James Crawford 2I’m here to tell you about why I use Majestic for PR but first here’s a little background as to why I’d recommend using what is widely seen as purely an SEO industry tool.

PR has changed. PR has always been a powerful marketing tool which can make or break reputations, but regardless of the industry’s successes, public relations agencies haven’t always truly ‘got’ online.

The use of PR as an SEO technique is largely non-existent within PR agencies, except for a few specialists, like my company PR Agency One and a handful of other competitors who I respect.

This lack of adoption of SEO PR is down to the fact that PR agencies fail at measuring their impact on search engine visibility.

So what has all this got to do with Majestic? This software has changed the way we plan and report our campaigns and I think it should be more widely adopted by PR agencies.  Previously we have used other SEO tools and just utilised the odd Majestic report from our SEO mates.  Now we can’t live without Majestic!

I’ve picked five reasons why PR agencies should use Majestic, but there are probably more; (please feel free to add any of your thoughts in the comments section below).

1)    For researching a client for a pitch

Going into a pitch blind is suicide. We use Majestic to research the client and their competitors. We can delve deep into historic press coverage, identify partners, active bloggers within the business and it can stimulate a whole new direction of creative thinking.  We can use Majestic Citation Flow and Trust Flow graphs as part of our presentations too.

2)    Building media lists based on trust

All PR people are great at using industry tools like Gorkana to build a media list of journalists and contacts, but when we start working in new niches identifying the most trusted news sources can be difficult to ascertain. Majestic’s trust flow, changes all that. If you are not sure which is the most trusted source, Majestic SEO can help.

Take this comparison between Legal Week and Legal Futures. Both are good legal titles, and while Legal Futures is also well respected and has a loyal readership, we can now accurately put a figure on how much more trusted Legal Week is in comparison. Over the course of a PR campaign these metrics can be very useful for planning and measurement purposes.

Legal Week

Legal Week (2)

 

Legal Futures

 

Legal Futures (2)

 3)    Finding new outreach targets

Using Majestic tools we can find relevant blogs, partner sites and media titles to target for coverage and links. Running a Majestic report is a really thorough way to expand on a media list and it will throw up lots of unexpected results that other competitor searches will not.

4)    Duplicating a competitors link profile

Is a client being outranked by a competitor? If this is because they have a better quality link profile then we can identify those links and target those sites with content.  Just like an SEO would do.

We can aim to duplicate and better their profile to ensure a website’s visibility is maximised.

5)    For evaluating a PR campaign

Majestic is great for evaluation. Of course we mainly use Google Analytics to measure our PR but that is not always possible and in any case we want to evaluate the impact of our press coverage off site. Majestic’s citation and trust metrics are perfect for doing this type of analysis.

I am the Managing Director of PR Agency One, a UK based Public Relations Company.  Feel free to get in contact for a chat about what you’ve read here or anything else.

James Crawford
Latest posts by James Crawford (see all)

Comments

  • Rob Artisan

    Good article James

    This really adds value to PR as a profession as well as to the client

    My only quible is do clients understand or value the role of PR in online?

    Making them (B2B) aware of general concepts is one thing, taking them to a more sophisticated online SEO realm another, or am I being unambitious?

    Rob

    December 11, 2013 at 7:18 pm
  • James Crawford

    Some clients get it and some don’t but the good thing about online is that you can prove the ROI much better than simply tracking reputation metrics.

    December 12, 2013 at 8:56 am
  • Nathan

    Great post James, sharing with the rest of my team.

    Regards,
    Nathan

    December 17, 2013 at 4:37 pm
  • Martin Schweitzer

    Great Article James,

    I’m working here in germany for a well known pr-agency as an freelance seo-consultant. But they are years behind your approach to use Majestics Seo for pr. But hopeully they will adapt in the near future the potential of Majestic Seo for their everday pr-work. I will try to force them a little bit 🙂

    January 8, 2014 at 6:40 pm
    • James Crawford

      > Good to here Martin. I don’t think you are alone in thinking that the PR industry is a couple of years behind. I have been saying the same for the last six years! Each year I wonder if this is the year that the industry ‘gets’ it.

      January 9, 2014 at 10:25 am
  • Webbloggers.net

    That’s really cool. I have never seen such useful features. Thank you so much.

    January 9, 2014 at 9:57 am
  • Adrian Barry

    Nice piece James

    As an SEO specialist who moved away from search and into B2B Tech PR and now back into digital marketing (Social, SEO, PPC etc.) I agree that most PR agencies “talk” about online, digital and SEO but few truly understand it.

    I think they understand social media, as it is relational and content based, but the more technical aspects of search/digital(and the overall connection between media outreach, audience awareness, multi channel comms campaigns, SEO and “how the internet works”) tend to be either misunderstood, ignored or just plain avoided.

    I like your approach though!
    Adrian

    January 9, 2014 at 12:36 pm
  • Andrew Smith

    Hi James – as you know, we are of course singing from the same song sheet – and have done so for some time 😉

    My blog post on this very subject from a year ago:

    http://blog.escherman.com/2013/01/16/using-majesticseo-trustflow-for-online-press-coverage-targeting/

    Did you see the latest issue of PR Week and the PRCA PR industry census? When asked what are the top 10 tasks that have increased in importance for PR professionals in the last 2 years, the top 3 were digital, online comms and SEO. When asked what duties are included in their current work, PR professionals ranked SEO 4th from bottom out of a list of 26 activities. Media relations still ranked the number one activity by a country mile (80pc of those polled).

    I think that neatly sums up the issue for PR. There is clearly a recognition of the importance of SEO – but that hasn’t actually translated into action. Even if PR people don’t actually do the SEO work, they still need to understand it in order to oversee it and provide direction (where appropriate). Google is the elephant in the room for PR. If you consider the centrality of Google to reputation and influence, then PRs can’t continue ignoring SEO. The more PR people start getting their head around tools like MajesticSEO and understanding the role that SEO has in relation to PR, the better. Although you might argue it creates more opportunity for those who do “get it”.

    January 10, 2014 at 9:36 am
    • James Crawford

      I thought the PRCA survey was interesting and while SEO might be listed as a priority for most I do challenge the level of understanding that most agencies have of what SEO is etc.

      Selfishly speaking I’m quite happy that the rest of the industry don’t get search to be honest.

      January 10, 2014 at 12:53 pm
  • Kelley Bassett

    Very insightful, and helpful information. Having the data tools in presentations is incredibly helpful in moving what can initially be a vague concept into something more substantive.

    January 10, 2014 at 3:50 pm
  • Hawaii Photographer - Anthony Calleja Photography

    Aloha, I find this information helpful. I am interested in finding someone who might be interest in doing a case study on anthonycalleja.com

    January 11, 2014 at 3:07 am
  • Puhelimen Kuoret

    Thanks a lot for these thoughts. I have started using Majestic SEO and everything has changed easier after seeing quality reports. Thanks for these examples!

    January 11, 2014 at 6:56 am
  • Aswathy

    Good job Mr. James. Majestic SEO tools Helps to find relevant blogs, sites,links,etc. This information is really helpful.

    January 23, 2014 at 7:21 am

Comments are closed.

THANK YOU!
If you have any questions in the meantime, please contact help@majestic.com
You have successfully registered for a Majestic Demo. A Customer Advisor will contact you shortly to schedule a suitable time to connect.