Online PR For SEO

The world has changed over the last 20 years with the growth of the internet. PR has also changed as a result of the internet, how PR works and what it is used for.

PR is all about communication and since the main communication highway these days is the internet, this has to be the main area of focus for anyone considering PR.

Online PR is all about spreading the news online, to news rooms, online news websites, information portals, freelance journalists and computers. The main audience of the online world are the automated websites that read and index press releases, and most press releases that are to be found online are not meant for human eyes, but for search engines for SEO reasons.

SEO is all about building links, links to credible websites and relevant authority sites.

Search engines are constantly looking for unnatural link building, websites methods from webmasters that are trying to manipulate the search results to get their websites (or their clients websites) up on search results. For this reason, many of the old fashioned link building methods are dead as search engines have seen them as being unnatural.

When a press release is issued, news websites (automatically) will pick up on it and pop it into the business sector it is about (holidays, forestry, DIY, health, education etc.) and flag it up as being relevant to this industry. Links are then sent from relevant news websites to the article (and in turn back to the issuing website) and (if it is a good press release) sent further to more relevant websites. All the links that are formed are automated, but natural.

Journalists and other humans will scan new articles (normally just the headlines) and decide whether to use them in part of their stories, news reports etc. that they are doing. Any links from this action are highly effective and good for the issuing websites SEO.

As long as press releases that are relevant to the issuing websites subject are continued from time to time, a nice steady flow of natural links are formed.

So, online PR is good for SEO, in fact it is one of the best forms of SEO as it is natural, speedy and relatively low cost (when compared to buying advertising or links from websites).

What kind of things should press releases be about?

Press releases are designed to be about new information, newsworthy topics that a business wishes to communicate to the wider world. This is the idea, what press releases were initially all about and part of what the PR agencies roll is for a business.

• New Appointments - A new managing director, new sales manager etc.
• New Offices - The business has taken on new offices or a new factory.
• Growth - The business has expanded overseas or hit an important milestone.
• New Service/Product - A new product or service has been launched.

These do tend to be some of the main reasons that businesses will issue press releases for; however these are great reasons that can be excuses for a press release. This lets the world know about big changes, big growth etc. that may even be picked up by mainstream media websites (like the BBC etc.).