SEO for Websites and Public Relations

By: Johana M. Caba, M.A.

What is search engine optimization? By definition, it consists of the process by which you can improve the quality and quantity of your website traffic through search engines. This definition also clarifies that the optimization process focuses on targeting unpaid traffic rather than direct or paid views. There are many ways that you can improve your views by optimizing your pages and blog content. In this post, we will go over some of the best tips to improve your traffic, ranking, and domain authority.

Why is SEO important?
First, let's discuss the importance of search engine optimization. The optimization process is crucial for many reasons including the constant algorithm changes that companies like Google utilize to update their services. Google algorithms change every so often, which is why what worked 10 years ago does not work anymore. They use artificial intelligence (AI) robots that understand the things we value as people and what we want to see when we search for things, so they change the calculation of their results to suit our needs. These robots crawl through web pages on your website and index your site including your layout, videos, pictures, PDFs and written content. After the crawling and indexing are complete, they rank the content in order by how well it matches searcher queries. If your website is not optimized, then you will not rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

SEO Marketing
When it comes to getting views, visitors and overall traffic to your website, you can use many tactics. Paid advertising, social media, paid social media ads, guest blogs, featured articles, and other collaborations are great ways to boost your visitors and views. But, the majority of any website's traffic comes from search engine results. One important thing to note is that these search companies make money from advertising which is why they like to keep people coming back to their SERPs. Although ads are very helpful in getting you to your bottom line, whether that be more traffic or sales, organic results are more credible to searchers and receive more clicks than paid ads. Think about it, when you search for something on Google, do you click the ad first or the organic results below the ads? Still, it is important that you use different avenues of ranking on search engines and attracting website visitors for your overall marketing strategy.

On-Page SEO
The on-page optimization refers to the keywords that you use, keyword phrases, and long-tail keywords that are found on your content. It's important to note that there are several factors that affect your website ranking when it comes to keywords. For example, you should not stuff them in your content because this gets you a negative flag from engines. You should also include them on your headline, your first sentence, and throughout your content. Additionally, you should also make sure that your images have keywords in their individual image links. Another tip that you should start thinking about is utilizing phrases and long-tail words because they have less searches and give you a bigger opportunity of ranking on the first page.  These are the longer words or specific phrases that people use when they conduct a search. For example, using the long-tail "what is email marketing" rather than just the keywords "email marketing". 

Off-Page SEO
The off-page or off-site refers to the actions taken outside your website that impact your ranking on SERPs. These include backlinks and inbound links. Backlinks are crucial for improving your ranking because when coming from pages with higher domain authorities such as Moz, they tell search engines that your website is trustworthy, credible, relevant, and popular. You can get backlinks in a number of ways including writing guest posts for other sites, writing articles for other webpages, posting on social media, being linked on YouTube videos, etc. There are many factors that influence the contribution to your ranking that the backlink does to your website including the popularity of the linking site, its domain authority (DA), the relevance of the linking site's topic to your site, anchor text used, etc. 

Local SEO
For small businesses, let's not forget about the local factor. This is all about your Google My Business information which is important to have completed so that the search engine knows to share your business with people searching for your type of industry in your area (City, County, State). For example, when you search "restaurants near me" or "hair salons near me" the locations that come up on your search are all within driving distance. This is possible due to these businesses completing their Google My Business. So, don't forget about that and if you have a brick-and-mortar location, go claim it now and fill our your information.

Public Relations
As a PR professional, it's important that you know and understand the many ways in which you can help yourself and your clients through search engines. Building a brand and getting your name out there takes time, just like any marketing or PR strategy, the results are not always fast. When it comes to improving the ranking of your sites and your client's pages through search engine optimization, you must remember that it will take a few months not a few days. Let's go over some of the tips you can use as a PR pro:

• Ask those you are working with for backlinks to improve your (or your client's) Domain and Page Authority.
• Don't forget that long-form content is better. When you share something that is very short (300-500 words), this tells engines that the searcher might not find the answer they are looking for on your page. For engines, over 1,000 words is better, although this is debatable and some say it's better to go with 1,500 or more.
• Like I said before, DO NOT KEYWORD STUFF. This refers to the practice of overloading your webpages with numerous keywords that are either in a group, a list, or out of context (not natural prose) in an effort to manipulate the site's ranking on SERPs.
• Optimize your Press Release images by ensuring that they are 60x90 pixels or better. You should also make sure that you include relevant and engaging photos, especially if it is for a product launch or important event.
• Short headlines are better than long ones. In this case, you should try to keep your headlines, with the important keywords included, to 30-40 characters or about six words.