ESSAYS


STEPHEN KENWRIGHT, HEAD OF SEARCH AT BRANDED3


team’s job to know what Google wants, they’re also in a position to help PR workers and brands avoid unnecessary penalties.


BAD CO. “Google wants you to stop sending stuff to bloggers,” Kenwright says. “A well-known high street fashion retailer got penalised for this recently. It’s not that you can’t do it at all, but you’ve got to do it properly. Advertising standards and Google guidelines are not the same thing.” (In January last year Google’s Head of Webspam Matt Cutts blogged about this himself: “If you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014,” he wrote, “you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”) Advertorials, too, are frowned upon by


Google. “The problem is that a lot of native advertising looks a lot like advertorials,” says Kenwright. “If you’re using that to drive SEO performance, it’s going to get you in trouble. Google also wants you to stop syndicating press releases. If you use sites like PR Newswire – well, I probably wouldn’t anymore, and certainly not with links in. Links from press releases will get you penalised.” This is compounded by the fact that, with the rise of social media, online infl uencers, reddit and the rest, plenty of journalists are no longer looking at newswires as the primary source of their information. Essentially, says Kenwright, SEO


agencies know how the internet works and, if brands want to stay afl oat in the digital tide, their PR teams need to take note. “If something’s worth syndicating, someone will do it for you.”


DATA TELLS STORIES As an example of how this strategy has worked, Kenwright highlights the work Branded3 carried out for cosmetic surgery group Transform, which wanted to be seen as the UK’s most trusted and transparent provider. “People tell their own


stories now. They take what you’ve got and add their own context. Something we’re very big on is telling stories with data. This is one of the best ways we can do PR as an SEO agency.” In the case of Transform,


Sun on


Sunday, the Daily Star, the Telegraph and Mail


Online all put their own spin on the


EVEN THE MOST


Branded3 looked at the last four years of enquiry data in the company’s CRM system. This covered the types of cosmetic operations customers were seeking. The data formed the basis for a report from Transform titled Brits, Boobs and Botox, which revealed the most popular cosmetic surgery procedures across different areas of the UK. What’s signifi cant from a PR perspective is the media coverage which that content generated. The fi ndings


included the fact that Blackpool is the ‘boob job capital of the UK’ and the revelation that the biggest market for facelifts is among those aged 18-24. From an editorial perspective,


stats like this are dynamite and The 37 issue 23 january 2015


story. In total there were 40 pieces of coverage. Result: 7,000 referrals for Transform, a 105 per cent year-on-year organic lift and 65 conversions, which in the fi eld of cosmetic surgery is signifi cant. As Kenwright points out, “We’ve got something here that journalists actually want to use.”


So, PR and SEO are


TRUSTED BRANDS CAN FAIL TO RANK FOR SOMETHING THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY DRIVE


TRAFFIC”


evolving. But that’s not to say the line between them has completely dissolved. “There are aspects of PR that SEO will just never be good at,” Kenwright concedes. “I’m not advocating by any stretch that you get rid of PR. What I’d prefer is that your PR team talk to your SEO agency and realise that we’re all friends.” When it comes to crisis management, trade contacts and real-world factors like celebrity endorsement, you probably want access to an experienced PR rather than an SEO expert, even if they do understand anchor text ratio.


This is not, stresses Kenwright, about two departments encroaching on each other’s turf. It’s about amplifying the extent to which each sector can benefi t the client. branded3.com


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