Attending the PR and SEO roundtable session at last week’s BrightonSEO event would have been worthwhile for any PR professional. However, out of around 15 people at the table perhaps three were from a pure PR background. Two were content marketing specialists the rest were SEO professionals.

The ratio was even more extreme in the main conference sessions the following day. Sadly, it seems that there is a shortage of enthusiasm from the PR community to learn about search. By contrast, almost all SEO professionals I have met are desperate to learn more about PR strategies and techniques. They also seem to be keen to work alongside PR professionals.

When you take a closer look at what SEO professionals actually do, you discover much of it would be what you and I would call PR. So I believe PR professionals should seek to understand basic SEO concepts and make positive efforts to link up with the SEO people who work for their clients (see my last post on our latest whitepaper).

Search and public relations working together has so much potential to boost the effectiveness of both sides and therefore give greater results for the client.

SEO also has the potential to solve many challenges for PR – such as identifying influential media outlets to measuring the impact of campaigns – so rather than being fearful of SEO, there is a real argument for PR professionals to embrace it.

Download our free whitepaper on this subject: ‘What PRs need to know about SEO’