Do PR activities add value to the overall SEO initiatives? If Yes, then how do we measure it?

Well PR (Public Relations) & SEO (Seach Engine Optimization) have different goals but they definitely are very important pillars of the overall Brand engagement strategy. PR, unlike SEO, may not fall in the bucket of digital initiatives but it definitely does help to strengthen the digital footprints of a Brand which is an additional benefit. 

Now let’s deep-dive into each of them and try to understand in brief & what’s common in both these marketing initiatives.

Public Relations is about building relations with media publications, creating a strong brand narrative, and ensuring the ethos of the brand is amplified to the outside world. 

The benefits are manifolds for the brand. PR helps in brand equity, helps in giving good visibility to the investor community, attracts the right talent and helps to build a positive culture for the company.

SEO is a pure digital activity which is all about driving organic traffic to the website via various on-page & off-page activities. The end goal could be an engagement of audiences with the website but most of the time it’s all about driving & convert organic leads. 

Now let’s understand what’s common in both and how PR helps in driving organic traffic to any website. 

• Both PR & SEO are long-term activities, Brands especially startup companies need to have the patience to see the benefits of these activities.  
• SEO can be measured via various digital tools but PR has different measurement metrics to measure impact and each PR agency has a different methodology to measure the success
• During Covid & Post Covid many media publications adopted a digital-first approach for any Press Releases of companies, the greatest advantage of this was that all the media communications by companies are easily searchable on Google and are there forever
• The above led to an increase in the digital footprints of the brands via media publications so basically, to drive organic traffic all the SEO efforts should be focussed on digital platforms and online media mentions acted as an enabler

How can we measure PR’s impact on the overall SEO initiatives of a Brand over a period of time?

There is no tool available which helps you directly measure the impact of PR initiatives on the organic traffic, however, there are some indirect methods to figure out the impact:

• Check the spike of the brand search terms from Google Seach Console & the overall increase in search of allied keywords on Google Search Console
• If you have tools like AHREF or SEM Rush then you can check the below:
  • You can have a look at the backlinks received from various media publications. Tier 1 media publications will not give backlinks but the brand mention adds to the credibility in front of Google 
  • Many local/regional publications help a brand to create a ripple effect once the Press Release is done – these publications may give you a backlink which again adds to the link juice 
  • You can check the domain rating of your brand which again is based on the backlinking, the higher the domain rating the better it is 
  • You can check the backlinking type “in-content” and see the brand name mentioned in the media publications 

Since I am writing about PR, I would also like to mention a tool Wizikey which helps you structure, organize, analyze & get detailed insights into all the PR activities for your Brand via their dashboard. 

Also, it’s important to note that for SEO or PR the driving force is content and content strategy has to be of equal priority in the annual marketing budgets of a brand.