Link building and PR

Online marketing author Dave Chaffey underlines the close relationship between PR and SEO, specifically link-building in his latest blog, quoting SEO guru – Eric Ward, writing in Search Marketing Standard. Here are some outakes:

“1. Link-building is nearly indistinguishable from public relations”

“If you regard links solely as an SEO function, link-building initiatives may end up creating an unnatural inbound link profile. Fix this by working toward more cooperation between the public relations, marketing, sales and SEO teams”.

In other words, successful link-building isn’t limited to work by an SEO specialist adding links to directories, or adding anchor text to press releases. It requires the garnering of links to be a structured marketing activity built into all PR and marketing campaigns. I see many great campaigns which don’t harness their link-building potential.”

“2. Be honest when a client has a site with no true distinguishing content to their 20 competitors”

You can see from this guideline that the article is written for SEOs and he is describing a common situation
faced by SEOs. I, and many other SEOs have found this “some clients are perfectly willing to do what they need
to do to stand out, whether that means adding content, resources, tools, or even refocusing on a narrow vertical approach. Others are not”.