Many years ago, PR (public relations) was the main way to promote and project great things about your brand. 

Today, SEO (search engine optimization) can help achieve that aim by reaching potential customers who search on Google and other search engines.

Ordinarily, when you look at PR and SEO, they seem wide apart. This is especially true if your PR efforts are offline.

But when your PR efforts come online, things become more interesting. Then, if you dive deeper into PR and SEO, you’ll discover they have many objectives in common.

That’s why it makes little sense for your PR and SEO teams to work in silos. Now, what are some business objectives and activities that PR and SEO teams can collaborate to achieve together?

Here are 6 of them:

1. Press release

Whether you hire a digital PR and SEO agency or have an in-house team, press releases are an integral part of PR. With press releases, you can inform the public of new product releases, new features, or even research results.

Naturally, press releases look like an activity that should be exclusive to your PR team. But when done correctly, a press release can be a potent SEO tool.

That’s because a press release can result in valuable backlinks. By that, I’m not talking about backlinks from the press release websites.

Because over the years, press release websites have ensured you get only nofollow backlinks. So, what backlinks am I talking about?

When you highlight vital details in your press releases, it will result in industry experts writing about your press release on other websites. Then, you can get many dofollow backlinks to your websit

Here’s a press release about the NYC marathon readiness protocol from Dr. Steven Shoshany:

This led to mentions across the internet and backlinks to his website.

2. Online reputation management

Put simply, a buyer needs to have a level of trust in your business before they purchase your products. That’s why you need to be in charge of the narrative that’s propagated about your business.

What do industry experts say about your business? What do customers say about various aspects of your service? What keywords do searchers use when searching about your business?

There are many ways to manage your business’s reputation, and I’ll mention a few. One vital way is to track mentions, including mentions on social media and websites.

For website mentions, you get an SEO benefit or opportunity. In some cases, a mention on another website will have a link to your website.

Here’s a case study on OptinMonster where I was featured because of the results I achieved with the tool:

Unfortunately, a mention can be without a link sometimes. In this situation, you can reach out to the website to add a link to the mention.

Another way is to conduct keyword research into branded keywords. This is to discover terms people search about your business.

When they search these terms, which pages come up? Are they relevant to those search terms? Do those pages put your business in a great position to convert those searchers to leads?

A dive into your branded keywords can inform your content creation to take advantage of those keywords.

In every industry, there is news. You can create content around the news to connect better and build trust with your audience.

3. Publishing guest posts

For your business website, guest posting is one of the most important off-page SEO tactics. But beyond gaining backlinks, guest posting is an opportunity for an expert to display their expertise and authority on a topic.

Therefore, it’s vital to publish guest posts on authoritative websites in your industry. Moreso, your topic should provide beneficial information to your audience.

By doing this, you’re building a trusted relationship with an audience that contains many of your potential customers. So, more than your backlinks, the relationship you build with your audience should be the main aim of your guest posts. This is important for your link building campaign.

For instance, Dr. Sharonrose Samelak wrote a guest post about chiropractic care in pregnancy for “Bodies for Birth.”

With this post, she can build trust with her audience as an expert and generate leads simultaneously.

4. Collecting reviews and testimonials

Before a customer decides to purchase your product, they have done extensive research about it. This research includes your current and past customers’ experience with your business.

Beyond what you say, what a customer says about your business carries even a bigger weight with a prospect. That’s why you should encourage customers to leave reviews about your business.

Now, no matter how good your service may be, there will be negative reviews. Some prospects want to see how you handle these negative reviews. By replying to negative reviews and suggesting solutions to their problems, you can improve your reputation with a prospect.

If you run a local business, positive reviews and ratings can improve your Google My Business and local search rankings. Here’s an example from a top law firm in New York, The Law Offices of Michael S. Lamonsoff:

Furthermore, when a customer provides positive feedback about your business, you can encourage them to create a testimonial. However, unlike a review, a testimonial should have a structure.

A sample structure is:

• The problem they had before using your product
• Why they selected your product among many options
• What they love most about your product 
• The results they achieved using your product 

Apart from having reviews and testimonials on external sites, you should also feature them on your website.

5. Attending industry events

While we’re talking about marketing your business online, offline events can contribute to it effectively. After all, the people you meet offline are behind the various websites you see online.

Apart from the vital information you obtain about your industry, you also meet many influencers. Of course, some of them will be your competitors. 

However, you’ll build meaningful connections with other industry experts who can provide tips to improve your business. In another sense, websites reporting the events can mention your business and provide a backlink to your website.

And better still, your audience can gain from your experience. By reporting about the insights you gained from events, your audience can learn more about your industry. This helps to build trust with them.

For example, Metricool, a social media analytics tool, posted about the social media activities during the Social Media Marketing World (SMMW) conference.

Here, Metricool has provided content about the event while also displaying the tool’s capabilities.

6. Building stages of the sales funnel

Both the PR and SEO teams have tasks to execute at different stages of the sales funnel. At the top of the sales funnel, PR has to ensure that leads have a great first impression about your business.

Also, your website has to rank for informational keywords that prospects may search for at the top of the sales funnel. The SEO team must optimize these posts to rank high, while the PR team must ensure the pieces of content gives your company a good image.

As prospects move further down the sales funnel, they search for commercial keywords and consume pieces of content such as ebooks and whitepapers to learn more about your products.

At the bottom of the sales funnel, leads want to see testimonials and how your product can solve their problems. From the top to the bottom of the sales funnel, PR and SEO teams can work together to ensure prospects find pieces of content that will position your business as their best choice.

Conclusion

If you believe PR and SEO teams need to work separately, you need to check that misconception again. Collaboration between the two teams can lead to better results for both teams.

After all, both are working to capture leads, engage them, and turn them into customers. Even if you employ an external digital marketing agency, you need to ensure they get the PR and SEO strategies working in tandem.