it updated.

21. Utilize relevant keywords in the title and in the first 150 words of your content.

22. Invest time and resources into content creation to create a consistent and lasting online brand.