Instructed by Ashley Halberstadt.

1. The Not-So-Odd Couple:
The Union of PR & SEO
Ashley Halberstadt & Halie Davila
DigitalRelevance

2. Today You Will Learn:
• An introduction to media relations
• Alternatives to a press release, and whether or
not they are relevant to SEO
• A brief history of SEO basics
• How PR and SEO work together for the best
results

3. About Us:
Ashley Halberstadt
• Director of Digital Media Relations
• Agency background – B2B and B2C
Halie Davila
• Client Campaign Manager
• SEO Content Strategy

4. Agenda:
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Guest posts vs. editorial coverage
How to pitch the media
Press releases for PR
Press releases for SEO
Nofollow links
Introduction to SEO
SEO post-Panda and Penguin updates
A look at SEO today

5. Brand Awareness
• Brand awareness now impacts SEO
• Users more likely to click on your company in
search results if they have seen it before
• How? Enter PR strategies and tactics

7. Intro to Media Relations:
• Guest Posting vs. Editorial Coverage
• Pitching the Media
• Press Releases
• Social Media

8. Guest Posts vs. Editorial Coverage:
• Guest Posting
• SEO tactic to earn links for client keywords
• Smaller, low-traffic sites
• Editorial Coverage
• ―Earned Media‖ – not crafting the article yourself
• Larger sites, high traffic
• Paid writers/staff – less frequent contributed
posts
• Bylined Articles
• PR tactic, similar to guest posting
• Transparency about who you are and the goal of the
article

9. Pitching the Media:
• Things to remember:
• Media are people, too
• What value do you provide?
• You aren’t the only one pitching them
• Show knowledge of their work
• Past coverage doesn’t earn new coverage

10. Pitchwich:
Bread slice: Greeting/Relevant tie-in (problem)
Why are you sharing this info?
Condiment: Introduction of
product/service (solution)
How the client relates to
greeting, a one-sentence
statement of who/what the
product/service is

11. Pitchwich, Cont’d
Meat: Key details on client’s product/service
Key info on the client, including details that
separate it from any competition
Bread slice: Closing and call-to-action
Final statement on client, offer interview, product
sample, additional information and/or images

12. Press Releases:
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Never the only form of outreach
Offer as a source of additional information
Don’t send unsolicited attachments
Alternatives:
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Blog post
Social channels

13. Press Releases Do Not Equal SEO
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No Follow Links
• "Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search
engines
• "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this
specific link"
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Is it newsworthy?
• Did something big happen?
• Does your audience NEED to know this?
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Purpose: SEO vs. PR
• SEO = higher rankings and search visibility
• PR = to provide valuable information to an audience

14. ―Now, when you do press releases, it might
get your Web site in front of the eyes of
bloggers, reporters and others, where what
they write or link to may have an impact on
your rankings. But the links within the
releases themselves, Google says—they
won't benefit your rankings.‖
- Matt Cutts, head of
Google Web Spam Team

15. If you’ve been using press releases for SEO,
you might be feeling like this right now…

16. A Brief Intro To SEO
The Big 3
• Architecture
• Website architecture is an approach to the design and
planning of websites that involves technical, aesthetic
and functional criteria
• Link Building
• Link building describes actions aimed at increasing the
number and quality of inbound links to a page
• Content
• Any marketing format that involves the creation and
sharing of media and publishing content in order to
acquire customers

17. Pre-2011
• Link Building
• forum comments, spam – old school SEO
• earned media, social – new age SEO
• Architecture
• How a site is built: URLs, HTML, interlinking,
redirecting, robots.txt, alt-text, etc.

18. Post-Penguin & Panda
• Content Marketing
• NO MORE KEYWORD STUFFING
• Writing for real people
(not just search engines)
• Long-tail keyword optimization
• The perfectly optimized page
• Social Media
• User behavior
• Zero moment of Truth
• Brand Authority

19. Today!

20. Digital Relevance for Deserving
Brands
• It’s not just about onsite content and
links anymore
• It’s about being truly relevant and useful
for users

21. Move The Needle

22. Move the SEO Needle
Begin flexing your SEO arm by
implementing SEO best practices to Press
Releases hosted on your site.
• Change links to ―no-follow‖ within existing press
releases hosted on your site
• Do this for releases from the past six months to a
year
Move The Needle

23. Key Takeaways
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A better understanding of PR
How to craft a solid email pitch
When a press release is appropriate
Alternative ways to share news outside of a
press release
• A brief introduction to SEO practices
• A history of SEO evolution
• Why SEO matters to PR and vice versa

24. Thank You!
Learn more at
www.onlinemarketinginstitute.org