Samuel Scott's presentation from a webinar he gave at Moz in October 2014 that discussed how traditional public relations is the best way to build brand awareness and earn quality, authoritative backlinks. He went through the process of goal identification, target market identification, messaging and positioning, media list creation, press release development, and pitching. He also described how to integrate SEO and PR best practices into a holistic, integrated marketing strategy.

1. How to Integrate PR
Into SEO Strategy
By Samuel Scott
Senior Director of Digital Marketing, The Cline Group
Join us on Twitter at #Mozinar
Questions or problems? Email community@moz.com

2. About Us
The Cline Group
- Global, strategic marketing and PR firm
- Offices in New York, Philadelphia,
Tel Aviv, and Naples
Senior Director of Digital Marketing
Samuel Scott
- Former journalist turned Internet
marketer
- Certifications from Google, Hubspot,
and Hootsuite
- B.S. in journalism from Boston University
with International M.B.A. studies at
Bar-Ilan University in Israel
- Based in Tel Aviv

3. What is PR?
It’s a lot more than being a spokesperson

4. What is PR?

5. What is PR?
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)’s
official definition:
“Public relations is a strategic
communication process that builds
mutually beneficial relationships between
organizations and their publics.”

6. What is PR?

7. PR Channels

8. Why is PR Important?
Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing:
– Outbound (like PR) creates new demand
– Inbound fulfills existing demand

9. Why is PR Important?
The best “off-page SEO” methods have always just
been PR by other names
– “Guest posts” are just by-lined articles
– “Content plus outreach” predates the Web
– Asking anyone for links is just PR

10. Why is PR Important?
“If I had to choose between your average link builder and
an expert PR professional who knew how to approach and
interact with media outlets and presented well on camera,
I’d go for the public relations person any day of the week.”
—Everett Sizemore, seOverflow

11. The Results

12. The Results
Coverage included:

13. The Results
Open Site Explorer:
• 591 links
• 253 domains
• 462 tweets
• 1033 Google +1’s
• 344 Facebook Likes
• 1253 Facebook shares

14. The best links come as
natural results of just doing
good PR & marketing!

15. The Marcom Process

16. The PR Process
1. Goal Identification
2. Target Market Identification
3. Messaging and Positioning
4. Media List Creation
5. Press Release Development & Pitching
6. Packaging and Follow-Up

17. Goal Identification
PR is a means to the end of getting coverage that
supports a company’s overall goals.
Examples:
• Gain VC funding or to exit by selling
• Maximize downloads of our mobile application
• Gain more users of our B2B software
• Build our brand through authoritative content

18. Target Market Identification
Research and compile a list of the general
targeted audiences based on the goals

19. Messaging and Positioning
Positioning:
How will you brand yourself?
Messaging:
How will you use text and more to
communicate the positioning?

20. Media List Creation
• Compile a list of outlets read by the target
audiences + relevant writers
• An ideal media list contains:
• Publications read by the target audience
• The specific writers who’d be most interested
• Large social-media followings
• Online sites with high Domain Authority

21. Press Release Creation

22. Integrating PR and SEO
• PR is people and SEO is things and data
• Need a decision-maker
• The following process occurs concurrently

23. Goals and KPIs
B2C sales? B2B leads? App installations? Brand awareness? Something else?

24. Audience Research (SEO)
• Create a persona (http://moz.com/blog/personas-understanding-the-person-
behind-the-visit)
• Use random affinities (http://moz.com/blog/growing-your-audience-with-random-
affinities)

25. Audience Research (PR)
• Existing company information & CRM data
• Customer surveys
• Audience data from firms such as ESRI
(http://www.esri.com/library/brochures/pdfs/tapestry-segmentation.
pdf)

26. Audience Research
Use all of the research and information to create
an overall persona of the target audience!

27. Messaging & Positioning
Fill out these blanks:

28. Keyword Research (SEO)

29. The Importance of Co-Occurrence
Get reporters and writers to describe you with the
keyword-influenced terms you want!

30. Overall Positioning
XXXXXXXXX is a performance advertising platform,
focused exclusively on mobile. XXXXXXX’s targeting
technology makes use of all available data to
guarantee advertiser’s ROI.

31. Supporting Messages
XXXXXXX generates revenue for advertisers based on a cost-per-action
(CPA) business model, rather than cost per impression (CPM) or a cost
per click (CPC) offered by other mobile advertising providers,
XXXXXXXXX reaches more than 190 countries, generating over 2 billion
impressions per month.
XXXXXXXX has five operational sites around the world, with a focus on
the most dominant and emerging markets in the US and Asia Pacific
regions.
XXXXXXXXX is backed by strategic investors in the mobile space
including XXXXXX, XXXXX, XXXXX and XXXX, providing the company
with access to the highly lucrative Asian mobile market.

32. Competitive Advantages
XXXXXXX is the dominant mobile performance advertising player in
Asia, the fastest growing and the leading region of the world
concerning mobile advertising revenue and investment, with 49.2% of
total mobile ad revenue in 2011 alone:
– XXXXXXXX has little direct competition for its mobile real-time
targeting solution
– Ad networks do not performance CPA marketing, advertiser
authentication, or effective targeting solutions.
User targeting technologies are currently focused primarily on the
online segment with the world’s largest brands struggling to apply
those same rules for mobile. XXXXXXX’s technology allows brands to
take advantage of the mobile’s unique traits (on-the-go, location, click-to-
call, always on etc.)

33. Boilerplate
With five operational sites across the globe, XXXXXXXXX is a leading
performance mobile advertising platform which uses real-time,
propriety targeting technology, to guarantee advertiser ROI.
XXXXXXXXX helps advertisers monetize their advertising budgets,
through acquiring customers and gaining valuable insight into usage
patterns.
Backed by some of the most respected investors in the mobile industry
including XXXXXX, XXXXXXX, XXXXXX and XXXXX, XXXXXXXX works with
Fortune 500 companies to plan, design, execute and optimize their
mobile ad campaigns, guaranteeing they achieve their ROI goals.

34. Other Messaging Documents
• Elevator pitch
• Customer pains and your solutions
• Top five points (for interviews)
• Executive bios, FAQ documents, etc.
• Blurbs for social-media profiles
• Website meta titles and meta descriptions
• Website text

35. Channel Research (SEO)
Research Tools: Google Analytics, Open Site Explorer, ahrefs
Bulk URL checker: SEO Weather

36. Channel Research (PR)
Major PR Software Programs: Cision, Vocus, and Meltwater

37. Channel Research (PR)

38. Channel Research (PR)

39. Channel Research (PR)

40. Channel Research (PR)

41. Channel Research (PR)

42. Channel Research (PR)

43. Channel Research
• Create together a final list of publications and
websites to target
• Relevancy is MORE important than Domain
Authority!

44. Content Creation

45. Execution & Adjustment
Both SEO and PR can use data!

46. What PR Can Learn From SEO
• Which traffic from what outlets tends to
convert the most and bounce the least?
• Are branded searches increasing following the
PR work?
• When links from outlets are broken or have
disappeared

47. What SEO Can Learn From PR
• From what outlets (and type of outlets) is it
easiest to get coverage and links?
• The best practices for personal outreach and
communication (for social media and more)
• How reporters and others are responding to
the company’s online presence

48. The Point to Remember
Don’t think about how to get links. Think about how to get coverage and
publicity! The links will then come naturally as a result. You are not building
anything artificially, so you will never have to worry about Google penalties.

49. Thank You!
Design: @tomckerr

50. Email: sam.scott@theclinegroup.com
Twitter: @samueljscott
Website: http://www.theclinegroup.com
Find this recorded #Mozinar and slide deck at http://moz.com/webinars very soon!