On December 1st, 2021, Bluestone Communications had the honor of hosting two JMU alumni who now work at Jellyfish, a digital marketing company. Dan Froehlich, class of 2015, and Johnny Herge, class of 2019, joined us via Zoom to talk about their expertise in the field of SEO, its importance, challenges, and how it is useful in the world of public relations.
For starters, SEO stands for search engine optimization and simply put by Froehlich, "makes websites easy to find." There are four different roles when it comes to SEO practitioners: technical optimizers, content optimizers, content marketers, and SEO strategists. These roles cover everything from site architecture to promoting consumer engagement to overall strategy. SEO is important in bringing traffic to your website and having it be at the top of search result lists, as 93% of all internet sessions begin with a search engine, so getting your content high on those search engines will benefit you. Search engines are an "ever-changing" landscape with constant algorithmic changes.
56% of searches result in zero clicks, meaning that over half of search results never even reach the eyes of new consumers. If your website comes up as a result after page 1, you are fresh out of luck.
SEO and public relations are closely intertwined. SEO is getting clients found via search engines organically and public relations is all about getting their clients seen in the right spaces. Using SEO in the PR field means reaching out to reputable sources and content creators driving valuable backlinks from authoritative sites to amplifying the message that you are sending out to the public. It was helpful to see how those of us at Bluestone could implement this practice into our future career fields.
We are so grateful to have these opportunities to speak to such amazing people and it's even more exciting that they're former Dukes! Thank you so much, Johnny and Dan, for sharing your expertise with us and answering our questions!
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