SEO

What do PR professionals need to know about SEO?
Everything’s going digital. But the more things change, the more they stay the same and the fundamentals of communicating good ideas have never been more relevant. Content is king and building long-term relationships yields results. For those in the PR business, building relationships should be second nature.

 The thing that is changing is the relative importance of the printed word versus content that stays forever online. The lines between Search Engine Optimisation and PR are blurring, which means that PR professionals need to understand SEO.

Do you know your client’s SEO keywords?

It’s quite easy to get a client to the top of Google for its brand name. It’s harder to get potential customers to discover a company using the keywords and phrases that describe the products or services. Keywords should be always in mind for PR professionals. They should feature in headlines of press releases, they should be used in articles and ideally they should have links back to specific pages on your client’s website.

Here are some questions to ask:

  1. What words and phrases are your client’s customers typing into search engines like Google or Bing?
  2. Which keywords could and should your client be found for?
  3. Which keywords will bring the most traffic and make your client money?

Understanding the long tail

Getting to the top of Google for competitive terms, like ‘Real Estate’ is difficult, and for most agencies not an achievable goal, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your client to the top of the search engines for phrases that will generate them paying customers.

Keyword Monthly Searches (UK) Competition Conversion
Real Estate 550,000 High Low
Estate Agent London 60,500 Medium Medium
Estate Agent North London 3,600 Low High

A relatively small number of the total searches in any market come from the top 10 keywords. A vast majority is made up from longer, more specific combinations of keywords.

There will be thousands of potential keyword combinations that get less than 100 searches a month, yet convert at a very high rate because they are specific. This means that there are likely to be thousands of keyword phrases that convert well and are relatively uncompetitive in a specific market!

In fact, research conducted by Hitwise suggests that a growing number of searchers are using four, five, six and even seven words in a search query in order to find results that are specific to what they are looking for. The use of shorter keyword variations is actually on the decline.

In fact most times, you are much better off ranking at the top for a mid or long tail keyword than at the bottom of page one for a head keyword.

Understanding your audience – Searcher Intent
The more specific the search term, the higher the chance of a relevant result and the higher the chance of converting a search to a sale.

Another variable in a search term’s likely conversion is the intention of the searcher.

General Search Real Estate
Purchase Search Estate Agents in London
Destination Search Foxtons Putney

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