Understanding the difference between online PR and SEO
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the purpose of online PR these days. Too many people think that the sole job of online PR is improve the client’s search engine optimisation and help drive traffic to their website. Granted, SEO and online PR do go hand in hand to a certain extent, but they are not the same thing and to think so is to underestimate the contribution that PR can make to your wider communications strategy.
Without wishing to understate the value of the discipline, SEO is essentially a technical exercise – it’s about figuring out how search engines work and determining the on and off-page measures most likely to put their clients at the top of the results for the most relevant search terms.
Online PR is, just like offline PR, largely about managing the client’s public reputation. A key part of this is building relationships with influencers, with the ultimate aim of gaining positive media coverage. Obviously, the coverage generated by online PR often features links to the client’s site from high profile blogs and online publications, which is undoubtedly great for SEO.
But the important point to remember is that the SEO benefit of the coverage is just a nice side effect of the PR activity, not its primary purpose. The point of building relationships with influencers is to get positive coverage for the client in relevant media, and the point of that, lest we forget, is to get the client’s message heard by the people that the client wants to reach.
SEO does not do this. SEO might help hook a business up with somebody who is actively searching for something that business offers, but SEO can’t tell people why that business’s products are better than their competitors, or whether that business has great customer service, or if that business has sound environmental policies. SEO certainly can’t help a business to communicate clearly and effectively with the public if it gets caught up in a crisis situation.
Most importantly of all, SEO does not facilitate dialogue between a business and its customers. Online PR can help you engage with your customers via the digital channels that they feel most comfortable with, enabling your business to build stronger relationships and earn greater loyalty.
So, while there is clearly an overlap between SEO and online PR, it’s important to understand that they are two distinct disciplines which require different skill-sets and deliver unique benefits. Organisations which don’t understand the difference between these tools are unlikely to be able to use them as effectively as their competitors.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Hey Lance. I’d disagree.
There is no easy difference between PR (the online variety) and SEO. And there’s no real difference in value to a client. If you take a client’s web site (or microsite, or Facebook page, or whatever) as the focus for any campaign, then It’s all about driving traffic and having people do the things you want them to do – sign up, subscribe, buy, etc.
If PR’ish methods get you this, then great… likewise SEO. But it has to be all about the conversions, no? In my experience to do an Online campaign really well you end up doing both PR-like things and SEOlike things. It’s never usually a case of choosing one or the other… They’re far more powerful and valuable when done together.
Granted, reputation management is a particular discipline – easing blow ups and the like…. but I think most clients are interested in whatever brings the bacon home. Would you agree?
The crux of the PR vs SEO debate tends to come down to who’s paying the bill. PR Directors are naturally more comfy with PR ideas… Marketing Directors (or e-Commerce people) are more so with traffic acquisition tactics. But the really interesting stuff happens when you blend the two together….
March 9th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Organisations that don’t understand the difference between the SEO and PR skill-sets won’t be able to use them as effectively as their competitors? So organisations that do understand the differences will do as well as their competitors…
…but who wants that? I want to beat my competitors!
A website owner (PR, Marketing or IT) does need to understand the differences, but then ignore them. An organisation will only create real interest online if it encourages its PR, marketing, design, SEO, technical etc. etc. staff to collaborate.
An extreme example, but I don’t think any of us would have called Skittles ‘interesting’ before last week…love it or hate it, Mars threw away the SEO, PR, design, usability, accessibility and coding rulebooks in one go.
It couldn’t not work – who hasn’t now considered buying a packet of Skittles within the last week?! The purpose of online PR is perfectly clear, but as with anything, it’s the way you do it that counts.
Usability vs. accessibility, SEO vs. PR, code vs.design, copy vs. typography – you just can’t do any of these in isolation any more.
March 9th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I’m also inclined not to be too precious in this war (although I am entirely guilty of having cooked it up a storm – see http://is.gd/mBKM/onlineprdebate )
Let us accept that Google ranking is an indication of reputation – not the be-all and end-all – but an index. And the one that everyone uses. Not the only index – but a really important one. So that makes PR an SEO exercise or SEO a PR one.
To sidetrack things once again, I’ve just published an article from an established SEO agency on ‘why technical SEO is dead’. They are already in your space, Lance.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Many PR people seem to think that SEO is either a black art or something to be feared. They shouldn’t, they are doing it whether they realise it or not simply by operating on line.
Of course PR is about reputation management that is a given but we can’t pretend that the number or quality of visitors has become irrelevant and that’s where search comes in. Google has been famously described as a “reputation management engine”.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:34 am
There’s no easy division between SEO and PR as this debate shows! If part of a company’s overall communications strategy is to engage with customers, say, in an online community, then part of the engagement programme is to help them find that community… likely to be through Google. So SEO becomes part of overall communications or engagement strategy. But I completely agree that PR is about reputation, not just SEO. I think it makes sense to say they need to work together, in order to support the bigger picture of communications.
March 10th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Sorry (with all due respect) you’re talking poppy cock. This is the usual spiel that old style PR’s come out with when they feel threatened by the technological understanding required to run online PR successfully. The genie is out of the bottle – either come to terms with the technical aspects or stick to offline PR…
Oh and Online PR and SEO are intrinsically tied – that’s a fact, and it’s not going to change anytime soon……
March 10th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Thanks for all the comments. I should preface this by pointing out that I’m relatively technically minded for a PR person – I was the technical editor at Internet Magazine back when it was still running – and I do understand the importance of SEO and the nuts and bolts of how it works. And I’m not denying that a lot of what we do looks very similar to SEO.
Nevertheless, a lot of the points people have raised are based on the assumption that the client is an online business, or that the primary purpose of a campaign is always to drive sales via a website. This is clearly not the case. When people hire a PR agency, on or off-line, they are frequently looking for more than a traffic boost.
If you’ll forgive me for trotting out a few tired old lines: PR is about protecting the client’s reputation and to do that you need to build relationships with key influencers and engage your public in conversations. I think SEO is a part of that, but the two things are not the same.
March 10th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I have to say I agree with you Lance.
Search Marketing as a whole is about capturing existing demand for products and services and directing it to your website.
PR is more about generating new awareness and demand for the brand.
Our most common example of where the two differ is in new fashion brands who have, at the outset, noone looking for them. These people need people with PR skills to engage with the bloggers, forums and social networks where the fashion-forward spend their time and get them talking.
As their name grows, consumers will start looking for the brand name, and as a happy result of the PR activity and some good on-site optimisation, the brand will appear at #1 in Google for their own name, rather than the sites of the likes of vogue.com who initially will outrank the brand website on the basis of their own reputation.
SEO is more than PR in that it includes technical and mechanical aspects, particularly in the optimisation of the actual website, but PR is more than SEO in that there is an aspect of brand growth and development that mechanical SEO practices just can’t deliver to the same extent.
To maximise client value, each side needs to recognise it’s own skills and work to common targets to provide what they do best.
March 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I agree with you in a sense. PR is more than just taking up space in the SERPs. It is about engaging your audience, evangelizing your brand, and dealing with any negative issues that may arise. SEO is a powerful weapon in an overall PR strategy. A strong SEO strategy allows you to put your message in front of an audience who is looking for your product or service. It also provides a good defensive strategy against negative press by taking up valuable space in the search results. It can also help broadcast accomplishments and new initiatives to a larger audience who might not be reached through traditional PR methods. There is another aspect that is not so closely related to SEO and those are the conversations with consumers, offline efforts, etc.
It is important to note that there is a difference between PR and SEO but the fact is you can’t craft a competent PR strategy without SEO anymore.
March 10th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
This is an interesting thread. Sorry Lance – I still disagree. I know that PR is funded by a salesman, and every business is a web business now…. So it’s all one big soup. PR for PR’s sake is simply a goner.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:11 am
Interesting – was originally going to leave a comment based on Lance’s post saying something like “I agree 100%” – now obviously I have to deal with all the comments too – clearly I’m going to have to think about that – I’ll be back once I have.
Until then, Roger, Lance is right, you are wrong…
March 16th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
robin you are a tease
March 30th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
It’s abundantly clear that the more technical SEO types take every chance they can to dismiss PR as history and champion SEO as the only way forward. I agree with Lance and Mark P in that there are still differences – as sometimes there is a different objective to achieve.
Take Client A who makes gadgets. He needs great SEO to ensure he’s found in the search results for important and relevant keywords. However he also needs potential consumers to read about why his gadgets are different – and better than his competitors. Probably on independent websites, forums, blogs, etc. In his world, it’s vital to differentiate (and trying to do that on his own website is not going to persuade as well as it would on independent resources). If there is a link to a dedicated landing page, all well and good – great SEO to boot, but if there isn’t, is it a waste?
No, it’s still achieving a hell of a lot. And that’s PR.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Search engines often overlook what you might assume are some of the web’s best pages. Just think of the tools many designers use to make web pages exciting. Great illustrations, stunning photos, animation and emoting music. Throw them all onto your pages and the world’s most important web ’spiders’ might just crawl right past you.