PR and SEO knowledge

A conversation this week with a PR professional made me realise that knowledge does not travel as fast as I thought.

Part of my job as an online and print editor is to commission and curate interesting content which is sent to me by PR companies. Original content which I commission is ideal for using in the magazines and on the websites because it is, usually, unique and runs little or no risk of being duplicate content. As long as the articles I receive are well written, relevant to my readers, topical and I have space, I publish them.

Press releases, however, are a different challenge.

The first action I take when a press release comes into my inbox which looks interesting to 'Google' the headline to see where else the PR has been published. The likelihood is that it has been published on a website recently.

And, that is the first challenge for PR professionals.

There is no point in me publishing the press release verbatim. If I do, the search engines will take the view that the content is little more than spam. In that case, I need to either drop the press release and not use it. Or, if it is interesting, rewrite it and use other information on the topic to enhance the article.

When I put this to the PR professional this week, he sounded astounded that I was not publishing his press releases verbatim on our website.

"Do you mean that to send my PR to five media outlets, I would have to send five versions of the same story?" he said.

"Yes", I replied.

His face dropped. He could see the amount of work he would have to do growing exponentially without extra reward from his client.

For me, the work increases too. But, this is just part of the job these days. Write or commission original or don't run the press releases.

Lack of knowledge about SEO

But, the interesting fact was that in my sector there are PR professionals who still have not grasped the impact of search engines upon their work. Despite the fastest ever communications systems being available to PR professionals, the knowledge and understanding about how to use them effectively is still not widely understood by people you would expect to know.

I did, however, comfort the PR man with the fact SEO is, in fact, quite simple. It still relies upon good copywriters writing good articles.

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