Public relations, or PR, has been a major factor in business marketing for a very, very long time. It is one of those industries that grew naturally when individuals studied the operations of business. SEO is another profession that similarly grew out of study of the natural operations of business. Although the two industries do interact, they are quite different in their aims and techniques.

The methods of traditional PR have caused problems for both PR professionals and SEO pros who work PR into their campaigns. This is because traditional PR is, understandably, based in the real world. The aims and ways of a good traditional PR campaign rely on structures that simply don’t exist on the net, such as the networks of print journalism. The old networks of contacts have less relevance for the internet, in which the influencers and the influenced are often the same group of people.

Companies are used to being able to use the services of PR firms to deliver their messages in a straightforward manner, and this is one of the reasons for the continued presence of PR techniques on the net. As long as your competitors are using PR techniques, you will have to as well. It’s best to get the right approach for your company’s online PR campaigns.

One of the traditional PR techniques which frequently misfires on the net is press releases. In the old way of things, a well-written press release was essential to the success of any event, marketing campaign or general brand maintenance. The old established networks of press release distribution guaranteed that your press release would turn into news, as long as you had the help of the right people. This is not the case for the internet.

An online press release needs something a little more. The online press releases that work are those that contain genuine news or interesting content. They work because they engage on a real level with all readers, rather than just pitching a story to journalists. Done well, an online press release can live a life of its own, seeding links back to your site all over the net as well as generating news interest for your business.

Other techniques of PR for SEO follow this line. The best kind of PR on the web is the kind that doesn’t show at all. This is the kind that a good SEO company can develop for your business, creating buzz about your company in the techniques that are used to strengthen the search engine optimisation of your site. Talk to us at SEO Consult about the PR side of your SEO campaign.

For search engine optimisation, one principle companies keep coming back to is value for site users.  The principle for online PR is similar. Keep your content high quality, and concentrate on what the readers will want.

Search engine optimisation companies will continue to use PR techniques to promote their clients simply because it is another approach. Where this approach falls down is when traditional PR values are placed over internet communications. There is a lot of garbage out there that is attributable to PR techniques. For PR to work for your business, stay focussed on informative content that appeals to your target users.

Related posts:

1. Stop Press SEO: Attracting Attention with Press Releases
   Stop press: attracting attention with press releases Among the hundreds of options you have for your off-page search engine optimisation, a press release might not...
2. Press Release and SEM
   Online Press releases are a powerful tool in the SEM arsenal. Press releases are great for building brand awareness, traffic and linking. Many businesses today...
3. How Online Press Releases Can Help SEO Campaigns
   Many businesses may think that their SEO extends just as far as their website. But it doesn’t have to end there – nor should it....
4. Using Press Releases To Build Links For SEO
   A good link profile is one that contains a good number of high profile links, but it should also contain a range of links. Diversity...
5. Your SEO Reputation Management Cannot Wait
   Many businesses don’t think about reputation management until a crisis has actually occurred. Waiting until your business is swamped with bad publicity is simply too...

Tags: Copywriting, pr, Press Releases, public relations

Link to us

If you want to link to this blog, copy and paste the following HTML code to your website.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 9:30 am and is filed under SEO Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.