A traditional or digital PR campaign is meant to generate organic interest in your brand story, promoting it to various news outlets and independent journals that have a relevant connection to your brand and/or its story. Did you know that the result of a positive PR campaign could also be better organic SEO for your website? It’s true, these services can work really well together to increase your brand awareness while also helping your Google organic rankings. 

We connected with the good people at Ivio, a digital marketing agency in Phoenix, and they helped us detail the many ways a PR campaign can help your website’s SEO in this post.

How can a PR Campaign Help Your SEO?

At the end of the day, the goal is to generate more interest in your brand and ultimately traffic to your website. The whole point of a PR campaign is to promote your brand story in order to generate more traffic to your website. The more traffic you generate, the better. Both organic backlinks and social media mentions can generate traffic to your website, and there are other ways a PR campaign could generate traffic too.

A traffic increase can be a positive signal to Google that your brand and its content are being sought after more than others in the space. That’s a great thing, especially if the increase in Google searches for your brand is followed by new organic backlinks and even more traffic that comes from those. 

Here are 3 main ways a PR campaign can help your website SEO:

Organic backlinks - When your story gets picked up by a website or journalist it will almost certainly include a link back to your website. These posts that mention and link to your brand are extremely valuable and the more you get, the better. What is great about a PR campaign is that if you really hit the mark and promote a story that people are interested in you might be able to generate a lot of organic backlinks. Sometimes your story may even go viral with dozens or more websites and social media outlets covering your story.

Social media mentions - People might mention and tag you in social media posts which can also help your SEO for your brand. Platforms that allow you to share a link are especially valuable as you’ll have the chance to get more traffic to your website. Make sure all of your social media profiles are tied together and link to your website as the central hub where possible.

Offline media coverage - Sometimes your story will be picked up by traditional media outlets like magazines or TV outlets. These mediums cannot link to your website directly but people can and will look you up on their own by Googling or typing in your website domain name.

The more traffic your website gets, the better

Generally speaking, the more traffic you are getting to your website, be it from social media, organic search, or by referral, the better potential your website has to rank strongly in organic SEO. Strong traffic signals are an important indicator to Google that people like your content - that traffic can translate to better rankability in organic search for relevant keywords.

Here are some ways you might generate more traffic from a PR campaign: 

Branded Google Searches - When you shop your story around during a PR campaign, a lot of people will be reviewing your story and content to see if it is a good fit. While this may not result in picking up your story, they could end up researching your brand by Googling for more information, this is called a branded search query.  When this happens, Google notices the extra search and click volume to your website as a sign that people are seeking out your content more.

eNewsletter Content - When you put your story out there and promote it you never know where it might show up. Sometimes your content will not be covered in a full organic post but instead, will be briefly covered as part of a website's email newsletter. These usually include links back to your website which can generate traffic that Google will see and factor into their ranking algorithm.

Public discussion board and/or forum posts - Sometimes people will see your content and discuss it on website forums or public discussions boards such as Reddit. These links can be powerful traffic generators and sometimes act as organic backlinks. 

Conclusion

As you can see, a successful PR campaign can really help positively impact the SEO of your website in a number of ways. If you are coordinating a PR campaign yourself or with the help of an SEO company, be sure to take these all into consideration to make sure you get the maximum value from your investment.