Hello, this is John Locke, and today we're going to talk about how you can help a
reporter out and help out your SEO at the same time.
One of the main things that you can do to help your SEO and boost your rankings
is getting links from relevant sources -- trusted, authority websites. One way that
I found that you can get links from credible sources is a service called
Help A Reporter Out, or HARO. "Hair-o?" I don't know how they say it, but we'll say Har-rooo.
So, HelpA ReporterOut.com -- you go there, you sign up, and there's different lists that
you can get on. It's a free thing. Basically what's going to happen when
you sign up for a contributor account, is you'll get emails three times a day.
Monday through Friday -- a Morning Edition, Afternoon Edition, and Evening Edition,
for the particular lists you sign up for. There's a generalized list with all the
topic categories, but you can sign up for just the specific category lists. What
you're going to get is invitations to pitch for contributions to online
publications. Basically, each email is formatted with a list of the
different pitches. [Each pitch] has a one time use email address that you reply to, the
name of the person writing the article, and the name of the publication that it's
going to appear on. Sometimes [for the publication name] it'll just say "Anonymous", but usually it'll give the
source. Then, the information that they want from you. Usually, they're
looking for subject matter experts in particular subjects, where they're trying
to answer a particular question. For example right now, I'm seeing a lot
of questions about Millennials in the workplace, or crypto, or blockchain.
There's lots of different variations on this. I think the main lists that they
have are: Business and Finance, High Tech Healthcare, General -- there's a couple others
I'm not remembering right now. Those are the main ones. If you see a pitch in there that
you're a subject matter expert on -- say if they're looking for a source for a
particular question -- you just reply to that one time use email address, the
person, and give whatever they're asking for. Sometimes they'll ask for a specific
thing, like 250 words, or a couple paragraphs, or just a quick
sound bite that they can put in there. And then maybe your name, your title, your
headshot, a link to your website. What I try and do is, respond to as
many of these as I feel are relevant for me. I just respond to the ones that are
either about SEO, or online marketing, or web design. I've gotten a couple links
for e-commerce. I've done e-commerce sites before, so I can speak on that. Here are
some things to know about these Help A Reporter Out pitches. The quicker you
respond to these, the more likely it is that you're going to be included in the
finalized article. These writers that write for these internet sites, they're
having to push out a lot of content, and publish a lot of articles. I wouldn't
wait a day, or wait until the end of the day, to respond. As soon as you see them [in your Inbox],
either forward that to your marketing department, or the person that handles
that [HARO pitches]. If I have a client where I see a pitch that's perfectly suited for them,
I'll either call them on the phone, or send it to them -- forward it to them. It
depends on the client, and how busy they are, and what I know about their schedule, how
tied up they are. The quicker you respond, the better it's going to be, because
these people have a deadline. They have to publish this, and they're not going to be
waiting around [for pitches]. Usually the the deadline for these is a couple days. But
if you respond as soon as you get it, the better it is for you. The second thing to
know is: give them exactly what they're asking for. Like I mentioned, it will
usually be a couple paragraphs, your name, your title, your expertise -- whatever it is,
just make it easy for them, because they're sifting through hundreds of
these on each pitch. A third thing to know: you're not going to get every pitch.
In fact, the majority of the ones that you reply to, your response probably won't be
published. This is a numbers game. You must reply to enough of these to get
a link. The way I figure it, you're going to get somewhere between 10 and 30 percent [success rate].
You're not going to get a hundred percent, that's for sure. So reply to any
of them that you feel are relevant [to your expertise], and realize that this is a long-term
strategy for building links. This isn't something that you can do over a
week and expect to get 50 links to your website. You might
get 10 or 20 links over a long period of time, but it's got to be worth it. These
are quality publications. They're not going to be your aunt's cat blog. These
are going to be name-brand publications that you're getting
published in, so any links that you can get from here is going to be good. Help A
Reporter Out. This is a service that I use. I monitor it. I alsoforward
ones [HARO pitches] to my friends that also do SEO, if I see something that's relevant
to them. This is a good thing to be aware of. It's another means for building
links, which is going to help your SEO. Again, you're usually going to be
published in fairly credible websites, so this is a good thing all the way around.
if you have an SEO question that you'd like to see us answer, go ahead and drop
it in the comments below, and we'll answer it out in a future video for you.
We're publishing videos once a week, so if you're getting value from this
channel go ahead and subscribe. My name's John Locke. my business is Lockedown
Design and SEO. We help manufacturing and industrial companies with SEO. We help
them get more organic traffic in Google and Bing, so they get more Requests For
Quotes. That's it for now. Until next time, peace.
[Outtakes: Right. If you want to be a SEO hero, you got to get with the HARO.]