SEO for public relations

in 15 steps

Stephen Waddington

@wadds

SEO missed opportunity for public

relations

Public relations missed out on the search engine

optimisation (SEO) market. But it has a second

chance thanks to changes to Google’s algorithm.

My recent blog post The State of SEO and Public

Relations spotlights the opportunity.

Practical how-to

This deck results from collaboration between myself,

Escherman’s Andrew Smith and We Need A

Resolution’s Gary Preston and Stella Bayles.

Between us we’ve developed this practical 15 point

plan for public relations and SEO.

#1 Health and wellbeing

Use Google Webmaster tools to characterise your

site. It will provide you with basic information about

your site’s performance, security issues, how users

are finding the site via search and the keywords that

they’re using. It’s a good place to start.

#2 Site audit

Onsite audits are typically the domain of technical teams but it's a straightforward task to undertake a site audit using tools such as Google Webmaster Tools or Screaming Frog and identify any issues that may be sub-optimal. Site speed, site map, broken links and poor Meta data are all common issues. Addressing these may result in an immediate performance boost.

#3 Goals

Define your goal but be realistic. If you want to get to the

top page of a Google search for a fiercely competitive

term, recognise that you've got a big challenge. Think

about the markets you operate in, who your prospects and

customers are, and consider the topics and issues that are

relevant to them.

However, also appreciate that some brands have big

budget pots available to defend their existing high positions

as well as challenge for them in the right markets.

#4 Planning

Tools such as AnswerthePublic will help you explore what people are looking for and the types of questions that are being put into Google every day.

Google AdWords Keyword Planner provides a vast amount of data for free that informs how people search for the market related to your organisation.

Use this to prioritise based on the biggest search volumes and align keywords with your organisation and its market.

#5 Natural language

A burgeoning tool market has emerged to support

campaign planning across fragmented forms of

media and devices. Think hard about your workflow

and how you can best integrate tools to deliver

against your campaign objectives. Challenge

vendors to demonstrate how their tools can help

you deliver the outcomes that you need.

#6 Keyword strategy

If your keyword terms are popular terms such as 'car insurance', ‘family holiday’ or 'London' you're going to have a tough job.

Use Google without personalised settings, opening an incognito browser use search and tools such Google AdWords Keyword Planner or UberSuggest to evaluate your competition, see what content currently occupies the top slot for a search term and your chance of outranking incumbents.

A long-tail strategy focused on less popular keywords maybe a smarter approach. You need to be realistic and balance opportunity with investment.

#7 Devices

Check out which devices people are using to access your website. The chances are that they are increasingly mobile.

The content on your website should be responsive and optimised for each device. Increasingly content management systems provide this functionality.

The mobile usability reports in Google's Webmaster can really help understand consumer behaviour, and Google has created a Mobile Usability Tool to help test the basic mobile usability of a site.

#8 Earn links through public relations

engagement (1/2)

It's highly likely that your planning exercise will have

thrown up examples of media sites that you can target

for earned media coverage. Earning editorial content is

a fundamental of good public relations practice.

You’ll find that many pieces of coverage already

include links to your client’s website.

#8 Earn links through public relations

engagement (2/2)

This all helps increase their general visibility. However to gain

increases for particular keywords you should focus your

online public relations activity to one area of the site. Targeted

links to one category or page will help amplify that content

within Google search.

Domain Authority and Page Authority (the potential of a domain

or site to ranks for search) is the currency of this market. Use tools

such as Moz or Majestic to identify related sites with a high trust

and authority where you can pitch content. You need to build

enough valuable links to outperform your competitive set.

#9 Content

Develop an editorial or content calendar. My personal mantra

for 2015 that I tell anyone that'll listen is stop posting shit on the

Internet. The Searchmetrics 2014 SEO Report showed that

Google appears to favour long form content, which will always

win over limp copy. Frequency is important but never at the

sacrifice of relevance. The simple fact is that content that

doesn’t resonate turns visitors off and is highly unlikely to earn

links.

When you successfully secure online coverage ask for a link

back to your site or the web page that you wish to build Google

authority for.

#10 Onsite optimisation

Follow best practice for on site content optimisation. Most

content management systems take care of this for you.

Resist any temptation to game content. You'll be penalised

in the future if not immediately.

Images are a good example. By all means use a descriptive

filename rather than a string of letters or numbers but don't

pack the ALT tag with keywords. It’s intended to help blind

and partially sighted users navigate a websites and has no

value as a mechanism for gaming search.

#11 Spam

Google penalises spam and syndicated content. If

you're distributing content via a newswire that is

likely to be posted onto several other sites make sure

that you use no follow links. Other tactics such as

commenting on a blog and adding a link are simply

daft. Avoid spam.

#12 Social

There's limited evidence to suggest that sharing content on social networks has an impact on how it ranks for search in Google. In crude terms view social as a channel to distribute content that'll earn you links.

Google wants to provide the most relevant and fresh content to its user’s queries. If it can see a piece of relevant content has been recommended by influencers and it has a peak of activity on Twitter it often increases the visibility of that content quicker than usual.

#13 Measurement

Life is far more complex than last click attribution.

Use an analytics tool such as Google Analytics to

understand your customer journey. Track a few

metrics that are tied to your efforts and the business

or organisations outcomes that you are seeking to

address.

#14 Customer journey

There's a related pointed. Delivering traffic to a website is typically only the start of a process. In sales terms it's the start of the funnel. Think about what other means of engagement you need to undertake to deliver a desired outcome or behavioural change.

Google has a tool called Google Consumer Barometerthat enables you to explore the customer journey for many markets.

#15 Fail fast

Agile management teaches us to test lots of ideas and rapidly iterate. Get comfortable with measuring the outcome of every effort. Interpreting data from analytics tools such as Google Analytics is a critical skill.

The culture of celebrating and learning is commonplace in the SEO community but is uncomfortable for public relations. It's another area where we could do much better.

Search and public relations #PRstack

1. AnswerthePublic – find out what questions and queries your consumers have by

getting a free report of what they're searching for in Google and YouTube.

2. Google AdWords Keyword Planner – tool that helps you build search

campaigns by finding keyword ideas and estimating how they may perform.

3. Google Analytics – tool to help understand how people are finding and

navigating your web site.

4. Google Consumer Barometer – tool from Google to help you understand how

people use the Internet across the world.

5. Google Mobile-Friendly Test – analyses a websites and reports if it has a mobile-

friendly design and its impact on search.

Search and public relations #PRstack

6. Google Webmaster Tools – suite of tools to check the health of a website.

7. Majestic - link intelligence tools to help characterise website search

performance.

8. Market Samurai – link intelligence tools to help characterise website search

performance.

9. Moz - link intelligence tools to help characterise website search performance.

10. Screaming Frog – on site audit tool to ensure a site is optimised for search marketing.

11. UberSuggest – generate keyword ideas with Übersuggest the free keyword

suggestion tool that makes good use of different suggestion services.

What have we missed?

I am genuinely envious of the spirit of cooperation

that exists in other industries such as SEO and

notable exceptions aside, recognise it as missing in

the public relations sector. Help change that today

by suggesting areas that I may have missed or your

own tips for SEO for public relations.

Further reading and thank-you

CIPR Best Practice Guide by Andrew Smith

Developing PR in the age of Google by Stella Bayles

We Need A Resolution

With thanks to Andrew Smith, Escherman and Gary

Preston and Stella Bayles of We Need A Resolution.

Stephen Waddington is Chief Engagement Officer

at Ketchum and Visiting Professor of Practice in

Public Relations at the University of Newcastle.

If you’d like to discuss any of the issues raised in this

deck please contact Stephen at

Stephen.Waddington@ketchum.com