Report: Online PR Critical to Successful Link Building Efforts

Survey results published by CitationLabs in April 2015 revealed that 89 percent of SEO professionals believe that editorial links could help their SEO, as positive media coverage remains a strong search signal.

About 90 percent of respondents said that their existing link building skills were relevant to online public relations, highlighting the connection between SEO and PR. Additionally, approximately 72 percent of SEOs who have used PR in the past intend to seek more training.

“Online PR is a hot topic in search engine optimization,” said Garrett French, founder of CitationLabs. “Because of the growing demand, our tools now include the ability to find journalists and media outlets in all sectors – we see great growth in this area.”

Approximately 86 percent of SEO’s surveyed who haven’t used PR intend to get training, according to the report. However, as PR based link building efforts come into greater focus for SEO professionals, ad agencies and PR firms are also experiencing significant growth and opportunity.

Growth of PR / Ad Agency Industry

As detailed in Ad Age’s Agency Report 2015, digital media captured nearly 40 percent of 2014 revenue for U.S. agencies. Survey data from organizations like the Content Marketing Institute, Demand Gen, and Regalix support the notion that the role content marketing plays continues to increase, and remain a key part of the online marketing communication process.

Employment for ad agencies and PR firms is climbing and U.S. ad spending this year is finally in position to pass its prerecession peak. In fact, U.S. digital-media employment in January topped 175,000 whereas employment at U.S. PR agencies was at a record high (59,800), according to the Ad Age report.