With all the press release writing, article writing, brand building and online profile building that a good SEO will undertake these days, are we in danger of becoming the new PR people?
SEO used to be a simple matter of optimising a site and submitting it to some directories and search engines. Stuff those keywords in and get to the top of Infoseek in no time.
Nowadays the SEO person often has to fulfill a larger role and often they are the only marketing contact that the client makes. We get asked for advice on advertising, SEO, content creation, site usability, building brand with press releases, viral campaigns, linkbaiting, social networking etc.
11 years ago I used to work in a rented corner of a PR office and I could hear the discussions they were having with clients. Much of them were the same, though the web was less prominent in those days for distributing the clients message. Now though the web is at the forefront of any brand building, and SEO is one of the core aspects of that, so I guess it makes sense that we’re now taking on a much more public relations orientated role.
Look at it this way, if you are working on building awareness of a site by commenting on blogs on your clients behalf, you’re putting a very public message out there that reflects on your client. Same goes for building a forum profile with your client’s link in the signature – everything you say has to be measured and weighed to ensure it is putting out the right message about your client.
So next time one of your relatives asks what SEO is, you can just answer “It’s just like public relations”.
