So you got your client on the front page of Digg. With your SEO skills you pushed them to the top of the rankings for all their key terms. You have optimized their PPC campaigns and have drastically improved their ROI.

You are a rock star and everyone knows it!

But the question now is, what’s left? Don’t get me wrong there is never an end to internet marketing, it’s always an ongoing process. But with all of your mad skills are you missing something? There’s got to be something that you don’t know but if you did, it would drastically improve your services. What is this one thing that I am talking about? Public Relations.

Most internet marketers have no history in public relations. For some really weird reason PR and internet marketing (IM) have always kinda existed in separate worlds. Now don’t get me wrong, there are some really amazing agencies out there that do an awesome job at combining the two. But quite honestly the rule tends to be PR people and IM people rarely mix. Most of the home grown IM professionals started out through doing business online, few went from a career in PR to IM.

So you are probably thinking, Why the heck do I need to understand PR? How is PR going to help with all of the things I have to do? Offline media exposure can dramatically impact your online efforts. TV and newspaper mentions can help build a strong brand and drive traffic to your web properties. Offline media exposure can shift ideas and opinions that can favor your companies agenda. You can even build a better reputation offline to counter an online reputation crisis.

So what kind of skills does a PR guru have?

• Learn to write a killer press release.
• Learn how to successfully pitch a story to local media outlets.
• Build lasting and meaningful relationships with producers and writers.
• Oh, and um most importantly, learn how to communicate offline…..seriously, some of you IM gurus are really bad face to face communicators.

If you can master all of the above and be open to learning more, then you are on your way to becoming a PR guru! So try getting out from behind that keyboard and making your clients shine offline!