December 8, 2009 – Tuesday night’s SEMpdx educational event with CMD Agency’s Darcie Meihoff and Dean McBeth provided a wealth of great information, not only on how to integrate search and PR but how to avoid some pitfalls along the way.
Darcie shared some SEO best practices that PR professionals should adopt. She emphasized several key points including writing for users rather than search engines, which will make your content more attractive. Another vital point she made was to focus more on placement and less on density, better optimizing the effectiveness of your content. While discussing how social drives search, Darcie emphasized monitoring and leveraging what’s written about you to influence search results. She also shed light on how to improve your performance, off-set negative news and make key updates on an ongoing basis.
Adding to what Darcie shared, Dean discussed the three pillars necessary in successfully converging search and PR. The first pillar is shared goals: don’t let go of the fundamentals because the end goal is still about being found and measuring success. Respect, the second pillar, must be shared between search and PR. Both sides should acknowledge the other’s expertise while working toward the same goal. The final pillar is endurance. Online PR is a big enough fight for both PR and search firms but it will take work. It’s beneficial to consider the current landscape when deciding which mediums to use, be it newswire, Flickr or Twitter. Leveraging your content among multiple mediums is important because it all matters; you don’t know what people are after.
Sarah is a search marketing consultant, helping clients improve ROI through paid search, SEO and social media initiatives. She is also the Official SEMpdx Event Blogger and can be found at all of the monthly events.