PR and SEO have gone hand in hand for years. So much so, that Tin Shingle was actually designed around their union, to help you identify SEO opportunities from PR mentions. Case in point, as pointed out in this tiny blurb in Allure Magazine's September 2018 issue: When Kylie Jenner announced on Instagram that she removed the filler from her lips, "Google searches for 'lip filler removal' spike 10,000% that same day." Those types of Google searches - we'll call that SEO Gone Wild - is an open market for businesses and experts who specialize in this field to quickly benefit from Kylie's words.
I first witnessed this SEO magic when I was blogging on my first blog in about 2005, when the TV show One Tree Hill was on. A character on the show started a clothing line - Clothes Over Bros - that you could also buy in real life. My blog covered fashion stuff, and I loved that show, so it was natural for me to blog about it the night the episode aired. Overnight, traffic to my blog website soared. Everyone was searching for the clothing line, and no one else had written about it yet. My blog post, which I did make sure to write in a very SEO friendly way, outranked articles at major magazines who later did write about it.
An influx in searches like that will happen for a few hours at least. Maybe for a few days. This is why you want to be aware of what celebrities are saying, and then write articles about it at your own blog on your business website. Now with social media, you will right away want to create a picture post to your Instagram with a caption that includes those words, and uses hashtags that are related to the terms.
Not only will you possibly sell product from a mention like this - which is a PR mention that had nothing to do with your business!! you're just riding the wave - but you could get PR as well. Now that a celebrity like Kylie said this about lip filler, it's a timely trend. The media will now prioritize this subject in their articles or TV segments. The media will be looking for sources to quote and products to feature immediately, to also ride that wave of the public's attention.
This is why having a blog at your own business website (some businesses call it "News") is such an important tool in your marketing toolbelt. You must be able to control the content that first starts coming out of and representing your brand, but you also must create breadcrumbs for people to find. Think of these blog articles as little fishing hooks. If you are hoping for attention, fishing for exposure, then that is sort of like fishing. You're waiting. Having more fishing hooks in the water with good bait on it (good pictures, links in the article, great content), then you'll attract more fish.
Of course, SEO is the passive way of getting exposure. Actually going out to get PR requires more pounding of the pavement, targeted outreach, personalized emails, etc. Doing both targeted PR outreach and creating passive SEO opportunities are two strategies you should be doing at all times. The passive SEO work will have very good long term impact!
What Do You Mean By "SEO Work?"
The world of SEO is tainted by scientific formulas and baseless promises on instant Google ranking if you pay a price or do something convoluted with database submissions. All bruhaha. What I mean by SEO work is Creative Writing and Timeliness.
When you write an article in your blog section of your website about something in the news, you can write it in a way that:
- Informs your reader.
- Inspires your reader to trust you.
- Directs your reader on where to go to get what you sell or contact you about your expertise.
That's it! There is a recipe to making your article SEO Yummy, which I'll talk about in this Tip Sheet, "The Celebrity SEO Effect: How to Score New Sales and Exposure from a Celebrity Mention of a Trend", but that's all it is. Just so you know, I majored in Communications in Media Studies, and was one class shy of a Creative Writing Minor. So that's why organic SEO methods come naturally to me, and they can to you as well.
