I did something I haven’t done before…
I paid for links.
Now you might be thinking,
“But you said we don’t need to build links.”
And yes, I did say that.
So, please,
Let me explain why I handed over my money to a link-building service.
And how that went for me.
First, let me clarify my views on link building…
Links are powerful.
There’s no denying that.
That’s how Forbes ranks number 1 for ‘best teeth whitening’ with no dental qualifications.
eye roll
Now, I have built a site to 800k pageviews/month without buying links.
But that’s not a DR 0 site.
It has links from multiple DR 80+ publications like newspapers and magazines.
I didn’t buy them, but they help it a lot.
Some of these links I got naturally,
By writing content that journalists want to link to.
Tip: I think everybody should have a post about the top statistics and facts for their niche.
It’s journalist bait!
And some of these I got from replying to HARO requests.
For those who may not be familiar,
HARO is a service that journalists use to get quotes to place in their articles.
You sign up to get 3 daily emails with the latest journo requests,
Then you reply with your pitch
If the journalist uses your quote, they may link to you.
Or they may not.
It’s very hit-and-miss.
And incredibly time-consuming.
I answer HARO occasionally for my travel blog.
Really, you should reply as soon as the email arrives.
But that really disrupts my work flow
So I don’t do a very good job of it.
But, it’s where I got my best links to my travel blog from.
Now, for my newer sites,
I definitely don’t have time to answer HARO requests!
I wished that someone could just do it for me,
But I didn’t know who to trust to do a good job of it.
Then, back in October,
I saw that Jon Dykstra from Fat Stacks had found a guy called Chris to do HARO for him.
Jon was really impressed with the results,
So I thought I’d try it too.
It’s not cheap,
But WOW, the results were amazing!
As soon as the links started to go live,
My traffic started taking off.
You can see it here…
The effect of links can take a few months to kick in,
So this traffic is only going one way.
This site was a DR 0.
It’s less than a year old and has under 100 articles.
So these links will make a massive difference.
I’m so sure that I’ll earn back my investment with the extra ad revenue over the coming months that
I’ve ordered another batch.
HARO link building isn’t fast.
It can take a few months, but it’s worth the wait.
If you’d like to try the HARO service I used,
You can get 20% OFF when you use code ‘NICHESITELADY20’.
You don’t need to pay it all at once as payment plans are available at no extra cost.
But I get it,
Not everyone has the money to invest into outsourcing HARO.
Luckily, for anyone who doesn’t have money
But can invest their own time,
Chris also has a HARO Masterclass.
He will teach you the step-by-step framework to build links like this on your own.
So, whether outsource HARO, or learn to do it yourself (possibly so that you can teach your VA), then I hope you find this useful.
Until next time
– NSL