- Jul 26, 2016
- 2,267
- 3,646
1. Can you tell us about your background and how you got into link building? What was your journey from buying the "wrong links" on BHW to becoming a Reactive PR specialist?
Well, I started off with trying to learn how to make money online. Back then, the only way to make it reliably long term would be to have a site, so I started of with a plain info based site which I built. I later bought amazon affiliate sites, worked overnights at Walmart with a full time job to save up enough for other sites that I could buy and "fix up".
I then came across an opportunity to help my dad with his business. The main lesson in all of this was that SEO and link building are expensive and you need lots of links to rank. I ended up buying links from vendors at BHW, but thor sites had tons of OBLs to casinos, blackhat and other content which I couldn't risk on what was obviously a long term white hat business.
Over time I learnt that sites die, and long term sites are best for link building, those with non fluctuating traffic, consistent content updates and lack of links to spammy categories. This led me to discovering HARO and I've been building links since.
2. You mentioned you started on BHW buying spammy links for white hat sites—casinos, hacking sites, tons of OBLs. What were some of your biggest failures or "burnt email" moments, and what finally made you realize traditional outreach wasn't worth your time?
Well, this was relatively recent and was led by simple calculations. Turns out that when you're trying to rank lots of commercial keywords on one site, you'd need a bunch of links to the collection/product category pages which can only be reliably built through guest posting. But the numbers didn't make sense.
After finding all the sites that rank for a certain term, outreaching to them, negotiating for link inserts and new content, as well as cleaning out those sites which had bad OBLs, I was left with a fraction of the starting list. Adding in low response rates and high link cost, I felt, that, for now, PR based link building is my best bang for the buck. I didn't mind that most of the links would go to the home page and the author pages, all I wanted to do is to bring up the DA/DR of the site, see what happens to the product category pages, and then start building links to those that started ranking in the top 20, while still continuing with HARO.
While it's just as time consuming, I felt that I could reliably build links and not to have pay, what I felt were, overpriced guest posts. Unfortunately, it turns out that links according to my metrics tend to be pretty expensive. So, with me being on my limited budget, I had to open a service up to help build outreached links for my personal projects. That's what led to my HARO link building service page on BHW.
3. Tell us about your current projects. What are you working on with your HARO/Reactive PR service, and how did you transition from Active PR to Reactive PR link building?
Well, I've got 2 ecommerce sites of my own and am working on two more. I've also got 3 clients as of now. They're all in different niches, so I feel like this helps me build my writing experience, which is a plus.
As for Active PR, this was needed for a client that I recently dropped. They're in a specific health niche, and they have an expert source on hand, however there were hardly any queries for them. I read up on how to draft a press release, on how journalists select topics on newsworthy features and I read a few books on marketing and PR. I decided to give it a try. I had an old workmate who had access to muck rack, and I asked for a small media list. One thing led to another and I got a few links. I was very happy with the results since I'm not competing against 100's of other HARO responders, and I could ensure a relevant topic with very few other OBLs to other experts.
I'm still honing my craft, but I've definitely learnt more than when I started.
4. You've got a bold statement: "Content is no longer king. ChatGPT, Claude and Sonnet have become kingmakers." Can you elaborate on this? If content isn't king anymore, what is, and how does that change SEO strategy in 2025?
In that statement, I was referring to building links or signals to the topic that I wanted to rank for. So I was mostly referring to guest posts which is the traditional way most people on BHW would try to get their keywords ranked. Well, in a way, content will always be there. Whether it's a guest post, a video, a review, a reddit thread, it'll still stay, but the LLMs now prefer newer content, either led by expert advice, or by authentic users such as those on Reddit or Quora.
I saw this neat trick at SEOIRL a few weeks ago. The speaker asked everyone to look for the best hotel in bali, and asked everyone to list their results. They could use any LLM they pleased. Over half of the results ended up listing the four seasons hotel. This is when you'd need to think about what makes this site differ than others on the list. Why is it consistently there? Turns out, that it was already ranking on Google and other search engines, as well as it was on youtube, and on user generated sites such as Reddit and Quora.
When you'd ask the LLM why they listed that hotel, it would give similar reasoning as well as the fact that it was cited on certain publications. Publications that can be outreached to, just not traditionally. Since HARO (at that time) had the biggest concentration of journalists that would write on these platforms, it seemed an effective way to get a brand's link or name on there. Youtube and social media would still be needed to build a holistic view of any brand, but this was something that I could build reliably and quickly.
5. Walk us through your Reactive PR process. How do you find opportunities on HARO, Qwoted, and Featured, and what makes a pitch successful versus one that gets ignored by journalists?
Sure, so I tend to use a variety of sources but the process is exactly the same. I sift through opportunities to find those that would be a good fit for the brand. I look at niches, or in some case shoulder niches. When I get the email (HARO still does it by email, while Qwoted and Featured have alerts), I select the pitches that I'd send out queries for, and then rank them from most to least important. Some brands only want relevant queries to be answered, while others are okay with any links.
I then pull up my template for each expert that I made earlier, look for any relevant links that the expert has been quoted on earlier in the same niche, and answer the query.
A successful pitch depends on the strength of your response (is it the best it can be, is your response noteworthy in an article, does your expert have the qualified advice and is it backed up with multiple other mentions in different publications on that subject) and luck (you're too late, they've already chosen someone else, they don't offer links, or charge for them after they're live etc). I can't influence luck, but I can do my best on each pitch.
6. You emphasize authenticity heavily—real contact pages, GMB listings, author personas with LinkedIn profiles. Why is this so critical for HARO-style links, and what happens when people try to fake it?
Well, since the advent of AI, it's becoming much harder for journalists to verify authenticity, and this is important since they want to build their bylines, and any wrong advice which can't be verified can cause the publication to pull their story. So they do cursory checks, either with visiting the site, checking out the phone numbers, seeing user reviews, or at the very least googling the expert's name. This all helps build credibility, in fact this is what real brands do. They want people to know that they're authentic, and trust worthy, this means plastering contact us pages, or help guides, or clean websites showing their team. You should do the same.
Well, to be blunt, it's a waste of my time. I tried doing this at first without a linkedin profile and the other stuff, and it failed miserably. Over time, I've tested multiple ways to influence this by buying guest posts, but they don't seem to work.
7. You got a link from Men's Journal in your first Active PR campaign. That's impressive. Can you break down what you did differently with Active PR versus traditional outreach, and why it was so much easier to land DR 50+ links?
Well, for this one, I wrote up a story, backed it up with real data from scientific publications and then pitched it. It's a simplistic view, but each story takes me around a week to compile and get ready. Since I already have been building my own media list (yes, I do that), it's been easier than fighting against the timer when you're competing with tons of other pitch writers.
8. Many SEOs are still doing traditional guest post outreach and paying $80-$150+ per link. You threw in the towel on that approach. Why do you think Reactive PR is superior, and what are the main drawbacks or limitations people should know about?
Well, this was a personal choice, since funds were/still is an issue, and that reactive PR is something that I don't get charged wins for, it's mostly dictated by my time. Additionally, once you start ranking, and have lots of high DR HARO links, you tend to get guest post outreach requests as well. I started charging 4 times as much for guest posts than I did 2 years ago. And I can be selective, where I don't link to competitors, even in other regions, or only to informational pages and it keeps my site healthy.
The main drawbacks would be that you have no say over the anchor text (but it's mostly the brand name/expert name/topic name - but I think it's fine since it leads to link diversity or brand authority, or even if its just an unlinked mention, which I used to quibble about but I leave it be since it can still be picked up by LLMs) or whether it's a ******** or no follow link. Or even if it's just a mention.
9. You mentioned that 80% of your outreach responses wanted at least $80 per link after tedious negotiations. For someone still doing traditional outreach in 2025, is it even worth it anymore, or should everyone pivot to PR-based strategies?
Well, again, this was for my personal project, but I still believe outreach is still needed. There are tons of sites that don't accept guest posts, or send out query requests as on HARO. Additionally, guest posts would still be needed especially if you're looking to build up links with your specific anchor text, or to specific pages, which otherwise wouldn't be possible using HARO. It's still worth it.
Ideally, people would "graduate" to building so many links that they would know which sites accept link exchanges and that's where your past links built list comes in handy, so instead of buying a link for say $150, you can offer multiple links at a cheaper price (still good links) in return for one link. When this happens, then the possibilities get more broad.
10. Your service requires sites to be "utterly devoid of ads" and avoid gambling, pseudoscience, hacking, drugs, weapons, and adult content. Why are these restrictions so important for HARO links, and have you ever made exceptions?
Well, look at it from the perspective of a journalist who wants to list your brand or expert on their site. They look at your site and see all this stuff(gestures vaguely at the above restrictions) and immediately red flags start popping up. Will this pass by the copy editor, would the editorial desk just take stuff off her article, can my employer's publication link to shady sites? The answer is mostly no, and they'll just go on to the next expert. There are exceptions however, but they're on a case by case basis where I'd suggest removing ads, or illicit content, or to change certain layouts.
11. You said some links go to LinkedIn profiles or alternate sites by mistake, and you can't control anchor text, DR, or follow/no-follow status. How do you manage client expectations when journalists have full editorial control?
I'm honest. I only charge for links that go to the client site, nothing else is charged. If you don't get a link, then I continue pitching until you get a link. They're aware of the factors that aren't under my control such as anchor text,DR, topic of the page, title of the page, page content, no-follow/******** link type, or number of OBLs so that's something I don't concern myself with.
12. What do you think the future has prepared for link building? With AI content flooding the internet and Google's algorithm changes, will earned PR links become the only truly valuable backlinks left?
I'm not sure, but I don't think earned PR will be the only valuable ones left. I mean, there are tons of educational sites that link out to dying informational sites, or that there are lots of small city and county sites that link out to informational sites as well. There can be lots of ways to still get links, but that's a bit more difficult to accomplish, but can still be done with the right content. That's my next target, and I'm pleased to say that I've already won a number of links from non profit organizations, resource listicles on websites and small business associations. Again, that's only for very specific use cases but it's a good way to build experience.
13. If you were advising someone starting link building today with $0 and limited time, would you tell them to learn traditional outreach, jump straight to HARO/PR strategies, or take a completely different approach?
I'd say learn traditional approach and then jump off into HARO. You'll learn how to write and pitch well, understand how to bring value to the person on the other side of the email and hopefully make you a better link builder.
14. What are some books, courses, or resources that have changed your approach to link building or business in general?
Well, I found David Meerman Scott's "The new Rules of PR and Marketing" to be a good way to understand the journalist's mindset. Other resources included looking up template ideas on search engine journal, and watching interviews on youtube.
15. What's one controversial link building opinion you have that you think might get you roasted in the comments?
The majority of the links you buy will be utter trash, and will only service to inflate your ego rather than your rankings.[/CODE]
Well, I started off with trying to learn how to make money online. Back then, the only way to make it reliably long term would be to have a site, so I started of with a plain info based site which I built. I later bought amazon affiliate sites, worked overnights at Walmart with a full time job to save up enough for other sites that I could buy and "fix up".
I then came across an opportunity to help my dad with his business. The main lesson in all of this was that SEO and link building are expensive and you need lots of links to rank. I ended up buying links from vendors at BHW, but thor sites had tons of OBLs to casinos, blackhat and other content which I couldn't risk on what was obviously a long term white hat business.
Over time I learnt that sites die, and long term sites are best for link building, those with non fluctuating traffic, consistent content updates and lack of links to spammy categories. This led me to discovering HARO and I've been building links since.
2. You mentioned you started on BHW buying spammy links for white hat sites—casinos, hacking sites, tons of OBLs. What were some of your biggest failures or "burnt email" moments, and what finally made you realize traditional outreach wasn't worth your time?
Well, this was relatively recent and was led by simple calculations. Turns out that when you're trying to rank lots of commercial keywords on one site, you'd need a bunch of links to the collection/product category pages which can only be reliably built through guest posting. But the numbers didn't make sense.
After finding all the sites that rank for a certain term, outreaching to them, negotiating for link inserts and new content, as well as cleaning out those sites which had bad OBLs, I was left with a fraction of the starting list. Adding in low response rates and high link cost, I felt, that, for now, PR based link building is my best bang for the buck. I didn't mind that most of the links would go to the home page and the author pages, all I wanted to do is to bring up the DA/DR of the site, see what happens to the product category pages, and then start building links to those that started ranking in the top 20, while still continuing with HARO.
While it's just as time consuming, I felt that I could reliably build links and not to have pay, what I felt were, overpriced guest posts. Unfortunately, it turns out that links according to my metrics tend to be pretty expensive. So, with me being on my limited budget, I had to open a service up to help build outreached links for my personal projects. That's what led to my HARO link building service page on BHW.
3. Tell us about your current projects. What are you working on with your HARO/Reactive PR service, and how did you transition from Active PR to Reactive PR link building?
Well, I've got 2 ecommerce sites of my own and am working on two more. I've also got 3 clients as of now. They're all in different niches, so I feel like this helps me build my writing experience, which is a plus.
As for Active PR, this was needed for a client that I recently dropped. They're in a specific health niche, and they have an expert source on hand, however there were hardly any queries for them. I read up on how to draft a press release, on how journalists select topics on newsworthy features and I read a few books on marketing and PR. I decided to give it a try. I had an old workmate who had access to muck rack, and I asked for a small media list. One thing led to another and I got a few links. I was very happy with the results since I'm not competing against 100's of other HARO responders, and I could ensure a relevant topic with very few other OBLs to other experts.
I'm still honing my craft, but I've definitely learnt more than when I started.
4. You've got a bold statement: "Content is no longer king. ChatGPT, Claude and Sonnet have become kingmakers." Can you elaborate on this? If content isn't king anymore, what is, and how does that change SEO strategy in 2025?
In that statement, I was referring to building links or signals to the topic that I wanted to rank for. So I was mostly referring to guest posts which is the traditional way most people on BHW would try to get their keywords ranked. Well, in a way, content will always be there. Whether it's a guest post, a video, a review, a reddit thread, it'll still stay, but the LLMs now prefer newer content, either led by expert advice, or by authentic users such as those on Reddit or Quora.
I saw this neat trick at SEOIRL a few weeks ago. The speaker asked everyone to look for the best hotel in bali, and asked everyone to list their results. They could use any LLM they pleased. Over half of the results ended up listing the four seasons hotel. This is when you'd need to think about what makes this site differ than others on the list. Why is it consistently there? Turns out, that it was already ranking on Google and other search engines, as well as it was on youtube, and on user generated sites such as Reddit and Quora.
When you'd ask the LLM why they listed that hotel, it would give similar reasoning as well as the fact that it was cited on certain publications. Publications that can be outreached to, just not traditionally. Since HARO (at that time) had the biggest concentration of journalists that would write on these platforms, it seemed an effective way to get a brand's link or name on there. Youtube and social media would still be needed to build a holistic view of any brand, but this was something that I could build reliably and quickly.
5. Walk us through your Reactive PR process. How do you find opportunities on HARO, Qwoted, and Featured, and what makes a pitch successful versus one that gets ignored by journalists?
Sure, so I tend to use a variety of sources but the process is exactly the same. I sift through opportunities to find those that would be a good fit for the brand. I look at niches, or in some case shoulder niches. When I get the email (HARO still does it by email, while Qwoted and Featured have alerts), I select the pitches that I'd send out queries for, and then rank them from most to least important. Some brands only want relevant queries to be answered, while others are okay with any links.
I then pull up my template for each expert that I made earlier, look for any relevant links that the expert has been quoted on earlier in the same niche, and answer the query.
A successful pitch depends on the strength of your response (is it the best it can be, is your response noteworthy in an article, does your expert have the qualified advice and is it backed up with multiple other mentions in different publications on that subject) and luck (you're too late, they've already chosen someone else, they don't offer links, or charge for them after they're live etc). I can't influence luck, but I can do my best on each pitch.
6. You emphasize authenticity heavily—real contact pages, GMB listings, author personas with LinkedIn profiles. Why is this so critical for HARO-style links, and what happens when people try to fake it?
Well, since the advent of AI, it's becoming much harder for journalists to verify authenticity, and this is important since they want to build their bylines, and any wrong advice which can't be verified can cause the publication to pull their story. So they do cursory checks, either with visiting the site, checking out the phone numbers, seeing user reviews, or at the very least googling the expert's name. This all helps build credibility, in fact this is what real brands do. They want people to know that they're authentic, and trust worthy, this means plastering contact us pages, or help guides, or clean websites showing their team. You should do the same.
Well, to be blunt, it's a waste of my time. I tried doing this at first without a linkedin profile and the other stuff, and it failed miserably. Over time, I've tested multiple ways to influence this by buying guest posts, but they don't seem to work.
7. You got a link from Men's Journal in your first Active PR campaign. That's impressive. Can you break down what you did differently with Active PR versus traditional outreach, and why it was so much easier to land DR 50+ links?
Well, for this one, I wrote up a story, backed it up with real data from scientific publications and then pitched it. It's a simplistic view, but each story takes me around a week to compile and get ready. Since I already have been building my own media list (yes, I do that), it's been easier than fighting against the timer when you're competing with tons of other pitch writers.
8. Many SEOs are still doing traditional guest post outreach and paying $80-$150+ per link. You threw in the towel on that approach. Why do you think Reactive PR is superior, and what are the main drawbacks or limitations people should know about?
Well, this was a personal choice, since funds were/still is an issue, and that reactive PR is something that I don't get charged wins for, it's mostly dictated by my time. Additionally, once you start ranking, and have lots of high DR HARO links, you tend to get guest post outreach requests as well. I started charging 4 times as much for guest posts than I did 2 years ago. And I can be selective, where I don't link to competitors, even in other regions, or only to informational pages and it keeps my site healthy.
The main drawbacks would be that you have no say over the anchor text (but it's mostly the brand name/expert name/topic name - but I think it's fine since it leads to link diversity or brand authority, or even if its just an unlinked mention, which I used to quibble about but I leave it be since it can still be picked up by LLMs) or whether it's a ******** or no follow link. Or even if it's just a mention.
9. You mentioned that 80% of your outreach responses wanted at least $80 per link after tedious negotiations. For someone still doing traditional outreach in 2025, is it even worth it anymore, or should everyone pivot to PR-based strategies?
Well, again, this was for my personal project, but I still believe outreach is still needed. There are tons of sites that don't accept guest posts, or send out query requests as on HARO. Additionally, guest posts would still be needed especially if you're looking to build up links with your specific anchor text, or to specific pages, which otherwise wouldn't be possible using HARO. It's still worth it.
Ideally, people would "graduate" to building so many links that they would know which sites accept link exchanges and that's where your past links built list comes in handy, so instead of buying a link for say $150, you can offer multiple links at a cheaper price (still good links) in return for one link. When this happens, then the possibilities get more broad.
10. Your service requires sites to be "utterly devoid of ads" and avoid gambling, pseudoscience, hacking, drugs, weapons, and adult content. Why are these restrictions so important for HARO links, and have you ever made exceptions?
Well, look at it from the perspective of a journalist who wants to list your brand or expert on their site. They look at your site and see all this stuff(gestures vaguely at the above restrictions) and immediately red flags start popping up. Will this pass by the copy editor, would the editorial desk just take stuff off her article, can my employer's publication link to shady sites? The answer is mostly no, and they'll just go on to the next expert. There are exceptions however, but they're on a case by case basis where I'd suggest removing ads, or illicit content, or to change certain layouts.
11. You said some links go to LinkedIn profiles or alternate sites by mistake, and you can't control anchor text, DR, or follow/no-follow status. How do you manage client expectations when journalists have full editorial control?
I'm honest. I only charge for links that go to the client site, nothing else is charged. If you don't get a link, then I continue pitching until you get a link. They're aware of the factors that aren't under my control such as anchor text,DR, topic of the page, title of the page, page content, no-follow/******** link type, or number of OBLs so that's something I don't concern myself with.
12. What do you think the future has prepared for link building? With AI content flooding the internet and Google's algorithm changes, will earned PR links become the only truly valuable backlinks left?
I'm not sure, but I don't think earned PR will be the only valuable ones left. I mean, there are tons of educational sites that link out to dying informational sites, or that there are lots of small city and county sites that link out to informational sites as well. There can be lots of ways to still get links, but that's a bit more difficult to accomplish, but can still be done with the right content. That's my next target, and I'm pleased to say that I've already won a number of links from non profit organizations, resource listicles on websites and small business associations. Again, that's only for very specific use cases but it's a good way to build experience.
13. If you were advising someone starting link building today with $0 and limited time, would you tell them to learn traditional outreach, jump straight to HARO/PR strategies, or take a completely different approach?
I'd say learn traditional approach and then jump off into HARO. You'll learn how to write and pitch well, understand how to bring value to the person on the other side of the email and hopefully make you a better link builder.
14. What are some books, courses, or resources that have changed your approach to link building or business in general?
Well, I found David Meerman Scott's "The new Rules of PR and Marketing" to be a good way to understand the journalist's mindset. Other resources included looking up template ideas on search engine journal, and watching interviews on youtube.
15. What's one controversial link building opinion you have that you think might get you roasted in the comments?
The majority of the links you buy will be utter trash, and will only service to inflate your ego rather than your rankings.[/CODE]
