If you can use PR to get an article published about your brand, that article will most likely have a backlink<\/a> to your website or at least an unlinked brand mention.<\/p>\n These kind of PR brand mentions is how, in May 2023, TopicRanker.com got 532 new customers to sign up in just two weeks, following the publication of our case study titled: New Domain Ranked #1 On Google In 2 Weeks: Here is My Process For Finding Easy To Rank Keywords<\/a>. We published it on IndieHackers and it received 15K+ views and 95+ comments.<\/p>\n Working with PR outreach, we acquired enough links to scale our startup from 0 to 40 million pageviews per month<\/a> in 2 years before it was sold to Google.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s a valuable bit of information: PR is not a magic wand for new brands.<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s difficult<\/em> to convince journalists to cover your story or allow you to contribute content for their blogs. And it\u2019s very easy<\/em> to waste thousands of dollars without seeing any results.<\/p>\n Learning a lot from my own experience with running three businesses in the last ten years, I\u2019ve had three notable successes in PR outreach:<\/p>\n Additionally, digital PR is an essential part of off-page SEO<\/a>, as it helps build high-quality backlinks, increases domain authority, and boosts organic visibility.<\/p>\n So taking my experience into account, here are four PR methods (with the possibility of great results and beating the big guys in SERPs) for you to try:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re just getting started, you\u2019re unlikely to have a list of publications or writers that you can turn to. Or maybe, you\u2019re looking for a different niche than you have previously. Here are three platforms that can help you find publishing opportunities to increase traffic to your website<\/a> (and boost your SEO as a result):<\/p>\n Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is an outreach platform that connects sources with journalists and publications. Writers get raw insights from experts, and in most cases, the experts (brands) get backlinks. In other words, it\u2019s a win-win for both sides.<\/p>\n I was actually lucky enough to meet the founder of Haro<\/a>, Peter Shankman, shortly after I launched JustReachOut on ProductHunt.<\/p>\n HARO has grown in popularity over the years, meaning more people are now looking to share their opinions in the hope of getting links.<\/p>\n Anyone who writes content for a publication can technically say they are a writer\/journalist and ask questions from experts\/brands. You do however need to list your publication name and URL and pass through their audit to make sure you\u2019re a legitimate website and person.<\/p>\n Since I run a blog called SmallBiz.tools<\/a>, I recently signed up as a writer\/journalist and asked for expert opinions from brands<\/a> about a SaaS tool in HARO.<\/p>\n I got 63 replies in two days:<\/p>\n On the flip side, you have to dig through a lot of fluff to find the golden nuggets of information. From my experience, it took me almost 45 minutes to read through all of the 63 responses to find one that might be a good one to use.<\/p>\n If you want to be a brand that stands out, here are some suggestions:<\/p>\n Here’s a template you can use and edit accordingly. It’s short, it shares a new perspective (lending industry), and it leaves a great CTA to discuss more.<\/p>\n Not too long ago, a JustReachOut customer, Nancy Bucay was able to get four backlinks from BeaconStac, Referral Rock, CEO Blog Nation, and Beekeeper in one month, using this template.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s some insight into how she adopted and changed the template, starting with small detail about her company then getting straight into the answer:<\/p>\n But HARO is not the only player in the market – you can also try Qwoted and Terkel to find publishing opportunities.<\/p>\n On the surface, Qwoted<\/a> works just like HARO but unlike<\/em> HARO, the sign-up process for Qwoted is manual and approval-based. The good thing is once you’re in, you have fewer competitors to fend off and more journalists to pitch to.<\/p>\n The free plan allows you to answer only three queries a month which can be seen as restrictive, but if you have the experience, expertise, and demographics the journalists generally look for, Qwoted will serve you well.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s Terkel<\/a>, another less saturated \u2013 and maybe less overwhelming \u2013 PR outreach platform. Terkel takes a hands-on approach where they partner with blogs such as GoDaddy, Calendly, and SCORE to feature expert quotes. If you’re targeting one of Terkel’s network blogs, you should try answering their queries.<\/p>\n Other than getting backlinks for your quotes, you can try writing the whole article yourself and submitting it to a publication.<\/p>\n ➕ Plus point: a guest post means you can control exactly how the links and mentions show up in the article.<\/p>\n With guest posts, you share your knowledge on someone else’s blog. It’s not owned media, but it puts you in the spotlight. You get access to new readers (and potential leads), and Google takes notice.<\/p>\n But the thing is, it\u2019s not a new phenomenon in the SEO world. Most businesses struggle to place a dollar value on guest posting outreach campaigns because the competition is too high and the outreach process is broken.<\/p>\n How do you avoid the same trap? Make sure the guest post is a subtopic of your backlink page.<\/p>\n Our customer, Nextiva wanted to rank better for the business VoIP guide on their website so they secured backlinks from guest posts that discussed more specific topics. That way, the backlink became organic and it helped people to read more about similar ideas. If you don’t want to come across as spammy, find your mother article and link it to specific subtopics.<\/p>\n Want to find guest-posting opportunities in high DR websites<\/a>? Here are the three steps you need to follow to achieve the same:<\/p>\n Reasons why guest posting often doesn’t work are because of the lack of \u201cfit\u201d, poor content quality, and crazy volumes of cold emails. Don’t just go for any website that accepts guest posts, find ones that will cover your subtopic specifically.<\/p>\n Our customer, Aura wanted to boost backlinks for an article discussing ways to remove personal information from the internet. So, the guest post topic was narrowed down to \u201cHow to hire cybersecurity talent\u201d which also explained ways to remove information from the web because recruiters often look for this. Naturally, they went with a publication that focuses on HR and recruitment.<\/p>\n My two cents? I usually find publications and writers I admire in the industry and use the Content Partner<\/a> tool to reach the right editor. It saves time and makes outreach super easy. But if you want a slightly more long-winded route, try Google’s search operators.<\/p>\n Here are a few you can try:<\/p>\n Here\u2019s one example with \u201csupply chain\u201d which saw some good results:<\/p>\n PSA: A lot of websites that openly advertise guest posting opportunities want you to pay for links – steer clear.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Some websites have transparent guest posting forms, but the popular ones require you to make an extra effort. You need to find the Head of Content, content managers, SEO managers, and editors to move forward.<\/p>\n Before pitching, connect with them on LinkedIn, start interacting with their posts, learn about their content strategy and preferences, and ONLY pitch when you\u2019ve built a rapport.<\/p>\n The Content Partner tool mentioned previously can help here, but Similarweb Sales Intelligence<\/a> and its Contacts feature is another useful tool to find key decision-makers, quickly.<\/p>\n Use the platform to find up-to-date contact information by researching their independent website or the company (or companies) they work for – and hey, you never know, you might find someone even more relevant to reach out to.<\/p>\n The best bit? You can download your prospect list straight to your CRM (HubSpot or Salesforce), or just to an Excel spreadsheet if that\u2019s your preference. Find relevant contacts in our database of over 100K companies, with job titles available so you can make sure you\u2019re reaching out to the right person.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a high-converting template that we\u2019ve used for guest posting outreach – and now you can use it too:<\/p>\n Subject: Guest Post Submission<\/strong><\/p>\n Hi there,<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019d like to submit my article titled <insert title> for Ad Tasher. You regularly feature guest contributions from experts on <insert topic> and I decided to write an article for you. Here is a brief summary\/outline:<\/p>\n <Title><\/em><\/p>\n * insert bullet 1 with some info about the intro for the topic<\/p>\n * insert bullet 2 with some info about the main argument\/info you\u2019re conveying in the article<\/p>\n * insert bullet 3 with some info about the main argument\/info you\u2019re conveying in the article<\/p>\n I have been writing on this topic for a while and my articles have also appeared in <insert other publications and blogs where you\u2019ve written>.<\/em><\/p>\n I also write extensively about this on our company blog <insert \u2019company name\u2019 blog (link)>. <Insert any other related info to establish yourself as an expert><\/em><\/p>\n You can find my draft linked here: <insert a link to your article on the cloud><\/em><\/p>\n Do you see a place for it on <blog name>?<\/em><\/p>\n Sign off<\/em><\/p>\n Now, this is one channel that’s fairly new to the PR game: it\u2019s podcast outreach.<\/p>\n The last eight years have reinforced our beliefs in podcast’s SEO power and here are some highlights on why you should try podcasts, even if guest posting and HARO pitches are already working wonders for you:<\/p>\n Now, the big question: how do you find podcasts for PR outreach?<\/p>\n You can start by repeating the prospecting stage mentioned in the previous section, only this time, extend that search to Apple Podcasts and Spotify as well.<\/p>\n Once you have a list of relevant podcasts, you need to create a list, here is a good example below:<\/p>\n Then, you reach out with an email – but just like most outreach channels, you might not get a response unless you give them a reason to invite you.<\/p>\n The key here is to personalize that outreach message <\/strong>as much as possible. You can do that in a number of ways, like:<\/p>\n One great example for you: The folks at Testbox listened to this ThriveTimeShow podcast episode titled \u201c4 steps to creating world\u2019s best customer service experience<\/a>\u201d and identified they the host did not mention the role of tools and software in the episode. They added the following statistic to their article on\u00a0Freshdesk alternatives referencing their own study citing \u201cCustomer support software has a significant impact on the happiness of support teams, with 90% of professionals saying that it measurably affects their satisfaction with their jobs \u201d Sadly, there’s no substitute for paying close attention to these kinds of things, but you can speed up the rest of the prospecting process with JustReachOut\u2019s podcast outreach tool. It works similarly to the guest posting feed.<\/p>\n Whatever your hook \u2013 whether that be an issue in a podcast or somewhere you could really add value \u2013 it\u2019s time for that customized email.<\/p>\n Here’s a template you can use (with examples from a recent pitch I created after tuning into a Revenue Vitals<\/a> episode to hear Refine Labs CEO, Chris Walker talk):<\/p>\n Subject: Are you taking guests? Re: your podcast episode<\/strong><\/p>\n Hi <First name of podcast host>,<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019ve listened to your show for a bit, and really loved <few word<\/em>s> episode which aired on <date>.<\/p>\n As I listened to it I realized you discussed <dark social and how marketing and sales often work in silos> but did not go into <how executives can bring the teams together to solve common goals. Many companies are aware of the problem but they fail to execute a strategy<\/em>>.<\/p>\n I wanted to reach out and ask if you\u2019re taking guests?<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to apply to be a guest on your show and focus on these two ideas for our interview:<\/p>\n <idea #1 (30 words max): internal culture: sales is a direct revenue driver but the internal culture needs to see marketing as the extension of the ROI attributed to sales reps><\/p>\n <idea #2 (30 words max): lack of investment in marketing: once a new business gets traction it fails to invest in marketing and sales alignment, which dilutes marketing, at least on paper><\/p>\n I have been interviewed on several podcasts, here are just some of them:<\/p>\n <link to past podcast interview #1><\/p>\n <link to past podcast interview #2><\/p>\n Here is a bit about me and my accomplishments:<\/p>\n * Impressive accomplishment #1 which relates to the podcast show<\/p>\n * Impressive accomplishment #2 which relates to the podcast show<\/p>\n * Impressive accomplishment #3 which relates to the podcast show<\/p>\n Curious to hear your thoughts.<\/em><\/p>\n Keep up the awesome work on the show!<\/em><\/p>\n Signoff<\/em><\/p>\n ——————<\/p>\n CriminallyProlific – personal blog<\/p>\n PRThatConverts – 1:1 PR and SEO coaching<\/p>\n JustReachOut – software to build backlinks and get press<\/p>\n Broken link outreach is an underrated SEO trick that massively boosts your backlink profile – even though often, it’s the easiest.<\/p>\n Articles link sources and references that may, in time, vanish from the internet. With a broken link outreach strategy you find the broken outbound links, and get in touch with the original article\u2019s owner to replace it with something active. Maybe your own article, perhaps.<\/p>\n To make this work, here\u2019s where to start:<\/p>\n For this option, you\u2019re going to need a specific tool to crawl web links and find inactive ones.<\/p>\n Using JustReachOut, you can type in a term and the platform will fetch Google search results and check each one for broken links. Once that\u2019s done, you can find a list of host article URLs, the broken links, link text, error code, link type, and email addresses to pitch right away.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how it looks for the keyword \u201clink building\u201d:<\/p>\n After you’ve identified the link-building opportunity, you can reach out to your prospects – and yes, we\u2019ve got another template for that.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s just one example of a link-building email template that we\u2019ve found to have a 30% open rate and an 8% response rate (which we\u2019re pretty chuffed with):<\/p>\n Why does it work? Because it\u2019s short, jumps straight to the point, explains the issue, and finishes on a good CTA.<\/p>\n If you implement these four methods, you’ll have more opportunities than you can anticipate. But what you’re looking for is quality, not quantity.<\/p>\n You need to ruthlessly vet the prospects you want to reach out to because a few quality backlinks matter more in SEO than hundreds of low-quality, spammy websites. Before an outreach, make sure you have answers to all these questions:<\/p>\n Relevancy matters a lot for Google because you’re trying to come off as an expert in your field. Reach out to sources that complement what your brand stands for so that you not only build a niche for yourself but also get promoted to a consumer base that’s warmed up for your services.<\/p>\n Relevancy is one thing, but you want to flex that SEO muscle too. When you’re investing in PR outreach, you need to make sure you’re placing the bet on the right horse.<\/p>\n Earned media works when the platform has visibility in SERPs. From my own experience, the bare minimum is 20,000 organic visits per month.<\/p>\n You can see if your target website (or websites) are up to scratch, very easily, using Similarweb:<\/p>\n Similarweb also allows you to go one step further, by giving you the overall global website rank<\/a>, country rank, and industry rank so you can see where in the market it actually lies.<\/p>\n\n
How to use PR outreach to build links for SEO gains<\/h2>\n
1) PR outreach<\/h3>\n
HARO<\/h4>\n
![\"justreachout\"](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/justreachout.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"haro](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/haro-current-queries.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"asknicely\"](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/asknicely.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"justreachout](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/justreachout-template.png\")
<\/p>\nQwoted<\/h4>\n
Terkel<\/h4>\n
![\"terkel\"](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/terkel.png\")
<\/p>\n2) Guest post outreach<\/h3>\n
1. Prospecting<\/h4>\n
\n
![\"google](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/google-prompt-blog-posts-about-supply-chains.png\")
<\/p>\n2. Identify key figures<\/h4>\n
![\"sales](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/sales-intelligence-contacts.png\")
<\/p>\nTemplate for guest posting outreach<\/h5>\n
3) Podcast outreach<\/h3>\n
![\"podcast](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/podcast-outreach.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
How to find podcast leads<\/h4>\n
![\"how](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/how-to-find-podcast-leads.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/em>They reached out to the podcast to share this stat related to the topic and asked if the host is taking new guests.<\/p>\n![\"justreachout](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/justreachout-podcast-outreach-tool.png\")
<\/p>\nTemplate for podcast outreach<\/h5>\n
4) Broken link outreach<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"digital](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/digital-marketing-intelligence-non-branded-keywords.png\")
<\/p>\nHow to find leads for broken link outreach<\/h4>\n
![\"link](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/link-building-.png\")
<\/p>\nLink-building outreach template<\/h5>\n
![\"successful](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/successful-email-template.png\")
<\/p>\nHow to qualify a website or podcast for outreach<\/h2>\n
1) Is the source relevant to your topic?<\/h3>\n
2) Does this website actually get traffic?<\/h3>\n
![\"does](\"https:\/\/www.similarweb.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/does-the-website-actually-get-traffic.png\")
<\/p>\n