PRSecrets: How PR helps HR with SEO
PR has long been used to raise brand profile and awareness, show expertise, build trust, and stay at the top of customers’ minds.
And PR still does all those things, but Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – which basically gets a website found – means it is often an intrinsic part of winning the battle to be on Google’s front page.
PR and SEO do the same job – build trust. However, they target different audiences and use different techniques.
PR builds confidence and trust in your brand for your customer audience. SEO does the same, but its only target audience is Google - and if Google trusts you, you will achieve a higher ranking on its search engine, which means more website visitors. Doing both PR and SEO will improve your reputation on and offline – and each supports the other.
When you consider your own browsing habits, it’s easy to understand why click through rates are much higher for the companies listed at the top of Page 1. It takes a keen searcher to look beyond the first few options on Google, let alone go to a second or third page.
So marketeers have a choice – they can pay to be at the top of the page (it’ll say ‘ad’) or they can aim to be there organically (where results show just under the paid-for search results). Or they can do both. The first gets quick top-page ranking, the second isn’t quick, but it’s really important. And it’s this second approach, the organic search, that PR supports.
Saying this, PR isn’t a magic bullet for SEO. What it is, is part of a magical mix: a good product or service, a well-designed website optimised for SEO, backlinks, well-researched keywords - and a relationship with an audience – this is where PR comes in – creating a good feeling about the product, service and people, building trust and credibility.
PR helps audiences understand; it helps them want to hear what you have to say, be curious and learn from you. It helps impart knowledge, raise awareness of issues and educate. It may be done in all manner of ways, but media relations and content creation are an enormous part of it.
Great content and increased awareness of your brand will result in increased Google searches for it – which in turn will increase Google’s trust. This means that when it comes to marketing these days, staying Top of Mind is just as important as staying Top of Google Page One.
Watch out for my second blog on backlinks, an important but tricky part of an SEO campaign in the HR niche.