This is so interesting, this topic has been discussed for several years now but still, the majority of PR firms know very little about search and SEO firms still know very little about PR. I think part of the problem here is that Social Media has exploded and PR firms have jumped on this one... it is much more sexy and palatable than SEO... but as this article argues... search is what is really driving traffic.

I wrote an analysis on this area a bit earlier in the year, and found that the search community had a pretty different view of things, unsurprisingly, tying in with Chris' comment above: http://bit.ly/9rBTC3

@Arun I'm sure they did! ;)

Thanks for stopping by. This is just the first in a series of pieces Becca is writing on search/PR/social interaction - so we will be looking at the flip side.

It's amazing how emotive this issue is...

VC

You are right - it is a very emotive issue :) More warring over shrinking turf I guess...

Look forward to seeing your coverage of the search side - and the inevitable wave of comments about how they don't understand PR!

One thought I have is that there are times when PR can underpin search and, clearly, vice versa. Where traffic is a campaign pre-requisite then search is always important, of course, but sometimes not the priority. That prioritisation then dictates whether search or PR is the lead, simply in terms of tactics and approach.

Overall, I strongly believe that the more that an individual/team/agency/brand can understand the PR, Search & Social disciplines individually, the more they easily they can be integrated and thereby deliver a greater ROI for any one of the disciplines against the cost of doing them on stand-alone basis.

Also, this post & comments seems to have primarily gone down the route of discussing PR/Search specifically. However, there's a very interesting and emerging angle around search and social, given the fact that 'no follow' links, ie those from many/most social sites, are now anecdotally proven to have an affect on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). It's been proven by spam in a number of scenarios and whilst this is clearly absolutely the wrong approach for a campaign, it does show the growing link between social media and search too, which again is to the benefit of an integrated campaign.

Another great post Becca. I completely agree that PRs and more importantly digital PR people need to understands the benefits of search. There is a grey area emerging that worries me though. The other day I met an SEO specialist who had recruited three new PR client retainers because of the benefits of online PR. The thought of untrained propfessional people looking after reputations online makes me shudder. It's all fine and dandy when things are going well but if a crisis breaks out how will they handle it?

I would also argue that to most PR client contacts, the logistics of how search works is an alien concept. Hence the 'we got you to the front page of Google' claim will go down well in some quarters irrespective of whether it's true reflection of what's going on. At the risk of repeating what everyone else has said, there needs to be more understanding between the two disciplines but also a greater understanding on how PR really affects the bottom line.

Andrew is spot on with the "we got our client to page one on Google". This year I've judged both the PRCA and SOME awards and the amount of dubious data in the results/evaluation was shocking. One entry, in an international category, boasted it was the number one term, but it was for something so specific it would be quite hard for you not to achieve first! And if you looked at the search data almost 70% of it was from the UK. Not very international at all. In fact quite a failure, but because neither the PR agency or client understood it sufficiently they judged it to be a success.

@Andrew well said. You've nicely laid out the SEO process and, not that surprisingly, it doesn't really resemble the PR process. I think Becca's point is about the importance of PR people understanding the role they play in SEO, and I'm sure everyone who's tweeting about this post would agree that, used effectively, these are complimentary disciplines. I'd hope PR people don't think they support SEO merely by producing "compelling" content any more than SEO people think "optimising" content makes it read better to human beings. I admit it: I'm a PR guy. But I know lots of SEO guys, and can testify to the value of working together.

Hi,

You’re right, my point was by no means to de-value the role of SEO, but instead suggest that PR has an important role to play in this mix and that both disciplines can certainly compliment each other.

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your comment.

The role that PR can play in search is certainly a very interesting and contentious issue, which is why we’ve decided to write up a series of posts and have begun to gauge opinions from those in the industry.

A large part of what we were trying to say in this story, and something we’ve heard a lot from those we’ve been talking to, is that traditional PR skills can work but an understanding of SEO is still paramount. As you say, the rather blinkered view that it’s all about ‘compelling content’ isn’t going to work without the SEO knowledge to back it up and both need to work together.

We know that there may be some PR agencies out there that don’t understand SEO enough yet to be taking the detailed research you mention to clients. But, it’s rather broad-brush to suggest that many are just saying “we got our client to page 1 on Google”. We think to move forward we need to give those in the industry a little more credit, as apposed to suggesting they just don’t get it.

Andrew, I think that's exactly why PRs and SEOs need to work together. SEOs generally have a better understanding of the technical issues, but PRs are going to be better at creating content and selling stories into the media to get backlinks from authoritative high pagerank sites.

Inevitably these discussions end up spiralling into a spat between the two disciplines because they realise there's some overlap between what they do, yet don't fully understand the skills and nuances of what the other side does, so everybody gets defensive. The businesses that will win are the ones which force PR and SEO to play nicely with each other.

Hi Lance,

We’d agree that there are different skills for both disciplines and a mutual understanding of the role each plays could certainly lead to better results in the long term.

I'd go with that.

How many PR firms really understand how search works? You often see things like "we got our client to page 1 on Google." But if you analyse the search volume, you find that no one is looking for it. What's the use of that?

I get the sense that clients are looking for more detail as to exactly what a PR firm would do as part of a search strategy. Compelling content is a bit of an abstract term. What about if the PR said, we've analysed your target audience and determined that these 20 terms are the ones that your prospects are really searching for in sufficient volume to give you any hope of hitting your sales targets. We've also noted that 10 of these terms are so heavily optimised or competitive that it probably isn't worth the effort. However, the remaining 10 terms look as though we can do something. We'll make sure that all the on page hygiene factors are taken care of. And here's a list of pages that we will attempt to get backlinks from - and an explanation as to why they are worth targetting (high Page Rank, easy to comment on blog (without No Follow), etc). And we will track the progress of your SERP results over time so you can see exactly what impact our work is having.

Of course, this is a simplified view. But you get the idea. I just get the sense at the moment that the PR sector sees its role in search as creating great content that will naturally impact search results by virtue of its "compelling" nature.

I think we are in danger of being overly simplistic here. Yes there is an opportunity for PRs when it comes to SEO, but the 'just keep doing what you're doing and it'll all be ok' message is a very dangerous one. Search is very different beast and needs to be treated as such. There is an opportunity here, but the approach and strategy needs thinking through...