Public Relations and SEO in 2012

[meterdei]

With all the stress on inbound marketing and focusing on links for traffic and not just SEO, it would seem to me that going forward the best skilled people for the job of link building are public relations consultants (at least for startups). PR folks have the contacts and training to get publicity on the big authority sites and really drive big traffic as well as strong links. What am I missing? For link building, why should we hire an SEO firm and not a PR firm?

Secondly, I've been contacting a few agencies to get some idea of what they charge and most seem to start at about $5k pm whereas we only have a budget of around $1k for link building. Am I wasting my time thinking I may get any benefit at this low of a budget?

I'd love to hear from anyone with any experience using PR firms/consultants and if you have any recommendations that would be great also.

[EGOL]

From my experience as a publisher...  Most PR firms are spammers who wear a suit to work. 

[josh-riley]

My two cents? I spent 12yrs in the PR field (and transitioned into SEO/social media) and I'd be very careful to ask the right questions to determine what PR agency to work with. I know - and worked with - few who knew how to properly optimize a release. And, while they did have media contacts, PR Newswire did a lot of the leg work. Pitching a story to a reporter or blogger was really the value the PR person brought to the table. And, link building was never something that was regularly brought up. In the past two months, the majority of the PR pros I network with like to tell me "SEO is dead" which tells me everything I need to know about their understanding of SEO.

Again, I am sure there are plenty of seasoned PR people who have an understanding - there's also lots of agencies who like to sell their services even if they don't have the depth of knowledge. Like any business endeavor, it's just a matter of due diligence to find the right fit.

Freelancers have way better prices because they don't have the same overhead costs as agencies, so that could be a more affordable route.

[JarnoNijzing]

Dear meterdei,

You're right on the part that PR Folks have the right contact allthough my thoughts on why hire a SEO for instead of a PR marketeer are very simliar. I think a good SEO does not only provide you with the right links but also makes sure those links stay good and stay online (monitoring) and also a SEO should (i'm not saying all do or all don't do but they should) also analyse what the links do for your website.

PR agencies charge from 5K and more? I think if you do find a good SEO to do a lot of quality linkbuilding you should put some agreements in a contract. Lets say you want at least 5 .gov links and 10 .edu links to you new project togetheer with lots of other links offcourse the should then provide a list of websites where they had put the links on. That way you can monitor what you get and what they had done. I think for all of this including monitoring what these links did for your website the cost will be anywhere from 2K to 4K depanding on the exact amount of linkbuilding.

If you sell yourself short by going for a cheaper solution you might regret it in the end.

I do have experience with some linkbuilding firms but they have not continued their work. As for PR firms, i would not know what they can provice next to the right SEO.

[Robert_Nemec]

There are two approaches we use:

1. The client hires a PR agency. We teach the PR agency how to do SEO press release and give them our manual. Than - and this part is important - before the PR agency sends the press reales, they have to send it to our agency to check it and optimize. After we check the press release it can be send to the media. The point is the links are not important for PR folks. So the most you can demand from them is to put an URL or your home page at the beginning of the press release (sometimes they even don't mention it). But it is just the beginnig. Different online media handle the links in the press releases differenty and you have to know, how make and hypertext from them, how to do a deep-links and how to handle with keywords in the press releases. This is not typical PR work.
2. Because we provide the PR services, we write and optimize press releases. We do the PR even off-line. But not all PR agencies provide this kind of service.

Press releases are good sources of links, but it is just a part of link-building. But very valuable.

Another point is that sometimes (manytimes?) is it more valuable to get a link from specialized, but not so known website (e. g. a blog) or discussion board, than from generally oriented huge website/media.

I am not so familiar with the prices on US market but e. g. 600 USD/per month per link-building is a minimum by our agency here in Central Europe. But is someone wants just link-building for 600 USD/month, we have to reject it. If an account manager has to be able to deliver results, he or she has to spend a lot of time with his or her team to work on a project. And many times link-building is not enough. So it needs o lot of time. I cannot imagine a serious project, where you spend less than 20 hours per month doing SEO - and this is really just a minimum. E. g. 20 hours by our Central-European agency is 1 750 USD.

If you want a reputable US agency, you have to prepare to pay higher prices.