Google cares about more than just links.
For years, backlinks from massive authority sites have been among the best ways to improve the search-engine optimization (SEO) of your business’s website.
This led to schemes where link sellers, and even some PR pros, offered to get business owners backlinks on those authority sites for a fee. The good news is that publishers are finally cracking down, and this should be music to the ears of legit PR professionals.
There are at least three major sites where this will no longer work. Entrepreneur, Inc., and Forbes recently began turning all the external links in their articles to “no follow” links, meaning there won’t be any more of that “link juice” from backlinks on those sites.
Although those three sites are among the most sought-after sites for businesses and PR pros to pitch, they aren’t alone. More and more sites are making the switch from do-follow to no follow external links.
Here’s how this trend will affect PR pros, and some advice on how they should broach the subject with their clients.
1 . How PR pros can still get good links.
The most obvious way this changes PR is that landing a no follow backlink won’t provide nearly the same SEO boost.
That doesn’t make those links worthless, however. A backlink from an authority site will still send traffic to your site, and even more importantly, boost business credibility, but you may need to adjust your backlink strategy (and your client’s strategy) to get desirable backlinks.
A backlink on a large authority site used to be worthwhile even if the site didn’t match your industry, simply because of the link juice. With authority sites moving towards no follow links, this is no longer the case. PR pros can look for sites that still use do-follow links, although there is always the chance that they will eventually change that.
The smartest approach is to make sure you go after PR pieces on sites and publications that are relevant to your industry and get plenty of traffic from your target audience. In other words, focus on your target audience, branding and visibility versus just hoping for backlinks.
[RELATED: Join us in Miami for the Do-It-All Communicator Conference.]
2 . What PR opportunities are more valuable than links?
Backlinks were never the only reason to invest in PR, even if it seemed that way in the early days of the growing internet (especially when working with clients who are extremely focused on SEO). There are many other valuable things PR pros can and should do to promote a business, including content marketing.
“As search engines crack down on black-hat SEO techniques and link manipulations, their goal is to prioritize high-quality content, which means content marketing remains a great way to build a brand, explains Jason Berkowitz of Break the Web SEO. “A business blog and finding guest posting opportunities can both bring in traffic and make web users see your brand as an authority in its industry.”
In other words, providing real value to your target audience trumps all else. Who knew?
3 . Links in publications carry less weight than influencers.
PR, just like any other form of digital marketing, is constantly evolving. Social media marketing has become increasingly more popular, especially considering people often ignore traditional ads, including online ads.
Thus, influencer marketing has become a natural, effective way that you can get your brand in front of your target audience, without making it look like an ad. The best PR pros are taking advantage of influencer marketing to create buzz and draw attention outside of the traditional publication model.
4. The world of PR and SEO continues to change.
There was a time when you could only optimize a page for a few keywords at most, but search engine bots are now capable of ranking pages for many different keywords.
Similarly, site owners used to focus only on desktop users, but with mobile devices accounting for 65 percent of all digital media time, focusing on mobile users has become equally important.
PR pros must stay on top of industry changes to get desired results for their brands. Most importantly, when you’re in PR, you need to be able to adapt and find new opportunities when one gets closed off.
Blair Nicole is the founder and CEO of Media Moguls PR, host of the #KickassPR podcast, member of the Forbes Agency Council, and a columnist at several business publications.
(Image via)
from PR Daily News Feed http://ift.tt/2DnWTuA
No comments:
Post a Comment