Becoming a professional source for news articles is a great way to show your expertise in your field. The difficult part is knowing where to start.
Do you contact reporters? Do you seek out news sources you’d like to be featured on?
Those are some options, but they may be more difficult than you think. There is an easier way to be featured in blog posts and news articles.
HARO, which is short for Help A Report Out, is a great way to be featured in blog posts and news article. The best part is, reporters and authors are already looking for experts like you. The only thing you have to do is watch for articles that fit your expertise and respond!
HARO can help show your expertise, and have the secondary benefit of promoting your business.
Establish Expertise
You will have the opportunity to act as an expert for articles that match your business. Each email you receive from HARO has several articles authors are working on and need help with sources. You make a pitch for an article that interests you and give all the information the author is looking for.
If your pitch is accepted by the author then you’ll be published in the article as an expert on the topic of the article. You and your business get exposure if your pitch is accepted and published in the article. You can share this article on your website and social media accounts to build expertise and more trust with your clients.
This leads to the second benefit you’ll get from added media coverage, traffic to your website.
Grow Traffic
Each time your pitch is published in an article, often your website is also linked to. These links give good backlinks to your website, but they aren’t just any backlink.
Backlinks are great for your website, but not all backlinks are created equal. Some backlinks can negatively affect your website while others are neutral.
The backlinks your accepted pitches provide are extremely valuable. Why? The articles your website is linked to in are on the same topic that you specialize in. Backlinks from sites that match the topic of yours and have quality content are weighted heavily in your benefit as opposed to a general topic website.
The value of HARO should be established by now. It’s time to get signed up now, though. The process of signing up is fairly straightforward, but I’ll cover it at a high level.
Start Helping A Reporter
Not every pitch will get accepted, in fact, there’s a science to getting them accepted. Even though it may not always be easy to get your pitch accepted, the value it can bring to your website if your pitch is accepted is worth it.
Once you’re signed up for HARO, you get to choose several topics you’d like to receive source requests from. You can sign up for as many as you like, but they should fit your industry. After you’re signed up for the fields you are an expert in, you’ll receive three emails a day from each list.
Here’s how you get started:
1. Visit the Help A Reporter Out website and choose Source.
2. Towards the bottom of the page is a subscribe button which then lets you choose the free version. If you want to pay some money to get a few more features, help yourself, but the free version is sufficient for most.
3. Fill out the form and HARO will send you an email to confirm your email address, this is also where the good part happens.
4. I would fill out as much of your profile as possible, but the most important part is the HARO Preferences.
You’re initially signed up for the Master HARO mailing list, but depending on your expertise, you’ll also want to sign up for more. I subscribe to the High Tech and Business and Finance list.
That’s all you have to do, just expect to get three emails a day for each list you’re signed up for. I’m signed up for two lists so I get 6 emails a day. It seems like a lot of emails, but each one is worth it.
If you live in the Pacific time zone or further east then the timing of the emails (5:35 am, 12:35 pm, and 5:35 pm ET) is a bit awkward, but it’s still doable.
Time To Grow
There are hundreds of ways to get out there and start promoting your business and becoming a visible expert in your field. Help A Reporter Out is a great way to grow your business and become the expert.
You’ll get visibility on blogs related to yours and possibly larger news outlets such as Reuters, TIME, and Mashable. No matter what your industry is, there’s a way you’ll benefit from pitching your expertise to reporters and blog authors.
Part of building your business brand online is making your expertise public and published. I build your online brand so potential customers find your business and trust that you will give the best service.
I’d love to learn more about your business and give you a free quote to help your business grow online.