Online PR: The Key To Building Backlinks

You often hear Internet marketing professionals talk about SEO (Search Engine Optmization) and SMO (Social Media Optimization) as two different monsters.

SEO is about businesses displaying relevant content and by building relationships with each other. These relationships could include sharing consumers and visitors through publication of links and information. The goal of an SEO professional is to assist websites in ranking higher in the search engine results for key phrases related to the business operation.

SMO is about Internet users sharing news, information, and media with other individuals. The nature of these interactions and the stories they share could be personal or professional. The goal of an SMO professional is to encourage people to talk about your product or service and in many cases, simply notice it.

SEO and SMO share many similarities in regards to the process, goals, and approach of each. What's missing in the Internet marketing community, is the connection between the two. Internet marketing should be about building both online visibility and individual relationships.

Online PR is crucial to building backlinks. But why?

• Online PR is about influencing individuals in the online community, including media professionals and bloggers alike. It goal is two fold, it makes them take notice and frames the story to be told.
• An effective public relations campaign on the Internet is able expose a story that people want to hear, tell, and share while placing a businesses image into the minds of individuals.
• Public relations is the process of building a company’s reputation largely by generating positive media coverage. In this way, Online PR actually attracts attention from consumers and other industry individuals.
• SEO focuses on it's placement within websites and other businesses. SMO seeks to attract attention on of individuals and consumers. PR on the other hand does both: it places stories in front of individuals and attracts journalists.
• SEO places emphasis on long term results in search engines, while SMO provides short term boosts in visitors. Online PR provides a bridge between the two by publishing stories that people link to (long term) and talk about on social networks (short term).

For these reasons online PR might just be they key to building backlinks with Social SEO.