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Experts widely regard backlinks from trusted sites as the most important factor in determining search results. That means getting influential sites to link to your website remains the single most important strategy to gain higher rankings in search results for your keywords.
In today’s digitally focused media landscape, PR has an important role to play in acquiring those backlinks. PR pros with skills in search engine optimization (SEO) can produce significant benefits in generating both backlinks and referral traffic.
Media Relations for Link-Building
Media placements by PR build links naturally to improve search engine results. Because Google assigns high value to backlinks from media outlets, media placements that contain links to your website help boost search engine ranking in addition to increasing referral traffic from the media placement. Crucial point: All media placements must include links back to your organization’s website to have SEO value.
David Erickson at Karwoski and Courage cites reasons why Google grants media backlinks extra importance:
∙ News organizations typically follow a vetting process. Journalists often verify facts with multiple sources and fact checkers and editors review articles.
∙ The backlinks are relevant to the topic’s contents. Links between pages with similar content carry greater weight.
Original articles produced by the news source carry the greatest weight. News releases published verbatim carry less weight in the Google algorithm that governs search results rankings. While Google has never revealed how it determines the difference between the content of an original article and the content of a news release, it seems that placement within the directory structure of the news source is a major factor.
Articles that appear within standard news categories and directories – local, entertainment, business, sports, etc. – carry more weight than articles that are relegated to lesser directories such as “news releases.” The presence of a journalist’s by-line may also carry weight in the Google algorithm for news articles.
News sources that simply republish news releases carry far less weight in the Google algorithm. Some experts contend that Google actually ignores sites and/or directories that contain only republished content.
For both PR and SEO purposes, the media relations goal is to persuade a journalist at a well-regarded news source to write and publish an original article that contains a link back to your website. PR placements in highly ranked blogs also help produce favorable SEO results.
High Value Links: .mil, .gov, .edu
Media outlets are not the only websites that deliver strong backlink value. Google’s search algorithm also assigns substantial weight to military, government and educational websites — which carry .mil, .gov or .edu domain names. Those domains are only available to authorized organizations, and the sites typically have worthwhile content and strict linking policies.
Wikipedia
The Google search algorithm ranks Wikipedia among the most substantive and trustworthy of content. The Wikipedia article on most any subject almost always appears on the first page of a keyword search result. Placement of an article about your organization in Wikipedia is a PR must, but it’s important for PR people to understand the editing guidelines for Wikipedia. (PR folks who represent an organization are essentially banned from placing or editing articles – and articles must be factual and balanced, with appropriate references.)
Competitive Analysis to Identify Link Opportunities
Identifying the backlinks of your closest competitors is typically one of the most productive SEO tactics. Sites that link to your competitors are more likely to link to your content as well. Such a competitive analysis identifies the sites that link and the types of content that interests them. Offering similar content that adds value to each site is likely to generate a backlink. That backlink produces referral traffic, boosts your site’s SEO and may also diminish your competitor’s search ranking.
Backlink Research Tools
In the past, you could simply enter link: followed by the website into the Google search engine to find links pointing to a competitor’s website. That’s still possible – but messy. Now, it’s more efficient to use backlink tools such as SEMRush, Open Site Explorer, Majestic or Ahrefs, explains Casie Gillette, director of online marketing for KoMarketing Associates, in a Search Engine Land post.
Whatever tool you choose, record all pertinent information such as the anchor text, page authority and domain authority and organize the backlinks by type of link, such as media outlets, press release forums, blogs, forums and so forth. That information can reveal a competitor’s SEO and PR strategy that your own team can copy, modify and expand on.
It can prompt ideas for media pitches and reveal shortcomings in their strategy that your team can fill. The research can also show what type of content your audience prefers and provide direction to your content marketing strategy.
SEO research can reveal competitors that you didn’t know existed, Notes Forbes contributor Jayson DeMers. Tools like SEMRush and Keyword Spy can help locate sites or pages that are ranking well for your target keywords. They can help you learn what keywords competitors rank for and discover new keywords for your own SEO strategy.
Business competitors are not necessarily SEO competitors. “From an SEO perspective, your only competitors are the ones who are ranking in the first or second page of Google for your top keywords,” DeMers points out.
Bottom Line: A competitive analysis of competitors’ link-building strategies can provide PR pros valuable information needed to identify media placement and content marketing opportunities and develop their own SEO strategy. Conducting a competitor analysis is an essential part of SEO, a role PR is frequently called on fulfill.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
PR means Page rank. That is the most useful thing in SEO. So, PR must be low in order to get good position in google.
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