Here is exactly what we do for you when you become a client.
If you don’t know what HARO is, here is the TL;DR.
HARO – Help A Reporter Out – is an online-based service that connects journalists with sources for their stories. Journalists have a high amount of content they need to produce on a weekly basis, and HARO is an effective way to get information quickly from subject matter experts.
3 times per day HARO will send out an email with the journalist’s requests for expert feedback. All kinds of subjects are covered, more or less. Each email will contain between 70-250 requests/questions.
This is what a request typically looks like:
If featured in an article, the source gets referenced and linked (usually). These links are typically on high authority websites, and a link you will not be able to acquire through traditional outreach-based link building.
It is a win-win!
The journalist gets content, the source gets exposure and a backlink.
This form of link building crosses over to the DigitalPR realm.
DigitalPR merges traditional PR (securing brand mentions in traditional media) and SEO objectives (get links to gain better Google rankings).
HARO is the only DigitalPR strategy we currently offer.
However, we have a few other tactics up our sleeve which we may suggest, should an opportunity present itself.
If you are convinced that you want to work with us already, then send us an inquiry below!
How amazing would it be to be featured on Entrepreneur.com?
This is what we all dream about! A feature on a DR91 website – one of the most acknowledged websites out there!
This is not our client, but a perfect example of what you can achieve with HARO link building. You can read the full Entrepreneur.com article here.
Kudos to Georgie Nightingall for landing such a hard-to-get backlink!
How we do HARO link building
Discovery call
First, we have a chat over the phone, Zoom, Google Meet, or similar.
We need to learn more about you and your goals for working with us. And we need to gain a better understanding of your business and the market you operate in.
I will also ask about your previous link building experience and efforts.
NB!
You should NEVER have 2 or more people/agencies doing HARO for you at one time!
Get Gmail set up
When we do HARO link building (or any link building for that matter), we will do it on your behalf, as you!
You are the expert and should have your face in the article.
For this purpose, we typically set up an alternative email address on your domain, on Gmail if possible.
So if your regular email is name@domain.com, we would ask you to create one which is either lastname@domain, or initials@domain.
If you as the business owner or director don’t want to be the one featured, then it should be someone senior in your organization.
Journalists will often check your LinkedIn profile, so we do not agree to create any “fake personas”. It will greatly affect our work and success.
Once the email is set up, we move on to the next important step.
Get your professional images in order
Journalists almost without exception, ask for a picture of you together with your pitch.
Even if they do not ask, we always include it.
If you do not have a proper picture of yourself, now is the time to get one!
If you are a business consultant, maybe the correct picture is of you in your suit.
If you are the owner of an outdoor brand, most likely the correct picture would be of you in the outdoors dressed accordingly.
No matter who you are or what you do, we 100% need a proper picture of you to include with the pitch.
Get your LinkedIn in order
Journalists will often visit your LinkedIn to check if you are in fact who you say you are.
Therefore, we highly recommend having an updated LinkedIn profile.
And if you are active on LinkedIn (posting content), even better.
If your profile is updated, we will include a link to this in our pitch.
This can increase your chances of success with HARO.
Although it is not a requirement to have a link to your profile, it builds that extra layer of credibility with the journalist.
Bonus points if your profile picture on LinkedIn is the same image we include in our pitches.
Social media
If you are active on social media, we will ask for your handle and include a link to your profiles in the pitch.
Again, this is to build trust with the journalist and increase your chances of getting featured.
Setup Dropbox
As mentioned, journalists will usually ask for an image (headshot) of you to include in their article.
However, HARO does not allow you to send attachments.
This means that images need to be linked from a Dropbox link, or similar.
If you do not have cloud solution which allows this, now is the time to get one.
Worst case, we have Dropbox and can help you with this one.
Register with HARO
In order to receive the requests from HARO, we need to register with HARO with the email address we are going to use.
It will not work if you register with your email address, and we reply with another one. The system does not allow for that.
Start pitching
Once everything has been set up , we start receiving the 3 daily emails from HARO; morning, noon, and evening, Monday to Friday.
We are based in Eastern Europe, Riga, Latvia, which means we get the emails at 12:40, 18:40, and at 00:40 our time zone (EEST).
In the “HARO game”, it is all about timely responses, and having the pitch the journalist is after (yes, sometimes journalists will only feature replies which fits with their narrative – so much for objective reporting).
Journalists get anywhere from 100-300 pitches per one request, which makes it is very easy to “drown” in the journalist’s inbox.
Even though there is a deadline to answer (usually 24-48 hours), in our experience you must answer within the first two hours.
If not, you enter the “dead zone”, and may skip pitch altogether.
Therefore at 12:39, 18:39, and 00:39, we are hovering over the inbox ready to attack.
In some cases, we will need to have you “on speed dial” so we can call or text you for a comment on a subject matter we are unable to answer, or we are unsure of.
HARO link building is a hands-off experience for you and your team.
But sometimes we will need input directly from you (or another subject matter expert in your team) in order to make sure we give correct replies to the journalists’ questions.
This will be discussed in our call.
Manual and personal
HARO link building is a manual process. It is impossible to automate it in any shape or form.
It needs to be personal, and we need to act on your behalf (or someone executive in your organization).
HARO is a PR exercise to secure you and your organization coverage in large online publications, as well as land that important backlink to help with your Google rankings.
Therefore we must pitch as someone with authority and “power” in the organization.
Results and Link Expectations
The velocity of backlinks from HARO link building depends in its entirety on the flow of relevant requests coming down the pipeline from HARO itself.
In short, it really depends on the niche you are in and how active journalists are creating content in that niche.
But you can expect five things from HARO link building:
- You/your business will be profiled on serious websites or media outlets, ranging from niche relevant blogs to Forbes or similar.
- Increased brand awareness (personal and/or business).
- The link will be of high DR and do-follow (or it is free).
- The link will point to your homepage (it is near impossible to build HARO links to inner pages/resource pages/guides).
- Over time, better rankings in Google.
Here is an example from CBNation, which uses HARO extensively to source content for its articles.
You can read the full article here.
As an added bonus, you will be able to say on your webpage or social channels that you have been “featured on publication X” to build extra authority and trust with your future customers.
This is how you can use it (NB! Dr. Emil is not our customer).
Reporting and tracking
All the reporting and tracking is done in a single document – The HARO Project Tracker.
This is an extensive Google Sheets document that is updated daily. It shows who answered the request, what was the question answered, what time it was answered, link to the answer itself, publication, journalist name, and much more.
You will have access to this document 24/7 and it is yours to keep, even after our partnership eventually will end.
What is the price
Our HARO service is performance-based, meaning you only pay for the links which you get!
The price is:
- $400 for DR50+ links *
*We invoice weekly for the links we have secured that week.
- Discounts available: Pre-pay for 10 links @ $3500 (you save $500)
- No fees for unlinked mentions, no-follow links, or links below DR50!
Although we do not lock you into a retainer, and you can cancel any time, we feel the need to stress that we are not interested in one-off clients.
It takes a considerable amount of time to start up a new project and we decided not to charge any set-up fees.
PS.
The amount of HARO links we get is 100% depending on the number of requests in your niche. Some industries have a lot of opportunities (Finance, health, medical), while others have very few if any (Reptiles, certain pets).