Securing media coverage and getting your brand seen is crucial for any business striving to succeed in a competitive online world. But what happens when budgets are tight? The answer is simple: affordable PR SEO. This powerful approach to gaining visibility doesn’t need to break the bank. Affordable PR SEO can be the perfect solution for savvy agencies or small businesses looking for cost-effective marketing strategies.
Let’s take a closer look at affordable PR SEO and explore how it can elevate your agency or business’s visibility, drive traffic, and solidify brand recognition.
What Is Affordable PR SEO?
You’re likely already familiar with SEO, which involves various techniques to improve a website’s visibility in organic search results. You might even already have a killer SEO strategy. But have you considered the potential of combining this powerful approach with strategic public relations?
Affordable PR SEO takes the core principles of traditional public relations, gaining media coverage and mentions, and combines them with SEO tactics to boost your visibility online. PR and SEO used to exist in completely separate silos. But because they can actually have a synergistic relationship with each other, more smart marketers are choosing to approach these strategies together.
How PR and SEO Complement Each Other
You’re likely already creating compelling content for your agency or clients’ sites. When a media outlet mentions your brand and links to your site, that’s more than just good publicity. You gain a valuable backlink from this PR.
High-quality backlinks from reputable sites are one of Google’s most important ranking factors. Backlinks are an important part of any digital marketing strategy.
Here are a few more benefits of combining PR with SEO efforts:
- Increased Website Traffic: PR efforts drive traffic to your website through the publications that feature you. That, along with your strategic SEO efforts, ensures steady organic traffic from your target audience. A strong SEO plan that includes page speed improvements will reduce your bounce rate and make it easier to gain new customers.
- Improved Brand Awareness and Credibility: A great PR strategy can raise awareness about your brand, making it more memorable for people. Securing media mentions on established publications builds authority, boosting credibility in your industry, and fostering trust among your audience. This makes you look more credible, increasing the likelihood that visitors will convert.
- Enhanced Reputation Management: It’s only natural that as your brand grows, online chatter increases – both positive and negative. PR and press releases help manage your brand’s reputation. Securing coverage on influential outlets allows you to control the narrative about your brand and counter negative press. This is key because most customers are unlikely to choose a company with negative feedback and bad reviews.
Getting Started With Affordable PR SEO
The prospect of getting media placements on major news outlets may seem like a dream for small business owners without big PR budgets. But a press release plan is more doable than you think.
Affordable PR SEO doesn’t need to be an overly complex undertaking. Even if you choose to handle your PR efforts in-house, these easy-to-follow strategies can get you started.
1. Build Relationships With Journalists and Bloggers
Reaching out to media outlets isn’t the same as spamming them. Instead, start building genuine connections with journalists and bloggers in your industry or niche. Engage with their social media posts and share valuable comments.
Consider contributing guest posts to publications that align with your industry. Not only will your guest posts position you as an industry leader, but you can also gain a powerful backlink from your author bio. This is a great link-building tactic.
2. Craft Compelling, Newsworthy Content
Creating press releases is a given. However, you’ll also need more engaging content, such as blog posts, research reports, and thought leadership pieces to get you noticed by reputable publications.
The type of content you focus on should align with your audience’s interests. Research what they are actively searching for to craft interesting narratives around those topics. Content creation can take a lot of time and effort but can help with your overall marketing strategy in the long term.
Google’s SERP features like Google autocomplete, Related searches, and People Also Ask can be great resources, along with tools like Answer The Public. All can augment your keyword research process by uncovering real search queries your audience is looking for online. The idea is to provide valuable content that benefits the media outlets’ audiences while gaining exposure for your brand or agency. Your marketing team should always be on the lookout for increasing brand awareness.
3. Use Press Release Distribution Services
Once you have newsworthy content about your business or agency, use press release distribution services to broaden your reach. Consider cost-effective services such as PR Web, Newswire, and PR Newswire. For an even cheaper solution, consider 24-7 PressRelease and eReleases Press Release Distribution Services.
Growth Friday ensures distribution to over 200 news sites, including Digital Journal, MarketWatch, the Daily Herald, NBC, and Fox affiliates. By using these affordable distribution platforms, even smaller companies gain access to services that were traditionally exclusive to those with large PR budgets.
4. Optimize Your Content for SEO
Always add your keywords to Google My Business profiles. Don’t simply throw content out into the internet void, hoping it’ll stick. Optimize your content for relevant keywords related to your industry and target audience.
By integrating relevant keywords, using concise, and compelling titles and meta descriptions, you increase the chance of getting found both in news searches and standard organic search. The search volume for keywords can vary. However, as long as you do proper keyword research you can ensure that you are targeting the correct keywords.
Tools and Tactics to Leverage for Affordable PR SEO
We know you’re on the lookout for affordable solutions. This is your toolbox for mastering affordable PR SEO.
1. HARO
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a free service connecting journalists seeking expertise with sources. Subscribe and get daily queries related to your expertise. Respond with valuable insight.
Journalists can then feature your quotes along with links to your site, making it one of the simplest yet effective ways to earn quality backlinks for free.
2. JournoRequests
Much like HARO, JournoRequests lets you connect with media professionals requesting specific expertise. Sign up to get emailed journalist requests so that you can craft targeted pitches.
A subscription to JournoRequest costs around $39 per month for individual accounts. This can be an invaluable tool if you find that your time responding to HARO requests outweighs the ROI you see in actual media mentions. They offer one of the best link-building services around.
3. PitchBox
This outreach tool streamlines the entire outreach process for contacting bloggers and journalists. Create customized email sequences, follow-ups, and track responses.
Building genuine connections with media professionals rather than spamming out one-off, impersonal blasts can make the difference in your results.
4. BuzzSumo
Find influential bloggers, journalists, and influencers related to your niche with BuzzSumo. Discover trending topics relevant to your agency.
By creating valuable content around those topics, you increase your likelihood of getting picked up by media publications looking for those specific conversations.
Case Studies
You may still be unsure about the tangible outcomes affordable PR SEO can deliver for small businesses or agencies. So let’s dive into a real-world example. Take Darren Watson from The Sterling Watson Collective, a digital marketing agency. His PR efforts now bring his local business to the top spot of Google’s coveted 3-Pack. This is the box Google shows on page one displaying the top three businesses for a particular keyword, in his case, for 27 keywords.
This top spot on page one, rather than hiding in the organic results farther down, can significantly impact lead generation, website traffic, and overall brand visibility. You also likely already know the value of claiming your Google My Business Profile, ensuring you’re providing potential clients or customers the correct information, like your location and phone number.
Affordable SEO Content for PR Agencies
You know your PR agency needs to rank higher on Google. But SEO is a lot of work, and it can get pricey. What if you could get affordable SEO content without sacrificing quality?
That’s where RankWriters comes in. We give PR agencies like yours high-quality, SEO-driven content that gets results. This way, you can focus on what you do best: building relationships and getting great results for your clients.
We get how important SEO is for PR agencies. It helps potential clients find you online. Our team knows how to write content that ranks well in search results and attracts your ideal audience.
Here’s how we can help your PR agency:
- Boost your website traffic with SEO-friendly blog posts, articles, and website copy.
- Attract more clients with persuasive content that showcases your expertise.
- Establish thought leadership in your industry with well-researched content that positions you as an expert.
FAQs about affordable PR SEO
Is PR good for SEO?
PR efforts are very good for SEO. You’re getting high-quality backlinks back to your site, plus more brand recognition, which increases organic traffic.
How to do SEO for cheap?
Consider implementing PR tactics like HARO to get backlinks for free. There are a variety of PR agencies offering plans starting at $1,000/month. A traditional PR strategy may cost more. Cheap SEO does not mean that the quality of work is bad. Affordable SEO services are out there.
Is paying someone to do SEO worth it?
SEO done well involves a lot of time. This could pull your agency’s resources away from providing quality client services. Because affordable solutions exist, paying someone who has more experience to take these crucial SEO efforts off your hands, so you can focus on other aspects of the business, might be worth it. Services include local SEO, national SEO, technical SEO, and more.
What is the average price for SEO optimization?
For local SEO, most agencies charge anywhere from $500-$1,500 per month. Larger enterprise or national SEO can run $2,500 to $5,000/month. Looking at your available budget as well as where you feel you can provide the most ROI will likely drive your decisions about handling certain tasks internally versus externally. Services require different budgets depending on the scope of work and strategy calls you have.
Conclusion
Affordable PR SEO is the perfect solution for small to mid-size businesses looking to achieve their growth goals while being mindful of tight budgets. You can raise your agency’s or business’s visibility, get media coverage, and gain those important SEO backlinks, all without spending a fortune.
Affordable PR SEO is all about making smart decisions about strategy, allocating resources properly, and choosing cost-effective tactics to amplify your online presence. By taking consistent action and refining your efforts along the way, this strategic combination of PR and SEO can yield lasting, measurable results. This will make a difference in the online visibility and success of your company.