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What's Links Got to Do With It? Why PR is finally getting its share of SEO budgets
The document discusses how public relations (PR) campaigns can help drive search engine optimization (SEO) through links and brand awareness. It provides an example campaign called the "Beard Stroking Campaign" that utilized tactics like press releases, on-site content, data capture forms, and key messages to increase organic traffic and revenue. The presentation emphasizes that PR campaigns need relevance, value-add, and to leverage both traditional and digital tactics. It also provides takeaways around understanding client expertise, utilizing various PR and SEO tools, and finding additional resources.
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What's Links Got to Do With It? Why PR is finally getting its share of SEO budgets
- 1. What’s links got todo with it? Why PR is finally getting its share of SEO budgets #WaddsCon
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- 3. Twitter: @Welsh_PR LinkedIn: AngharadPlanells Email: angharad@radioactivepr.com
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- 8. Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness & links BeardStroking Campaign
- 9. Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness & links BeardStroking Campaign Press release / Media relations
- 10. Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness & links BeardStroking Campaign Press release / Media relations Key messages & activation
- 11. Key messages & activation Press release / Media relations Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness &links Beard Stroking Campaign Link force - Onsite content
- 12. Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness & links BeardStroking Campaign Sign up forms – data capture Link force - Onsite content Press release / Media relations Key messages & activation
- 13. Angharad Planells @Welsh_PR Brand awareness & links BeardStroking Campaign Increase organic traffic and revenue Sign up forms – data capture Link force - Onsite content Press release / Media relations Key messages & activation
- 14. Tactics Internal data Needs relevance Addedvalue Key Takeaways • What does the client know that nobody else does? • Are you utilising traditional and digital tactics in your PR? • Is your campaign on brand? • What additional elements can you include to add further value?
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- 17. Tools ● Google Analytics- Free ● Google Campaign URL Builder - Free Google Search Console - Free ● Google Data Studio - Free / £ ● AnswerThePublic - Free / £ AlsoAsked - Free UberSuggest plugin - Free ● CoverageBook - £ ● Ahrefs - £ Majestic - £ ISideWith.com - Free
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Editor's Notes
- #2 Pre screen share - Hello! Thanks Wadds for the intro and thanks to all of you for joining and sticking around for this; I’m really happy to be here. We’re talking links today. And apologies to Tina Turner because no one care’s what’s love got to do with it?
- #4 Name, head of client success at Radioactive PR. Been in PR more than a decade. Agency background so that’s what I’ll be referencing here but takeaways apply for inhouse too. Here’s a few places you can find me – I’m most active on @Welsh_PR on Twitter. AMA, DMs are open, and I love chat!
- #5 So we’re talking today about links. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have seen a surge in ‘digital PR’ over the last year. Couple of reasons – but the biggest one I can see is because the pandemic caused a faster shift in budget allocation for clients. This graph is from a report we did at Radioactive PR in December last year of inhouse marketers including big name brands like Ben & Jerry’s, Paddy Power and Acast. And it’s all stuff that is very measureable and easy to see a more immediate return on vs other activity like media relations/brand building. Plenty more to see in the report on our blog but this was a key takeaway for us – where brands are spending money. Our budgets now are coming from both marketing and SEO teams, often split across both. https://www.radioactivepr.com/brand-report-74-marketers-think-budgets-will-stay-grow-next-3-months/ BUT links for links sake is not a strategy. In Feb this year, John Mueller - Search Advocate at Google talked about quality of links over quantity being a ranking factor. Google’s own core update in Dec 2020 – cited relevance of links earned as an important ranking factor Important to note I’ve just shown one example of using digital pr tactics to enhance campaigns and give them SEO benefits – content marketing, newsjacking, product PR, reactive etc. are all examples I could have shown but time limited so I chose proactive campaign to showcase benefits.
- #6 If you’re asking… Starts with comms strategy – how can comms help solve a business problem / help a business reach goals. It’s what we’re here to do, no matter the tactics. On the left… And on the right… But crucially BOTH…
- #7 Male grooming brand campaign, a fav - this was when we all hit peak beard! And the brand wanted a link building and brand awareness campaign. On paper this sounds INSANE – and it was! But look how happy these people were and more importantly, it surpassed our KPIs.
- #8 So let’s take the model from earlier and breakdown this campaign.
- #9 Comms strategy had to increase brand awareness and links to Mo Bros’ site.
- #10 Traditional PR on the left… We saw more than 100 pieces of coverage, including the BBC (twice!), the Metro, the Independent (and the Indy 100), the Mail Online, the Mirror, Ladbible, Joe and many others Dozens of broadcast hits, including BBC News, and LBC
- #11 100 people booked stroking slots, with many more stopping by on the day itself and we got additional coverage for the event. More than £1,000 raised for Shelter – with the bearded men even donating the money they made throughout the campaign
- #12 Using a digital PR tactic… Call it ‘forcing the link’ because it means a journalist must link to your client in order for the story to make sense. 90+ follow links from coverage
- #13 ADDED VALUE – nearly 6,000 people signed up to get their beards stroked Put another way… that’s nearly 6,000 people with beards that have now heard about and interacted with Mo Bros, providing their email, that Mo Bros can now remarket to. Wasn’t part of initial brief but we say an opportunity to add value to this campaign. CLOSE THAT LOOP – Aldi made this mistake in May last year with it’s wine taster job ad story. Great coverage on LadBible, that told people to follow Aldi on Twitter and email to apply! No link in the piece at all. Now maybe the goal was to increase social followers, but a link force could definitely have been included too. That’s a missed opp to get a link from a DA 84 site.
- #14 More than 20,000 people referred directly to the two pages we created = huge increase in traffic for Mo Bros. Take a look at the blog after this because there’s a graph where you can see how this campaign compares to Mo Bros’ 15 minute appearance on Dragons’ Den a few weeks later. BUT – digital PR isn’t a quick fix. Aira digital PR report showed 28% of campaigns last year got 0 links. We’ve had that happen.
- #15 Tactics – if not you’re likely missing a trick, and I’ve seen big brands do this. (Aldi example) Internal data. Crucial for ideation. In Mo Bros case – they knew they were busiest around Xmas with gift giving, shoppers get stressed at Christmas, and from there we got to beard stroking to calm them down. Needs relevance. Without it, chances of brand awareness are lower. PLUS Journo may not cover if it’s not immediately obvious why your client is an authority on the topic Added value – database. Wasn’t part of brief, but was a natural progression of story.
- #16 Repeat each So what’s links got to do with it?
- #17 Turns out quite a lot!