Comments on: Why SEO is an important facet of Online Public Relations

By: Aleksej Heinze

Aleksej Heinze — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:27:08 +0000

Hi Pete,

This is very interesting, to some extent you could argue that PR or reputation management or Social Media Optimisation are all there to help with SEO. For example a simple use of Google Alerts for your Brand Name is something that could help in both link building (by following up posts and requesting a link to your page) and also to identify weaknesses in service.

However, on the other hand the key issue for me here is that irrelevant how good their online PR is doing – if the main service/product is poor there is not much that reputation management can help you with! Social Media it is certainly a great market research tool for the company to see how they could improve their service in the first place – so, this goes beyond PR and to the managing directors or operations managers and others who might make the products that bit better!?

Anyway, I see this post is a couple of years old, but same lessons still apply today and perhaps it would be good to talk about it tomorrow at #SSMM!

PS: I really like the image – “Company A” how did you manage to make such a search window?

By: SEO Pro

SEO Pro — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:21:47 +0000

I attended a PR association meeting a month ago. One of the “PR Pros” actually said that he thought social media like facebook and twitter was silly and wouldn’t work for anyone in his demographic!

Hope HIS company gets rid of him soon!

By: Steen Seo Öhman

Steen Seo Öhman — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:29:50 +0000

Well in Denmark most PR work is done by “old” journalists. They really don’t know anything about the nature of the web, as they normally have a background in TV or newspapers.

They really don’t understand the nature of the search engines users, and how the search engines work.

SEO is not a integrated part of PR in Denmark, but change is going to happen in one or two years.

By: Peter Young

Peter Young — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:14:37 +0000

Thanks Robin,

Its amazing how many organisations seem to forget about the impact of negative rankings on both other channels such as PPC (impact on CTR), but also on the bottom line (as highlighted in the example I used above).

Given the extent to which search engines dissect our every days, it is still suprising how many organisations ditch SEO in favour of one-off ‘viral games’ and the like.

By: Ray@campusfork.com

Ray@campusfork.com — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:28:08 +0000

Great article.
Living in Bay Area, SEO has been part of internet marketing.

Your knowledge is a great asset especially in China where SEO is lacking.

The tricky things is when websites using Chinese character attempt to get optimization.

see you on Twitter!

Rayfil Wong

By: Robin Houghton

Robin Houghton — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:08:09 +0000

Great post, and well illustrated. Something else worth thinking about is to re-energise your brand advocates. Not necessarily as a response to negative ratings, but as an ongoing part of your online PR strategy. Simply asking satisfied customers to give you a rating or a positive review can work, rather like those ‘rate your seller’ emails from eBay or Amazon. Happy customers often oblige if you make it easy for them. A body of positive comments will over time (hopefully!) outnumber the poor ones, and of course be picked up in searches, so reducing the visibility and impact of negative comments.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:41:32 +0000

Utterly superb article. Echo’s my sentiments in every respect.

Well done.