SEO & Public Relations Part 3: Putting SEO Into Practice Even If You're Not An Expert

You have all the information you need, but now you need to know how to use it. There are a variety of strategies you can use to successfully incorporate SEO into your PR and marketing strategy. 

Ensure your online presence is SEO-friendly

In order to use SEO to promote your digital marketing strategy, you'll need to make sure that your various online platforms are SEO-friendly, according to Press Page. There are a variety of ways that you can make your site's SEO friendly listed by WebFX, including: 

• Use responsive design to allow your website to adapt to various user devices
• Write optimised header tags by incorporating your top keywords so search engines can understand your content 
• Utilise targeted internal linking to help search engines find other pages within your website
• Optimise images within your page to improve your page loading time 

More ways to create SEO-friendly content and websites include:

Perform keyword research

MatterNow notes that, at the beginning of any PR program, you'll want to decide on your keywords and phrases that will be used to promote your content. Determining the relevancy of your key terms is done by deciding how you want your brand to be described, how direct competitors are describing their brand, and by doing keyword research to find which terms your target audiences use within their searches.

In order to find the right keywords for your brand, you'll need to do keyword research based on relevance, authority and volume. 

1. Considering your business, make a list of relevant, key topics

Determine 5-10 key topics that are important and relevant to your business. Consider not only your business and regular content, but what your potential customers may be researching as well!

2. Use your topics to come up with specific keywords and phrases 

Brainstorm keywords and phrases using the topics you found in the previous step. Keep in mind which ones are most likely going to appear high on the search engine results page (SERP) since your target audience will likely be researching using those terms. This is not going to be your final list of key terms, so brain dump as many as you can think of.

*Hot tip: use website analytics tools to figure out which keywords and phrases your website is already getting found for!

3. Understand user intent when selecting your final keywords and phrases

Because words and phrases usually have many meanings, it's important to consider how users are using them, so you're reaching the right people. Easily identify user intent by entering keywords in a search engine and see what results emerge!

4. Find any related search terms

To find even more keywords, you can research other words and phrases that are similar to the ones that you've already selected. 

5. Use keyword research tools to find more targeted keywords and phrases

There are a variety of keyword research tools that you can use to find the best terms to use for your content. Tips for selecting keywords and phrases with these tools include: 

• Ignore, filter out or delete any keywords that have low volume (either currently or through trends)
• Utilise "low-hanging fruit" like those that your company has the best chance at ranking for and/or that aren't already being used at a high volume
• Keep track of the monthly search volume (MSV) of the keywords that you've selected
• Consider various SERP features like image packs, paragraph snippets, list snippets, and video snippets
• Utilise long-term keywords that contain 3 or more words to get more targeted, and head terms that are only 1-3 words long, shorter, and more generic
• Integrate keywords and phrases naturally into your content, don't try to force them or make them sound unnatural 

Writing an optimised meta description

A meta description is found underneath the title and URL of your page as an HTML tag that describes the content found on the page. These should be capped at 140-160 characters and act as a "micro-pitch" as to why users should visit your site. Basically, it should be written to be SEO-friendly and help you drive up your chances of showing up on the SERP and that users will click on the site.

Write readable content on your website and other online content

Putting a focus on the readability of your website, blog posts, articles, etc. will ensure that users will stay on your page longer and search engines promote your page. Choose a user-friendly website design, 16pt or larger text, and fonts and colours that will stand out. Additionally, you should be using headings, subsections and lists to break down packed content.

Additional tips

According to the Perficient Blog, there are more tips that you should keep in mind when integrating SEO into your PR and digital marketing strategy: 

• Don't pay for an editorial link 
• "Don't trade for links, don't barter for links, don't give product samples in exchange for product reviews that contain a link to your client"
• Use generic links rather than rich text as it decreases your website's authenticity
• Using links relevant to your business' industry will be more valuable
• Avoid excessive linking to your website – limit to one or two authentic times  

Ok, so now armed with all the relevant information, tips and strategies, you're ready to begin integrating SEO into your PR and digital marketing strategy and reap the rewards of doing so!

If you haven't read Parts 1 and 2 of this post series, read them now:

- SEO & PUBLIC RELATIONS PART 2: SEO & OWNED, EARNED AND PAID MEDIA 
- SEO & PUBLIC RELATIONS PART 1: HOW PR & SEO GO HAND-IN-HAND IN A SEARCH-DRIVEN WORLD