The divide between Websites and PR: there isn’t one
Sometimes PR is seen as separate from what a business does with, or perhaps doesn’t do, with their website.
I think it isn’t appreciated how integral to PR a website or a blog is.
There is of course the ease or difficulty of a potential client finding a website they have been alerted to from a piece of PR, be it online or offline. This mechanism is key. If the client is lost at this stage after interest has been aroused, then it is a criminal waste.
But once they arrive at the website, does it offer them the content that will further strengthen their interest? Websites should be packed full of engaging and helpful information.
Take Kintish, the networking training company, it has an abundance of articles and tips. Will Kintish seems to be perpetually adding material and building and improving his site.
You might appreciate this already. But websites affect “traditional” PR much earlier in the process. When I pitch it is useful to put a web link. When asked by a journalist what is the website and I do not want to give it because the site does not offer anything new, then I am already in danger of losing the journalist’s interest.
It is also an issue of confidence as well as information source. The confidence to be able to call upon a resource to back up the PR efforts.
Anybody engaged in PR has to see their website as central to their campaign, even more so in this climate. Unfortunately for them and many PR agencies the website is still seen as another chore, amongst many chores that are not key to their business.