Search: The next frontier in digital PR

Wikipedia describes a search engine as "an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system, such as on the world wide web, inside a corporate or proprietary network, or in a personal computer."

As the web evolved so has search. Originally the web consisted of so few sites that the first method of searching the web was in the form of lists. Yahoo started out as one such list on a web server called Jerry and David's Guide to the world wide web.

The Rise of Search

While the significance of blogs, podcasts and social media sites such as Facebook is well understood within the context of digital PR, the importance of search to any audience's media consumption is just beginning to factor in many client's overall public relations and communication plans. 

Research shows that seven out of every 10 web sessions start at a search box, so searching has replaced surfing as the de facto way to consume relevant, customised content on the internet.  As a matter of fact, search is no longer about just finding things, but a reference source and a "reputation engine." Worldwide there are over 25 billion search queries per month and online marketing is a larger business than outdoor, cinema and radio in many markets.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engines are becoming increasingly important for most media and magazines, in many cases providing them with 30% of their web traffic. In fact, search even influences the way many journalists write nowadays. A fact of life for "content producers" that wear two hats, print and online, is the need to use programs called keyword tools to help them optimise and select words that should feature in the headline and first 100 words of an article. The aim is to drive traffic to their site and maximise their content's audience.

The kinds of tactics that online journalists now use to attract search engine traffic are commonly known as search engine optimisation or SEO. As PR professionals we need to be cognisant of using similar tactics when we create client materials that are likely to be posted online including press releases, articles and corporate or product backgrounders.

There are more than 150 different attributes that search engines look at and weigh up in order to assess how relevant a piece of web is and its relative ranking on a web page. This secret formula is changed every six weeks or so by the main search engines as they continually tweak and improve their techniques to try and give audiences the best results and keep them coming back for more.

SEO at its most basic level is the duty of every PR person in the way that they write any materials that are to be posted on a client site or on a third-party web service. As a rule, consultants should ensure they and their clients are leveraging what keywords their digital marketing teams are currently using.

Search Engine Marketing

Another component of online marketing is SEM (search engine marketing), generally used to describe search engine-based advertising. This can be paid placement where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website.

SEM can be useful to PR professionals in a number of scenarios, for instance promoting a micro-site, crisis and reputation management to promote the client's side of the story via content on their own website for a ‘black' site specially created or as a competitive measure to promote the clients product and services to audiences searching for information about a competitor

Ideally SEM needs a holistic approach so PR professionals should try to directly involve digital marketers within the client's company who will be already looking after the client's SEM program. There are advantages to a single team approach, which is why Waggener Edstrom's own digital strategies team manages our own in-house resources to advise, provide guideline budgets and execute SEM campaign elements on behalf of our clients.

David Ko is Executive Vice President at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide