What’s a quick SEO tip for PR people?

A quick SEO tip for PR people is to use a question as the headline for your next blog post or news release. And then have the first paragraph be a direct answer to that question, written in natural language.

Then you have a shot at showing up higher in search results than other sites that might be more authoritative than you, because you’ll be one of those featured snippets that Google shows.

Here’s an example – note the question in the search bar and how the company ended up first for that question:

If you look back at the headline and opening paragraph of this post, you’ll see I tried to follow this tip.

I learned this from Justin Seibert, president of Direct Online Marketing, last week when he presented “What Every PR Pro Should Know About SEO” to my Inner Circle. Justin stood out to me when I attended a session he gave at a conference. Because the only sounds in the hotel meeting room were Justin’s voice and the furious scribbling and keyboard-clacking of the PR pros writing down his tips.

According to Justin, here are the four quickest and most impactful things to do on your own site to boost the search-worthiness of your news releases and blog posts (not counting, of course, earning backlinks from other sites):

1. Use the target keyword(s) in the webpage’s title tag.

2. Set up a URL that emphasizes the targeted keyword phrase, often mimicking the title tag, e.g. “https://www.directom.com/how-to-track-blog-posts-by-author-in-google-analytics/”

3. Link to other relevant pages on your site.

4. Use the keyword(s) in the heading and subheading, and make sure they are coded H1 and H2 in your content management system.

If you’d like to watch the whole PR-themed presentation, and follow the continuing conversation my Inner Circle members are still having about it, you can register for our Wait List and join the next time we open for new members.

If you can't wait and want more immediately actionable tips from Justin and his team, check out their SEO cheat sheet.