SEO-PR.com’s Greg Jarboe on the Convergence of SEO and Public Relations

September 17, 2015: The disciplines of SEO and Public Relations have been converging for years. Because both fields of activity have a common goal: to increase the visibility and favorable public impression of their clients, it’s not a surprise that many SEO agencies have added “PR” to their service offerings while PR agencies have added “SEO” to theirs.

Greg Jarboe — of San Francisco-based agency SEO-PR.com — was among the first to see this convergence coming, launching his agency with partner Jamie O’Donnell, in 2003. Since that time he’s served as agency president while writing, teaching, and speaking on this and other topics relevant to PR and SEO professionals.

In this interview, Greg fields questions probing the progress of th SEO+PR convergence, the current state of tech sophistication among PR firms, mistakes that marketers and PR pros make in respect to the digital medium, some recent changes from Google that are impacting both SEO and PR, and the special qualities that make an SEO agency a good choice for digital PR campaigns.

Didit: You’re a major advocate of the role of video in online communications. What’s the biggest mistake that agencies and/or marketers make when attempting to use video to get their messages across? How would you recommend that PR agencies present video to their clients as an option? When should an agency counsel a client NOT to put up a video?

Greg Jarboe: The biggest mistake that agencies and marketers make is uploading their TV commercials to YouTube. That is rarely the best way to get their message across. It’s generally better to create video content that looks like “content” instead of an “ad”. So, when PR agencies present video to their clients, they should talk about creating a product demo, how-to video, or explainer video. But, I wouldn’t recommend putting up a video that violated YouTube’s community guidelines. For example, Nicole Arbour recently uploaded a video called “Dear Fat People” that derided people for being overweight. Her channel was automatically suspended after a lot of people flagged it on YouTube.

Didit: You obviously realized very early on that search engines were going to transform the way that the public relations practice works. And yet it seems that many PR agencies — even in 2015 — haven’t managed this transition (or have managed it very late, which I suppose is much the same thing). What accounts for the relative backwardness of the PR industry in respect to the adoption of digital tools? Is this a generational phenomenon that will only solve itself when the “millennials” are in power in the industry, a general digital skills gap, a “New York vs. Silicon Valley” conflict, or something else?

Greg Jarboe: I believe that many PR agencies have been slow to adopt digital tools because their clients have continued to let them use bogus metrics to measure their results. Seriously, how many “mentions” do you need in online publications and blogs to increase brand awareness by 1 percentage point? And, if you increase brand awareness by 1 percentage point, then how many new leads or sales will you generate? Now, compare these assumptions with the actual results we generated for Southwest Airlines with 4 optimized press releases back in 2004: More than $2.5 million in ticket sales. So, until more clients demand that their PR agencies know how to generate similar results, PR agencies are going to continue to be the relatively backward part of the marketing mix.

Didit: I’ve noticed that many job descriptions for entry-level PR positions include the magic words “social media,” but not the words “SEO” (and certainly not “video optimization”).  Do you see this situation changing anytime soon?

Greg Jarboe: Unfortunately, I don’t see this situation changing anytime soon. If you replace “online publications and blogs” with “social media” in the answer to the previous question, you will see why I’m not optimistic. Even social media marketers are using bogus metrics. Seriously, how many “likes” and “tweets” do you need in social media to increase brand awareness by 1 percentage point? And, if you increase brand awareness by 1 percentage point, then how many new leads or sales will you generate? Now, compare that with the actual results that we generated with a $5,000 LinkedIn outreach program for ReelSEO’s Video Marketing Summit in 2014: 500 new subscribers to ReelSEO’s newsletter and $35,000 in incremental revenue from 35 additional attendees to the Video Marketing Summit. In other words, social media should be held to the same standards as any other part of the marketing mix.

Didit: Is the press release — (SEO optimized or not) dead in the era of “influencer marketing?”

Greg Jarboe: It’s worth noting that Tom Bergin of Reuters reported on March 11, 2015, “Google change allows company statements to top news searches.” So, as Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) says in The Princess Bride (1987), “It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.” So, I use influencer marketing to reach out to the influencers that I’m able to identify ahead of time and press release SEO to help influencers that I haven’t been able to identify ahead of time to discover relevant and valuable news.

Didit: A lot of SEO agencies are adding “PR” to their service offerings. What are the hazards of giving the PR task to an agency with great SEO chops but limited exposure to the core principles of PR?

Greg Jarboe: It depends on whether the SEO agency has copywriters who can write copy primarily for users, not for search engines. For example, Google Fellow Amit Singhal provided “more guidance on building high-quality sites” back in May 2011 after the first “Panda” algorithm change. So, ask an agency with great SEO chops but limited exposure to the core principles of PR if it can answer some questions that Singhal said that one could use to assess the “quality” of an article:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?

If the agency can give you satisfactory answers to these questions, then hire them. If it can’t, then look for an agency that can. We’ve trained a number of agencies and I believe that a number of others have developed these post-Panda writing skills on their own. But, you’ve got to do your own due-diligence to figure out if an agency can write primarily for users, not for search engines.

Didit: I notice on your Twitter feed that most of your links go to Pinterest. I’m intrigued: what are the advantages of doing this?

Greg Jarboe: I do it because my Pin It button lets me share photos and videos to Twitter and Facebook at the same time as I share them to Pinterest. So, the only advantage of doing this that I can retroactively invent is that it saves me time. Although, it’s also fair to say that I’m lazy.

Didit: Do you see any changes from Google or the other engines that are likely to affect the way that digital PR is accomplished in the next year or so?

Greg Jarboe: There’s one change that’s just taken place. Since Aug. 21, 2015, Tweets in Google Search can now be seen on desktop in addition to mobile devices and web. Beyond that, I frequently use Google Trends to see a prediction of how popular a search term will be in the near future. For example, interest in “PR” and “SEO” are both forecast to be flat a year from now. But interest in “content marketing” is forecast to be up.