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A clear breakdown of the key similarities and differences between Digital PR and SEO.
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Hi everyone. This is your host Sonia define regimen with another episode of The si a business podcast. And today we are going to talk about a topic which has been of massive interest for me or the last I would say a couple of years. I do have to admit that my experience with digital PR is quite limited. I am by no means an expert but I like to think that I have studied a bit about
It will last couple of years and I have also tried to incorporate some of the positive aspects of digital PR or online PR in our SEO and content marketing work. Also, since I have been a columnist for different publications, including Forbes and Huffington Post business.com, and quite a few others, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of pitches and press releases and emails sent by PR agencies and PR professionals and even startups and companies. So I think I am now in a position to share a bit about what the key differences between digital PR and SEO are. So first of all, let's speak about what digital PR is, what SEO is and how both of these are similar in in some ways, okay.
Now, digital PR is, as I understand it, about using the power of online media to get publicity for your clients. In other words, it's about using different tactics in an online context to try to have other people talk about the brand of your client. So rather than you guys talking about the client's brand, you want other people and the media to take the client seriously and get excited about it and talk about it and write about it and stuff like that. So that's how digital your is, at least in my opinion, right? SEO is about making sure that instead of using a paid channel, like Facebook PPC ads, or Google AdWords or native ads or
You know, even something like TV or radio ads. So rather than using any of those channels, what SEO wants to do, the goal of SEO is to leverage the free traffic that Google can send to any traffic. So there are, I think trillions of searches are being done on google.com, which is the largest search engine. And you know, it's, it's the primary search engine that is getting used in most countries with the exception of, you know, maybe Russia or a few other countries. So there are trillions of searches being done every year via google.com. I believe, I think it's 1.2 trillion per month, I believe. So SEO is about making sure that you convince Google's algorithms that if someone is searching for, you know, a budget video camera or you know a budget DSLR camera or or something like that, and you are selling that a camera or you have a guide which helps people
On deciding which camera would be the ideal one for them, then your job as an SEO is to convince Google that that your content piece on that topic is the best. And hence, it should rank your content piece at the first position within Google SERPs. Right? So the way you do it is, you know, dependent on 200 plus factors, as I often used to say, and this may include things like your website's mobile responsiveness, how quickly your page loads, it may include things like weather, people who end up on your content piece, whether they spend a lot of time on it, or you know, they go back to Google search results instantly. If they go back instantly, then you know, that's a signal from Google that okay, this page is maybe you know, not so relevant for this particular keyword or this content piece is not so relevant. But the biggest factor, as I often mentioned, is backlinks. So backlink is when
Another website would mention one of the URLs of your website, right. So if your website is www.xyz.com and bbc.com mentioned that, you know, here is a content piece published on you know, www.xyz.com or www.xyz.com slash infographic, then you know that means BBC has given you a backlink, right? So, backlinks are the biggest factor that contribute to getting you to the top of results. And what that does is that it gets you more traffic, it gets more people on your website, and it can then increase your leads sales and revenue. And of course, that has to do with a lot of other factors as well, like, you know, the quality of your products and the prices and the checkout process, whether it's complicated or whether it's simple. Yeah. So now, I would say that both digital PR and SEO, the focus is to get their client growth, I guess, but in different ways.
PR is more about publicity and promotion and media citations. But based on my limited experience that I've had, I think that PR, at times can be a bit more aggressive and promotional. I'm not saying all of them do that. But based on the very small sample set that I have, based on the tons of emails that I get, like, almost every week or every day, I kind of feel that it's more focused on sort of, you know, emotional matters, right. So like, for instance, I get press releases, and you know, there is there is no other mention of, you know, like how that PR professionals and got my email address, or why do they think that this press release is relevant to me, it's just a mass email, which is probably sent to hundreds of other people and I'm one of them. And in 99% of cases, I have no interest in even reading that extremely promotional, commercial self serving press release about
How this company is, you know, the Uber of XYZ industry or how this startup is the Airbnb of the laptops interview or something like that, because I just don't see how that's relevant to me. And, and it's pretty clear in most cases that, you know, the person who has sent me that press release does not care about me does not respect me, has not taken the time to do any kind of research about what I like to write about who I am, what my interests are, what kind of content do I share or link to or write about or promote or you know, anything like that. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of people who would have this same experience with SEO as well. And I do admit that a lot of times many SEO professionals would make the same mistake where they will not have done proper research to build a prospect list which is, you know, relevant. So I was listening to this podcast
Last episode, and I think it's the episode number 105. On the experts on the wire SEO podcast, and the guest was, if I'm pronouncing the name correctly was g Zell Navarro who works live at Neo Mum, and I really liked what she said about, you know, like, if the agency is working on a content piece about, you know, the top 10 endangered animals, then what they will do is that they will divide them by states, right. So, you know, top endangered animal of California and Bob endangered animals of Alabama, and so on. And then what they do is that when they are doing prospecting, they don't just, you know, make a massive list of you know, all the states that are covered in their content piece. Instead, what they do is they divide that prospect list according to the States, right. And so, the journalists and the bloggers who live in California
Yeah, are told that, you know, we know that you know, to write about, you know, wildlife and you know, endangered animals, things like that. So, you know, we thought you'd be interested in, you know, finding out what are the top endangered animals in your state, you know, California, right? So that makes the email outreach more customized and personalized and specific and targeted, right? So that makes sense. And but it is true that a lot of the time, SEOs make the same mistake which I mentioned about digital PR with respect to outreach, but they had their own way to make that mistake, right. And we are going to talk a bit about pros and cons of a digital PR and SEO or you know, not pros and cons but maybe you know the top few things that digital PR professionals to hold and a few things which the digital PR people are not too good at perhaps. And similarly you know, a few things that SEO is good at and you know, maybe not so good at all.
Because the reason for this episode is that there is a lot that digital PR professionals can learn from the SEO professionals and you know, vice versa. So that's what makes it super interesting for me to try to understand the good and the bad side of both sides or the strengths and the weaknesses of people who are on both sides, and to see how they can learn from each other and benefit from each other. Right. Another interesting similarity between SEO and digital PR, I would say is that what we call in the SEO world as a guest post, by which we mean you know, writing for another publications website as a guest author, it has been practiced much longer by PR professionals as well. It's just that the tend to call it by lines or byline articles. And from what I understand the PR world treats these via lines as a good strategy.
To establish one's self as an expert and authority within one's industry, by writing for relevant publications, whether it's, you know, mainstream media or you know, in case of, you know, conventional PR professionals who may not be digital PR professionals, they may get their clients on TV or radio. So the benefit of that is that you start to get seen and recognized and respected as a credible media source, right. Let's say you want to get on Forbes and you want to, you know, write for Forbes or you want to get quoted on Forbes. Now, why would Forbes take a chance on you the chances of them taking a chance on trusting you are limited if you have no sort of other media mentions, you know, on smaller sites or similar sites or something like that. So it's always good to like you know, start from somewhere, you know, even if it's a small trade Journal of your local town, getting mentioned there or writing
them as a guest author or writing a byline article for them, like I said, is a good way to, you know, attract the attention of larger media outlets within your industry right. Now SEOs do guest posting as well. And I'm sure that a lot of the SEO professionals didn't know that, you know, there's something called byline articles, which is pretty much the same thing that as us are doing but byline articles has been there much longer and it has been practiced by the PR industry for a long, long time now, as us do guest posting, but their aim is typically focused on just getting those backlinks, okay? They are not focused on establishing the client's brand as a thought leader or a credible media source, right. So I'm going to speak a bit more about that in a moment. I think I have covered so far, what digital PR is
Is what SEO is and some of the key similarities between both of these super interesting strategies. Now, PR based on my personal experience, I think PR people can be better at crafting a story, I think they're much more good at coming up with a story and writing it extremely well. I think they're really good at that. Sometimes when I check out the press release, and read that story and find out how they have, you know, crafted that story and try to you know, relate to some of the emotions that their target audience you know, the journalists and reporters and writers etc. may have it sounds so interesting, and I think PR people because they're coming from a communications background, I suppose. And a lot of them may be former writers or you know, part time novelists or something. They may have qualifications like you know, ma English or masters in journalism, communication, etc. I think it makes them much better.
That. I also think that they are more confident when it comes to contacting high profile influencers and experts of the industry, I think they are more at ease. When it comes to contacting the big names of the industry, the big names of the Target Field, I can be wrong. That's what I think. Now a couple of, I think weaknesses of a lot of PR professionals that I have sort of observed. I think the biggest one is that they typically don't understand and value the benefit of a backlink. They don't understand what that is. I suspect that they even think that it's something spammy or something low quality or it has to do with you know, something bad, you know, like something low quality which is beneath them, when the fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong if you're getting a backlink. In fact, it only makes your site stronger. You know, if I have a blog, and I
I'm a small blog owner that say so if I'm getting backlinks from, you know, Forbes and Harvard Business Review and New York Times and New York Post, then that's good for me because that means that Google will start to see me as a more credible blog, you know, and that will help me get ranked much higher in Google search results. And once Google starts to see my blog as a credible one, my blog will start getting ranked for important in demand keywords, which means my blog will start to get more traffic and hopefully more leads and sales and revenue, right. So like I said, PR professionals don't understand and value the benefit of a backlink in most cases. And perhaps they also think that you know, it's something too complicated or something confusing.
The truth of the matter is that there is no need to make it too complicated. And it is something that we are professionals can benefit from a lot, especially PR professionals who focus on digital media and who specialize in you know, digital PR or online PR. Another con, I think, is that sometimes PR professionals can be too promotional. So they are really good at getting in touch with those influencers and experts and big shots of their target industry. But if they stop being that promotional, and take the time to build a relationship, it can benefit them more. What I mean by that is that too often, and this isn't, you know, like I said before, this is based entirely almost entirely on my own personal experience that PR professionals can, you know, contact you via LinkedIn or email and you know, just the very first meal would be about you know, something like hey,
Can you write about my client? You know, and or, you know, copy paste, here's a, you know, they just copy paste the press release? I mean, I don't know you. So you know, maybe you can just let me know where you got my information from? Or how do you know me? or Why do you think this is relevant to me, and even if you take the time to tell me that maybe it's not such a good idea to make a demand from me in your very first email, you know, so what I have done in the past a couple of times, I don't see myself as a massive PR expert or anything like that. But what I have done in the past a few times is that in order to establish a relationship with the journalist, I would you know, just pass them you know, what, what is it that you're working on, you know, and they may be working on something which has nothing to do with my client story and my clients brand, but I would still help that journalist by you know, telling them, Hey, I know someone who may be relevant to you. And you know, here is their pre profile, they're not mine or something. But if you think their story or their profile is relevant to you, I would be happy to connect you to them and you know,
Nine out of 10 times the journalists are, you know, really happy for me to connect them to such a person, but I always make sure that I get their permission first, you know, before I connect them to someone. Now, I help them by taking them to a source which may be relevant to their story. And I hope that sources well, and you know, that is how you build relationships. You don't build relationships by, you know, contacting and stranger and your first email says, Hi, can you write about my client or, you know, here's a press release, go and publish that, you know, that's not how relationships work. It doesn't work like that in conventional I mean, in analog life and it doesn't work like that in digital life, you know, take your time to know the person you know, treat them like a human being try to take an interest in what they are working on, what excites them, what is that they are focused on? What is it that they are reading, what is it that they are writing, you know, once you do that, and you know, help them in even some really small manner like, you know,
It may be you connecting them to a source it may be you telling them about an idea, you may have seen that in a in a recent content piece, they they, you know, wrote something which was like a bit outdated, static or something. And you know, maybe if you think that they will not get offended or something because obviously they are experts at their jobs. So, I mean, you you can't tell them how they can do their job. But if you are really nice, and if you have build a relationship, maybe you can tell them that, you know, I'm not sure if you know that there is a more updated statistic about you know, this topic and, you know, I can share it with you, if you like, you know, something like that. So, like Gary Vee says, and I'm paraphrasing that you have to give, give, give before you make an art, you know, so try to help them a few times with making it ask, I mean, they're not on your payroll that you just, you know, bombard them with press release and expect to get published. I don't know if that works. I don't think that it would work. And even if dead folks, I think the benefits of something like that working as opposed to
To you building relationship, taking the time to build a relationship, trying to understand the other person treating them as a human being who has likes and dislikes and who has challenges and helping them out before making your own selfish ask, you know, I think that would work much better. So I think that is that has became a bit of a rant on my part, I think it's it's a really important concern for me. And my sample set, like I said earlier can be a very small one, I do get tons of emails, but I have yet to see someone who tries to pick from the PR industry I have yet to you know, find maybe more than one or two people who take an interest you know, and try to build a relationship unfortunate. And mass emails like especially when you know, the email, which I mean, it's pretty easy to see that it's a mass email because you can you you get a gut feeling for that, right. It's pretty easy to see them. And in most cases, they just copy paste the press release. I mean, why are you doing that you got to
The email address of a person and you know that he's writing for vacation that you want to find to get on. So why not take the time to really understand what they're working on and see how you can help them, rather than just copy pasting a press release and sending that press release, you know, or just asking them right in the first interaction on LinkedIn that, hey, can you write about my client, they make these organic soaps or something. And then on top of that, the worst thing that I have experienced is getting irrelevant press releases, 99% of the press releases that I get are extremely irrelevant. So I think that's something that a lot of these people who do PR have to learn. Again, my sample set is pretty small, I would be happy to be proven wrong. I'm sure there are a lot of really good people. I'm sure there are a lot of really good agencies out there who come up with really good ideas and I have come across them so this is not a critique of PR on anything. I think there are a lot of pros and cons of a lot of
strengths and weaknesses of both digital PR and SEO. And like I said earlier, it's all about you know, for me, it's all about, you know, learning, what can I do to get inspired from both and come up with a strategy which helps our agencies clients grow using the best practices of both these domains. Now, with SEO, the pros, I would say are that they are good at backlinking. Typically, they understand the importance of a backlink, they know that it is going to increase authority, at least in the eyes of Google and that is going to improve the client's keyword rankings and that will in turn lead to more traffic and more revenue. Cons I would say is that sometimes they can be too much focused on the backlink and that may make them be blinded to the larger opportunity that awaits them. Now what I mean by that is sure, without a backlink
Without do follow backlinks especially, you know you you are not getting immediate gains right as you is already pretty slow. But if you're not getting a do follow backlinks, then it can be much more slower. That's true. But the thing is that you don't have to always focus on a do follow backlinks alone. So you have to focus on the long game here, right the long term benefits here. So for instance, I was recently quoted in Forbes and I already write for Forbes as well, I was quoted on Forbes and the writer, although she had linked to the websites of other sources, she for some reason didn't link to my blog. Now, I don't feel happy about it. But if she reaches out to me again, or if I see, you know, a request from her for a source, I wouldn't mind contacting her again, because for large publications, for publications, which are extremely relevant to my audience, my target audience and my industry, I don't really care too much about links because you know,
The thing is, even if I just get mentioned, if it's just my name that gets mentioned on Forbes and I don't get a backlink, I don't mind that because I can still use that when to get my foot in the door of another publication. And that other publication may give me a beautiful new backlink, maybe they will do a feature about me, maybe they will think of doing a much larger collaboration with me, you know. So you have to look at the larger context. And I think that sometimes SEO professionals can be so focused on backlinking and backlinks and especially do follow backlinks, they lose sight of the bigger picture. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. So you have to make sure that you know you are collecting fuel along the way, right. You're collecting small wins along the way, even if it's if it doesn't mean it's a backlink right. Now, will I do the same if it's a super small publication, if it's not taking a lot of
Time and I know that they may not give me a backlink, then I will probably do it. But if I don't have the time, or if I can see that it's not a large publication, you know, there is not a lot of activity in the comment section or something like that there is not a lot of quality content on the website. The SEO KPIs of the site are not high and you know, their demands on the other side are pretty high. Like if they're asking for you know, like a two hour interview or something or even one hour, I will probably not have the time to do it, you know. So it depends on where you are in your journey as as it relates to the SEO world and you know, the PR world. But I think you have to be focused on the long term relations here and also since I spoke so much about some of the weaknesses of some PR professionals, I will mention at least one more problem with su as well. So I think sometimes they can be too quick to do research. Sometimes I will get an email and and it's pretty clear
From how they mentioned my name, I have a bit of a weird long name, I know, but still, when they make a mistake with that I can, you know, pretty much be clear that you know, they have had some low cost web researcher from like Philippines or Pakistan or India or something and they didn't take the time to do the research right and get the information right. Okay. So like my name is Stefan I Jamal and my logo says s i a so that stands for my full name. Sometimes I would get an email and I believe that in most cases, it's it's an SEO guy who would call me si a, you know, an essay is not my name or anything. It's it's an abbreviation of my name. And actually it's also an abbreviation of something which is pretty related to our industry. And that's, you know, spotlight influence and authority. Right. Another mistake that SEO professionals can make while doing outreach is using misleading subject lines. So you
You know, they may put, you know, ar e at the start of their subject line so that it looks like they are replying to something I sent them right when it's not the case. So I think there is no need to be misleading you you just want to be, you know, honest and be very clear about you know what you're doing right. There is no need to fake it. There is no need to be misleading. You just have to stay honest, I think. And I think that SEOs can definitely learn from PR professionals on how to be better at crafting stories and how to engage the reader in much better ways. Just using, you know, a template that 1000 other SEO professionals are using for your type of link campaign is not really smart. And the minute you see that kind of template at everyone else's using it's very clear to you that you know, these guys have not really put in a lot of effort. You know, they're just doing it in a robotic fashion. They are not trying to be creative. They're not trying to
stand out. And they don't understand the negative impact of just copy pasting a broken link outreach template or a guest post template that you know everyone else is using. And you know, if they study a bit and if they try a bit, they can pretty easily come up with more unique outreach emails. And also I think just because you are doing outreach to get a backlink you shouldn't write a guest post which is not a quality one. I have to reject a lot of guest posts because recently I got a guest posts from a pretty large company and they are dr or domain rating. This is an SEO KPI. So there dr is about I think 80 plus and the guest posts that I got is extremely ridiculous. I mean, I don't understand how they can allow such a guest post on anyone site you know, because it reflects
On their brand as well, the lady whose name appears as the author, I don't think she wrote it. I think they had outsourced it or something. And it's an extremely low quality yes post, there are no images, there are no statistics. There is no practical insight within that article. There is nothing interesting. It's just a vague, generic 700 word piece of garbage, which has just one backlink. And that backlinks, obviously, that backlink points to this company's website, you know, so I mean, I know that your job Your mission is to get a backlink from my site, but you know, just put in some more effort. Just add some more images, write something more valuable rather than, you know, extremely generic content. Like, you know, hey, you should install Google Search Console. And you know, remember to study your Google Analytics data. Everyone knows that. I don't want that. If you have taken the time to you know, spend so much time on doing outreach and negotiating with me about what the topic is
should be and what should we cover in the topic and, you know, follow up and you know, following up again and again with me, then, you know, at least spend some time on that content piece so that not only I'm excited about accepting it, but maybe I refer you to someone else who would like such high quality guest posts, you know. So I think that's another problem, which I think a lot of the time as you guys have with regards to foreign guest posts. Okay. So I think that's it for today. for this episode. I hope that I have helped you understand how I see digital PR and SEO, what makes them similar? What are some common similarities? What are some common differences? And also, what are some top strengths of each of these strategies? And what are some common weaknesses of both of these strategies? Thank you so much, and I look forward to hearing from you if you have any questions about this topic or any other related topic. See you
On the next episode of Sapa business podcast, take care.
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