One of PR’s best known offerings is media relations; raising awareness of brands, products and services through the placement of stories in the media. We refer to the outputs of media relations as earned editorial because the coverage is not paid for, as it is with adverts.

Earned coverage has to meet the journalist and editor’s stringent criteria for what makes an interesting story to their readers, viewers or listeners. It needs to add value to their audience by being relevant, authentic and compelling. Just pushing a sales message won’t cut it with a quality journalist. The story has to earn the right to be featured.

Media relations has been a powerful force within the PR toolkit for a long time and deservedly so, because when a reputable journalist deems a story worthy of positive coverage it gives the brand, product or service added credibility. The journalist’s audience trusts them, and their approval helps to build trust with your brand. It’s like being given a recommendation from a friend.

These days, the first line of influence is often an internet search engine. If we have a question or need a recommendation, what do we do? We Google it. In fact, globally, it’s estimated we Google it more than three billion times a day.

Google has become the ultimate editor, a mediator between us and a world of information. Therefore, it is increasingly important that brands are able to rank high on the search lists.

As a result, search engine optimisation (SEO) has become big business. Some websites use technical tricks and underhand tactics, such as hiding key words on web pages, to bob and weave their way to the top of Google’s organic (non paid for) rankings. Google doesn’t like this.

Google’s aim is to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful“.

To achieve this, over the years, Google has developed a series of algorithms that judge the quality and relevance of web pages. They reward websites that offer high quality, compelling content and penalise those that use short-cuts, with the relevant page ranking. In extreme cases, a whole website can be removed from Google’s index. Conversely, the more relevant the content is deemed to be, the higher up the search results page it will appear.

While Google has not revealed the finer details of its algorithms, in addition to a host of technical considerations, it is believed that as well as media endorsement, having a positive reputation on third party blogs, forums and sites belonging to independent organisations all contribute to favourable rankings.

To me, as a PR for more than 20 years, this makes absolute sense, as it is based on the third-party credibility principle that runs through everything we do. As the adage goes, advertising is saying you’re good, PR is someone else saying you’re good, and as a business the value of this word of mouth endorsement is priceless.

PRs are experts in developing content that answers people’s questions, content that is informative while also conveying a brand’s key messages. They know that the value is not only in the brand mention, but in demonstrating the expertise that the brand encompasses. Good PR develops content that guides customers towards the business, engaging them along the way so that when they get to their final destination the decision to engage with the brand has already been made.

Through its results, Google is providing recommendations, so its reputation lies within the quality of those results. In the digital age, the more your content can support Google in its objective the more likely Google will drive traffic in the direction of your business. It’s a simple quid pro quo equation which starts with the consumer, find out what they are asking and answer it in the most authentic way possible and you will be one step ahead of the competition.

Claire Connolly
Falcon PR