SEO and PR - Deciding Who Gets The Exclusive

My colleague Nadja Blagojevic wrote an interesting blog on SEO and PR last week on the Page One PR blog.

We have growing appreciation for metrics-based pr at Page One. It's an exciting time for us as we see more data than ever before about how public relations can impact sales.

As we get more involved with SEO for our clients - some small changes begin to creep into our planning.

One example: we have always been faced with the question of who to give an exclusive to when we are making an announcement. Often times we don't give an exclusive, but in the times that we do, how do we pick the right blogger or reporter?

A number of variables go into this question:
- Personal relationships between our client and the blogger/reporter
- What reporters might be most interested in the announcement?

Now, as we get more involved in SEO, there is a new element to consider: does a reporter's site generally provide links to our client sites? This link is gold for our clients from an SEO perspective - and we are beginning to pay attention to what publications do link back as we consider who to give exclusives to.

For example:
- eWeek includes links back to companies they cover. For example, see this story last week on OpenLogic.
- InformationWeek does too - as evidenced by this article on OpenLogic.

However, there are still some very well known publications in tech arena who only include links in their articles to content on their own web site. They have good business decisions for not funneling traffic off of their own web site.

But the reality is the companies these publications cover are beginning to pay attention to how articles can impact organic search results, and link backs are a key component.

If you are a reporter who thrives on exclusives - you should realize if your publication doesn't link to the companies you cover - your ability to secure exclusives will dwindle.