PR Must Evolve & Specialise To Survive


Google's recent update to the rules on keywords, links and anchor text in press releases was bad news for some PR and SEO agencies.

The era of low-quality bookmark site links, cleverly embedded links in widgets and mass posting forum comments with optimised links are dead.

Google is now so adept at policing them that companies will be penalised for using such methods.

Back in 2012, the company suggested:

"The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community."

Working for The Protein Works, I already had an advantage thanks to an expert team.

One year on, we have contributed to national newspapers, specialist press and B2B media partners with rich, informative, unique content.

It's no coincidence we've enjoyed good, organic growth where many of our competitors have stagnated.

I'll accept this is not the most objective case study, but providing specialist, honest, unique content instead of general press releases or anything that manipulates Google's search results will achieve the following for your company:

  • Complies with Google's new Webmaster Rules ensuring you are not penalised
  • Becomes a strategy that the competition will find hard to copy without specialist expertise and media contracts of their own
  • Produces credible, quality content that reflects positively on the brand
  • Fulfils a kind of 'corporate social responsibility' in enriching the user experience.

    • So, the moral: play by the rules and learn to specialise.

    Growth will be steady and organic but it will also be 'legal'.

    Photo (cc) Melanie Cook on Flickr. Some rights reserved. 

    19 February 2014 by Ross Edgley
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