How to align Digital PR and Technical SEO
Developing great content that ranks well in Google and drives links to your site is one of the ideal outcomes of your SEO and content marketing strategy, but when launching new initiatives it can often be difficult to get traction, particularly if you are not already ranking well in the search engines.
Digital PR is one of the tactics that many sites use when trying to drive awareness and links for their campaigns, it involves the process of working with digital publications and touchpoints across the space to engage potential audiences with your brand messaging, for SEO, this often involves creative ways of getting links back to your site.
As we have previously outlined at Varn, SEO is not a one-dimensional strategy and you need good elements of creative content and digital PR plus technical SEO to rank well and drive results; you also need a good strategy and reporting to ensure you are driving the right results.
In this week’s installment of the Varn blog, we explore themes and points to consider when it comes to aligning Tech SEO on your website and digital PR off it.
1. Work with the SEO team at the keyword mapping stage
When starting the SEO work on a site most will first approach the keyword mapping and information architecture restructure. This is where all the pages on the site are laid out and mapped out against the keyword the client is looking to target.
This can often involve the changing of URLs and the merging of pages, so it is important to ensure you as the digital PR team are aware of the new potential architecture of the site and are not driving links to pages that may be being decommissioned.
Aligning your Digital PR with the technical SEO mapping of the site is essential, and will really benefit your campaigns in the future as it will show you what links to drive to what pages and greatly inform the anchor text optimisation strategy.
2. Determine top priority pages from all SEO channels
From the keyword mapping work will often come the priority pages for the website when it comes to SEO. These are often product/service focused pages with a lot of content but not necessarily in the form of articles and long-form written content. Having these priority pages outlined at the start will keep your digital PR campaign on track. Knowing these pages will allow you to benchmark rankings, showing value for the campaign and keeping stakeholders happy.
An example is the Varn SEO Bristol page, this is an important area of the site when it comes to capturing potential clients, so we are always looking for ways to share it that aligns with our digital PR strategy.
3. Keep mindful of site updates like new pages and domain changes
Keeping aligned with the SEO team through regular site and account updates will also keep you informed of any site changes that may need input from an offsite SEO/digital PR perspective. Domain changes, new pages and site updates all represent areas that need to be optimised for SEO.
New pages could be great content for outreach or could represent new target landing pages for organic traffic, domain changes could also mean possible updates for your digital PR activities and results from past campaigns, so staying informed on the client’s website status and not being blindsided by any potential changes is essential.
Try and target a positive ROI across your search marketing
The elements outlined above are important to consider when you are starting a digital PR campaign that is prioritising SEO, but illustrating the results and ROI on the activity will be very important when it comes to keeping clients happy and senior management engaged.
This is where reporting is essential, if you want to learn more about analytics and the benefits it can bring to your campaigns then get in touch with Varn today.
