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7 Comments

HARO does work after all, first .edu link after 6 months!

Hello everyone,
6 months ago I learned about HARO, a platform where journalists ask experts for quotes about different topics.

By subscribing as a "source" (it's free), you get daily emails where journalists request quotes to insert in their articles. Just choose a story where you have valuable knowledge to share, answer their questions and send it to them.

It's usually for very established publications, so getting picked can be huge for reputation and SEO.

We tried it in last December, and probably sent out half a dozen answers. But we never heard back from any journalist. It felt like we had sent everything into the void. We eventually stopped.

But yesterday, one of the journalist replied back: "thank you so much for your input, the article is now live!".

Boom, just like that, we got an article that mentions Logology and links to us on a super established .edu domain. Doesn't get any better than that!

What's interesting is that out of the 6 or so replies we sent to journalists, this one was where we had the most value to bring. My cofounder is an expert typographer, and she had super interesting things to say about it. The other answers we sent were around more generic topics like "entrepreneurship" or "design" in general.

So what I get from this is that to be successful at HARO, it's better to reply to super niche topics where you have a clear edge.

We'll focus on that as we start sending out answers again, and keep gathering super valuable links!

  1. 2

    I was following HARO for a long time
    As I'm in a particular niche can't find the right source every day
    During time send about 50 replies.
    No one ever replied or published my information
    I'm out of this crap, coz this is just a waste of time.

  2. 2

    Most of the time they don't bother telling you if they included your contribution in an article, so make sure to check the Search Console to see if there are new links every once in a while.

    Also, .edu domains don't have more value than .com ones. In your case it's a really good domain though (75 DA) 🙂

    1. 1

      Oh yeah, I learned SEO 12 years ago, back then .edu links were the bomb 😁.

      1. 1

        Those were the days!

  3. 2

    Congrats to the great result!

  4. 2

    Dagobert, wow that sounds like a long time and a lot of work. I used to use HARO too and did exactly the same thing.

    I've switched to being more proactive in smaller publications, and newsletters. Small wins keep up the motivation to keep reaching out.

    Recently I got 2 great pieces written about me and it gave me the thirst for more. Then found out @jadecraven had some data, she put it together for me in a google sheet and now sells it. I think you'd love it and I think it'll save you a ton of time.

    She just launched today: Bootstrapper Press Directory

    1. 1

      Oh wow Andrew thanks for sharing, that's a great resource. We have quite an interesting "bootstrapper story" since my cofounder also happens to be my wife :D. I'm sure this resource can help us a ton.

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