At Citation Labs, we see PR as an essential component of any link building campaign, and we wanted to know if our clients and customers felt the same way. So earlier this year, we surveyed Citation Labs newsletter readers and customers with two questions in mind: How much is PR a factor in your link building efforts? How well qualified do you feel to develop your own PR campaigns?
We also wanted to understand the challenges our community faced in combining link building and PR efforts so we could work to develop solutions.
So are link builders and SEOs looking to develop PR skills? Turns out, many are. But there is still an information gap in PR best practices.
Here are some of our key findings:
1. SEOs and Link Builders Want PR Skills:
• 71% of respondents had used PR in the last year
• Of those respondents who had not used PR, 79% intended to do so in the year ahead This confirmed that PR is obviously important to our respondents.
2. Many SEOs and Link Builders Haven’t Yet Achieved PR Success.
• Only 2% described their work as very successful
• 32.6% described their work as successful
• 41.3% were neutral
• 24% described their work as unsuccessful.
3. The Biggest Challenges for SEOs Attempting PR Were:*
• Understanding the process of PR
• Building relationships with journalists
• Creating newsworthy content
• Pitching ideas to journalists
*based on responses from an open-ended question
What does this mean for SEO & Marketing Teams?
Our marketing teams are silos no more. We may debate the marketing department of the future, but it’s hard to ignore that well-done campaigns now call for quality content creation, audience finding, relationship building and mission development.
If you haven’t already, it’s time to reconsider your PR strategy. Link builders and SEOs are equally responsible for telling the company story, and most have already realized that PR skills are an essential component of sharing a brand’s message. If you’re already working toward PR and haven’t yet hacked a cohesive strategy, you’re not alone. You can read our tips for SEOs looking to improve their PR skills the survey report below, or in our press release.
In addition to the recent release of our press list prospector, we plan to develop further tools and agency services to increase our PR offerings. Stay tuned for more PR tools and guides for link builders from Citation Labs.