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Why search optimisation means PR these days

matt-willson
By Matt Willson
12th April 2016

We’ve written before about myths in SEO and how we still hear that trickery and fakery can lead a website to the top of Google’s search rankings.

Google employ some of the finest minds – on very good money – to make sure people can’t cheat poor quality websites into good positions.

At Aubergine, we encourage businesses to think about search engine optimisation differently.  The signals that Google is looking for have one thing in common – signs that your business is valued by customers. These include

  • you’ve been in business a long time
  • you have stories about you in your local newspaper (and links in its online version)
  • you get mentioned in specialist forums
  • you get interviewed by national newspapers (and get links in its online version)
  • your website gets pages added regularly
  • you have a loyal Instagram following – and they regularly come to your wesbite (via Google) to browse around
  • your website retains visitors when they arrive via Google
  • you get regular mentions in your industry’s specialist magazine (and links in its online version)

You’ll notice that not much of these relate to “technical SEO” – but most are the result of successful PR. And it makes sense:

  • Google wants to give good quality search results…
  • … because that will bring searchers back to Google
  • (and they’ll probably click on ads)
  • so they want to reward successful businesses
  • and successful businesses usually receive good PR, relative to their competition

As a business considering how to get more business leads / sales via the internet, you can easily be tempted by the emails that promise “top pf page 1 on Google for only $100 a month” – a small sum of money, without the need for your time or energy.

But it doesn’t work (a simple rule for Google is – if it’s easy to do, they don’t take any notice).

PR is difficult, time consuming and long term. But good PR means being good at what you do; honing your message; finding the right medium; convincing the journalist; engaging the consumer.

It’s difficult – and Google rewards those who put in the effort.