As Google turns 13 its links with PR deepen

28.09.2011

The Daily Mail is the best paper to nurture word of mouth for health products, the Sunday Telegraph grows interest for gardening services and the Observer is the model paper for clothes and accessories sales. 

As people look for independent recommendation, editorial coverage in print or online is as powerful as ever.  But if your PR strategy does not also take into account how it can help raise your website's Google ranking, you are underutilising your PR efforts and missing out on sales leads.

As Google turns 13, more people than ever turn to it to help research and buy products of all categories.  From the impulse consumer buy to the complex high-end business investment, 70% of all purchases are started by internet research.  Thanks to its single minded focus on the consumer, 90% of these take place using Google.

But what does this have to do with PR?  Google takes into account over 200 criteria when assessing where a website should appear in its search engine results.  Many of these include technical build criteria such as the structure of your url, site maps, anchor text, code and canonicalisation.  However earlier this year Google modified its assessment criteria and now the most important factors reflect activities central to a good PR programme:

Audience understanding: It is essential for the keywords and messages to be developed that both meets the customer's interest and draws out a company's USPs.  Effective search terms must marry buyer behaviour with a company's strengths.

1. Content: Continuous creation of timely, quality content is essential. Well written easy to read copy around key topics will not only gain the attention of journalists, but also google. 
2. Opinion leader relations: Mentions and links to your website from others is the lifeblood for authority on the web.  Building relationships with right authors around a shared interest is invaluable - should they blog, tweet or write for the Guardian's website.  

Today's new media landscape encourages a 360 view of PR.  In isolation it can deliver great results.  Together with search engine optimisation (SEO) it can deliver outstanding results.