When 2 become 1…
When does SEO outreach become PR? When do influencer relations become link building? Whatever label you apply, the line between SEO and PR is only becoming more and more blurred. The advent of social media, alongside Google’s goalpost-shifting algorithms, has resulted in what (not so long ago) were once distinctly different disciplines becoming homogenised and intertwined. So much so, it’s now hard to tell the difference between the two.
The truth is that SEO has become more difficult than ever, as it grapples to become more ‘PR-like’ in both its approach and execution. To some that represents a threat. Others, however, will see it as an opportunity. We’re a heartfelt proponent of the latter.
At 3WhiteHats, we’re passionate about the value we can unlock for our clients when working together with PR experts. Far from a threat, we see PR as SEO’s best friend. That’s why we’ve developed our very own approach to make PR and SEO integration as seamless, pain-free and fruitful as possible.
‘SEO is actually just a slang term for a collection of best practices – it is doing web development well, content creation well, social media well, PR well, and so on.’
Samuel Scott.
Our approach…
When you twin SEO with PR, you’re maximising your chances of generating a white hat, a natural and diverse link profile for your website. From an SEO perspective, that means boosting rank and increasing the volume of traffic to your website. At the same time, from a PR point-of-view, you’re amplifying your messaging and content assets further, improving share of voice organically.
Our approach to integration isn’t rocket science. It isn’t even particularly technical. But it works, and it delivers results… which is what really matters. All it really involves, at its core, is a well-planned, heavily-tailored outreach campaign focussing on a specific set of authoritative and relevant blogs. Sprinkle in a bit of transparency, coordination and personalised pitching and you’re done.
Here’s how we do it:
1. We begin by researching blogs and websites which offer SEO value, and are relevant to your broader communications. Here we’re specifically targeting medium-high SEO value bloggers, conscious of the content and other assets we can harness.
2. We then group the target websites into categories and plan approaches and angles for each. Crucially, we spend time understanding what kind of content, data and other assets would appeal to each category. For example, if a blog runs competitions that may be of interest to a client or campaign, we would take that into consideration.
3. With the target websites grouped, we then tier them according to whether we see the opportunity as a PR-centric or ripe for SEO outreach. This stage is particularly important, as here we ensure a delineation between target websites, and delegation of responsibilities accordingly.
4. Then comes the most critical step. Working closely alongside internal or external experts, we integrate and synchronise with PR teams to understand what stories are being created. We also identify opportunities to pitch existing content to bloggers or repurpose content for guest-posting opportunities if required.
5. Finally, the long-awaited outreach phase. According to our content plan, and taking into account blog categories, tiers and outreach approach discussed above, we engage with the relevant websites in order to generate offsite coverage and content placement. The outreach is tracked and we follow it up using outreach CRM, which also gathers insights and key learnings to help refine angles and the story-pitching process.
Searching for PR and SEO inter-greatness?
Whether you’re in Wellington, Auckland, Sydney or somewhere else let’s chat about how we can solve your web woes…