Why Digital PR is the FUTURE of Search

AI search results are going to change
the world of SEO forever but what do you
as a marketer need to do to prepare what
are the techniques and marketing
strategies that are going to help you
get your brand featured and found in a
world where Searchers are asking a chat
bot for recommendations well so far it
looks like AI search results are going
to be an evolution rather than a
revolution so whilst lots of things will
change there are some areas of digital
marketing and SEO that will become more
important than ever in this new world
now one of these is digital PR and by
the way everything we're going to share
in this video can help your business
immediately so you don't need to wait
for Google's new AI search results to
fully roll out to feel the benefit
Google recently announced its search
generative experience otherwise known as
sge and we filmed a separate video all
about what this is and how it works but
basically this means that when people
search on Google they will get an AI
generated answer with three featured
results that corroborate that answer at
the top of the search results and sge
will look slightly different for
different types of results for example
if it's a more e-commerce focused
product search then AI will pull in
results from Google's products graph to
show in the generative AI answer so far
we haven't heard from Google when this
is going to be rolled out across the
world but if you're in the US you can
join the waitlist today but let's be
honest this huge section at the top of
the search results is going to make it
harder for businesses to get to the top
of Google harder maybe but not
impossible especially if you're a ninja
or your ninja train we believe that one
of the keys to getting your business
featured in this section and keeping
eyes on your brand throughout this
transition is digital PR both for SEO
purposes and for General brand awareness
so here are some of the best digital PR
strategies that you can Implement with
Google's sge in mind first up let's talk
about publishing original studies and
statistics now before you think ah that
sounds really hard these don't
necessarily have to be brand new you may
already have customer data that you
could crawl through and find some really
valuable insights but okay why are
studies and original statistic it's
going to be powerful in a world of sge
well in our client work we've found that
publishing original studies and
statistics on our clients websites can
be a great way to get them linked to
from really large top tier Publications
but they also may give you an advantage
when it comes to sge just imagine that
somebody is searching on Google for
particular data or statistics in their
industry well sge is going to give them
an answer but it's going to need to find
sources that corroborate that answer and
if you've got data and statistics that
it can cite in order to back up that
position you've got a chance of being
one of those three featured websites for
example a search for digital marketing
statistics could return an answer like
according to exposure ninja 55 of
marketers struggle to understand why
Their audience doesn't convert and it's
then going to need to provide the
reference link for that statistic now
the best studies share new information
or they share existing information as
presented in a new and compelling way
and one of the best ways to do this is
through infographics here's a fantastic
info traffic from household quotes about
the most popular dog breeds around the
world this infographic has beautiful
design and further down the page we can
see some of the image has been broken
down into smaller sections that can
easily be shared but wait how does this
get any traffic for household quotes
which helps Searchers find trades people
to do work on their homes well taking a
closer look at the internal links on
this page we can see that readers are
directed to information about how to
make their homes pets safe and this may
require trades people to do that work in
their house so whilst this infographic
isn't necessarily going to get the
bottom of the funnel traffic that needs
to make a purchase now this is one of
those top of funnel strategies that can
get eyeballs on the brand and this is a
really shareable topic it's the sort of
thing people love talking about dog
breeds this is the type of thing that
people love to share on social media so
because they found this creative angle
it almost turns into a Word of Mouth
campaign even though it started as a
digital campaign so the business case
here is that it's likely that some of
the people that see this will at some
point want a tradesperson to come on
work on their house and because they've
been on the household quote site they're
more likely to choose that in future or
they might already have a dog or about
to buy a dog they see this decide to get
their home dog proofed and that's when
they become a customer of household
quotes this type of thing is really easy
to put together and often the
information is already publicly
available now of course the type of data
that you're including in your survey is
going to depend on exactly the data that
you have available and the data that you
can find out there already in the world
then it's up to you to package it in a
way that's interesting and relevant and
likely to get people sharing it new
stacking is another form of digital PR
where Brands jump on a trending topic
and either post memes or jump on the
back of it in order to get eyeballs on
themselves and appear to be part of the
conversation let's be real we do this
all the time on the exposure ninja
Channel when it comes to the topic of AI
because it's a trending topic we know
that we can get eyeballs on our videos
if we talk about it and because it's in
a somewhat relevant area to our first we
have expert opinion on it and we can
share that opinion in a way that's
useful to potential customers there are
different levels of news tracking Brands
can either go all in on a particular
topic and create dedicated content
around that topic or they can just give
an expert opinion or Insight on
something that is already trending
sometimes they might just be speaking
about recent events or even just sharing
a couple of memes for example a bunch of
local businesses in the US have recently
been talking about the impacts that
Taylor Swift coming to their town has on
business with one Salon in Houston
driver talking about getting a whole
bunch of bookings around the week of the
Taylor Swift concert so they went and
trained their stylist on Taylor Swift's
hairstyles knowing that they were going
to get demand for these Styles so not
only did they make money from all those
additional bookings but they then got a
bunch of coverage and links by talking
about this after the event now sometimes
you'll get journalists reaching out
asking for opinions like this but a lot
of the time it's actually up to the
business to go out to journalists and
say hey we might have an interesting
story here so if you really lies that
your business is connected to some sort
of event or current news story or Trend
you can reach out to journalists and
writers at online Publications with
suggestions of a story to cover Drybar
did potentially miss a bit of a trick
though as far as we can see there aren't
any social media posts from around the
time of the concert promoting the fact
that they were taking bookings for
Taylor Swift styles that weekend this
would have been a pretty quick and easy
way to jump on this they'd already done
the prep work and it means they can get
even more business out of this weekend
now to take this a step further and
prepare them for a world of AI generated
search results like sge which by the way
weren't released at this point but hear
me out Drybar could have written a Blog
and had some of their stylists make
videos about Taylor Swift's hairstyle
they could have discussed what these
styles were called what to ask your
salon for how to look after these types
of styles what type of hair suits these
Styles all of this meaning that they
would have a chance of showing up in the
corroborative results when somebody
searches the AI for Taylor Swift
hairstyles they could have also made use
of Google perspectives as well this is a
filter that you can add to search
results to show more human-led and
first-hand experience type results of
that search for example if somebody
searched for Taylor Swift hairstyles the
perspectives tab is going to show them a
bunch of videos Forum posts Reddit posts
all about Taylor Swift's hairstyles so
if Drybar had had their customers film
short tick tocks of their new Drybar
Taylor Swift's Cuts then they're gonna
have a much better chance of showing up
in the perspective search results for
that type of query of course all of this
is hypothetical because perspectives
wasn't out when this story broke but you
can see how businesses can start to
prepare themselves and to build content
and make marketing strategies around
these new search features knowing that
they're going to be what's driving
traffic for potentially years to come
and by the way if the pace of change in
the world of digital marketing seems
overwhelming don't worry you're not
alone what you can do is request a free
website and marketing review from the
team here it's exposure ninja we'll take
a look at your website and we'll plan
you out a 6 to 12 month priority is
digital marketing action plan that you
can follow to generate more leads and
sales from your website go to
exposureninja.com forward slash review
to apply today okay the next marketing
strategy that is going to set you up
really well for the future of search is
the coin your own terms visual puns
ladies and gents if you've created a new
process in your industry or you've
improved an existing process and that
doesn't really have a name like you can
coin your own term we've done this a lot
for clients over the years and it's been
extremely powerful so here's how it
works you identify a term that describes
that process or the result that you're
getting for people and start building
content around it the plan is that your
content ranks for that term even before
it enters the sort of public awareness
by constantly using that term and seeing
it spread into your industry what
happens is when people start searching
for that term up comes you and up comes
your content because you are the
originator and your content has been
published for the longest time Google is
more likely to to show you in one of the
corroborating results because you are
seen to be the originator of that term
alongside that if you can actually have
your term enter the industry lexicon
then if people are nice when they use
that term they'll mention the fact that
it was you who coined it and may give
you a link for example HubSpot who have
done a fantastic job of coining all
sorts of terms as we saw in our HubSpot
takedown video including inbound
marketing recently also coined the term
surround sound SEO now here is semrush
using the words coined by HubSpot when
describing this technique we've helped
all sorts of clients do this like a
software company where wheat helps coin
the term continuous Performance
Management or an e-commerce company
where rather than coining a particular
term we identified with them brands that
were about to blow up we then ranked
content on that website for those brand
terms so that as soon as those Brands
did blow up our client was already
ranking and sitting pretty at the top of
the search results now coining your own
term Works fantastically well because if
it takes off you'll start to find that
people are linking back to your website
particularly if you have a term
definition page on your site now keep in
mind that Google search genitive
experience AI results are going to be
pulling from Google's Knowledge Graph
and you can get a benefit from the
knowledge graph by having either linked
or unlinked mentions meaning that even
if websites aren't linking to you the
fact that they are mentioning you next
to this other term is going to increase
the chances that Google is going to show
your website and your business next to
any references to that term the next
digital PR strategy that's going to help
you in this new AI world is getting your
website linked to from the sites that
are already ranking and already being
featured for some of these terms once
Google's search generative experience
all these AI results are rolling out
it's really important that you have a
look at the websites that are being
referenced that are being shown to
corroborate Google search results you
can then try and get your business
featured on those sites knowing that
those pages are already ranking for that
term this is known as link insertion and
one of the best ways to use it is to get
featured in you know the typical top 10
lists that you see online now these
lists may become more popular in an AI
search world because they will offer
searches an alternative to the AI
recommended results and it's likely that
there will be plenty of product or
service or software searches that people
do actually want a human-led list of
recommendations rather than the AI list
of recommendations because the AI list
doesn't necessarily give the criteria by
which it's making those recommendations
so by targeting these sort of best
recommendation lists your kind of
reverse engineering the buyer journey
and you're looking at the type of
searches that are made just before
somebody gets to the bottom of the
funnel and is ready to make a purchase
the next strategy in your digital PR
toolbox from the future is a brand blast
now brand blast is a digital PR campaign
that is timed to get most of its
coverage on one day it's most commonly
known as a simultaneous launch or an
embargo launch but the base suggest is
that you get everyone to wait to publish
their content about your thing at the
same time as a result potential
customers who visit a range of these
different type sites or influencers or
social channels all of a sudden see your
brand or product everywhere I'm not
gonna lie this does take quite a bit of
pre-planning and organization and you'll
also need to agree with each publication
to stick to the Embargo but this can be
quite effective when you have a new
product being launched and it makes
sense for everyone to talk about it on
the same day but even if you don't have
a product to promote if you've got a
story that's interesting or exciting
enough a brand blast can work well for
this too was the sort of brand blast
campaigns might not have an immediate
impact on Google's sge or the AI answers
what they do help with is visibility of
your brand amongst your target customer
and also the content from these websites
can then help fuel Google's Knowledge
Graph which can mean that you're
recommended later on in either
transactional or informational queries
think of it this way if there's enough
positive press about your brand product
or service that positivity is going to
feel more mentions and positive comments
that Google can pull into their answers
as time goes on this new world of
generative AI search isn't something to
be scared of it's a great chance to try
new marketing strategies and put some
time and energy into the marketing
channels that are going to get you more
visibility and help you connect with
customers in new ways especially ways
that can help you rank in search results
and connect with customers at different
stages of the funnel which is exactly
what digital PR is great for now if you
want to learn more information about
Google's new AI search which you
definitely should then check out this
video it shows you how sge Works some of
the different searches it's showing up
for and some of the Curiosities and
Oddities about it until next week see
you soon