Growth marketing is an overarching approach to promoting a business that focuses on three key areas: authority, credibility, and visibility. To accomplish all three of these things at the same time, a growth marketer incorporates multiple tools and tactics, such as social media, email, and content marketing.
Two growth marketing tactics that are particularly important are digital PR and SEO. Used in tandem, these two powerful approaches are particularly effective at accomplishing marketing goals.
If you don’t already have a digital PR campaign and search engine optimization in motion, you’ve come to the right place. Even if you do incorporate them into your marketing strategy, if you aren’t weaving them together into the same growth marketing framework, you need to be doing so.
Here’s why.
Digital PR is a targeted approach to promoting products and services that seeks to remove short-term hype. Instead, it focuses on creating meaningful brand mentions on third-party sites and industry publications. Growth marketers craft these mentions to add genuine value for readers with the added effect of putting a brand in the spotlight in relevant conversations where their target audience is paying attention.
SEO strategy is a quieter, though effective, form of digital marketing. Rather than create credibility with consumers, search engine optimization seeks to create greater brand visibility with search engines. Marketers accomplish this through tactics such as link building, keyword research, and technical SEO with the goal of showing up in search results.
Both digital PR and SEO are integral parts of a larger growth marketing strategy. They contribute to a customer-focused, data-driven approach to brand-building.
At first glance, these two elements appear to be mutually exclusive. SEO focuses on search engines, while digital public relations emphasizes the human connection. But when you peel back the curtain, the two actually reinforce one another and create synergistic results that one cannot accomplish without the other.
In traditional marketing, digital PR and SEO operate in a vacuum and apart from one another. However, savvy growth marketers are aware of the overlapping nature of the two marketing concepts. They use them to complement one another, boost results, increase your brand visibility in search results, and ensure a positive marketing ROI.
Here are a few ways that can happen:
One of the most straightforward ways digital PR and SEO overlap is through links. The goal of digital PR isn’t to create backlinks. Instead, PR tactics seek to create buzz and put a brand in relevant spotlights and in front of your target audience.
Nevertheless, often, the process of digital PR leads to a brand receiving a backlink to an important website. When a brand mention happens on a site like Forbes or Inc., this can create a link with a high-DA (domain authority). This builds your site’s overall authority and backlink health, which are critical parts of the SEO process.
When a high-quality publication mentions your brand, this sends a good message to consumers. These PR tactics nurture trust and brand awareness among your target audience.
Being mentioned in online publications also sends the signal to humans and search engines alike that you are a leader in your industry. While this isn’t the same as a direct link, high-quality mentions can lead to more people searching for your brand through increased media coverage. This can create an easier path to better rankings, as Google is wary of prioritizing unknown sites that no one is talking about or looking for on a regular basis.
When your SEO ranking is high, it can also have an impact on your digital PR efforts. When you show up high on SERPs, that means online publications are more likely to find your brand when researching and use your company in their content.
Journalists might pull content from a press release. Content managers could link to your brand as an example. Social media managers might use a quote in a post.
This drives organic traffic to your site, which is the primary goal of your SEO efforts. But it can also enhance your digital PR strategy. Even if the sites organically mention you don’t have the highest domain authority, collectively, they signal to a search engine that you are worth talking about and can help increase your search engine rankings.
A rising tide lifts all ships. As you monitor Google Analytics for SEO and flesh out the next phase in your PR content strategy, remember to consider how the two can work together. Consider working with a growth marketing agency who specializes in digital PR and SEO. They can help you stay up to date with current trends to ensure your strategies are aligned.
It may not be obvious at first glance, but SEO and digital PR quietly complement each other behind the scenes. Especially if you weave them together as part of a larger growth marketing strategy.
Remember, this is a two-edged sword. If one is lacking, it can impact the other. If you invest in doing both well, you can see your marketing results lift as a result of their shared synergy.
