How To Score Great SEO Backlinks From Journalists’ Keywords

Authority is a precious online currency, and sometimes you need to borrow credit from someone else. Journalists and news outlets are the most reliable creditors, but getting their attention is challenging at best. What they want in exchange is information to share with their readers.

SEO agency experts know this all too well, which is why they advise having a backlink building strategy ready.

This guide covers how to get attention (and backlinks) from journalists, including:

• Five backlink building basics
• Five strategies for journalist keyword research

There’s a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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5 Backlink Building Basics You Should Know

Like every other SEO strategy, building backlinks requires careful thought and planning. While requesting and receiving a link sounds simple, getting a backlink is more of a connection than a transaction. You need to consider the human element if you want links from journalists.

It is a catch-22 that looks something like this:

1. Journalists want to get your information and give you a backlink if you have authority.

2. You get authority by giving journalists information and receiving a backlink in return.

This cycle makes it challenging to get a solid foothold without knowing how backlink building works. Below are five concepts you should be familiar with when developing your strategy.

     1. The Best Backlinks Come from Authority Sites

Authority sites are the best sources of backlinks because you piggyback off their credibility to boost your own. The more authoritative the linking website, the more authoritative your website appears to users and search engines. Essentially, this is like getting a recommendation letter.

However, that is not to say that backlinks from sites with similar domain authority (DA) as your own are worthless. Meaningful backlinks still contribute to your overall DA score, after all. Be careful of how you curate these in case the linking website is problematic for other reasons.

     2. Low-Quality and Spam Backlinks Hurt Your SEO

When it comes to backlinks, spam is not only annoying; it is also harmful to your SEO efforts. Search engines prefer websites that genuinely earn their backlinks by producing amazing content. In this case, quality is measured by how well the information serves the needs of the target users.

Random links from unrelated websites are low-quality, especially those coming from sketchy and gibberish URLs. Why? That is because search engines view them as attempts to artificially inflate your website’s DA through quantity rather than quality, so they respond with penalties.

     3. Follow E-E-A-T To Get High-Quality Backlinks

Writers voluntarily link to content that benefits them and their readers, i.e., high-quality content.

One method to measure quality that SEO agency experts point to is Google’s E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness:

• Are you basing the facts of your content on your own experience?
• Do you have the necessary skills and expertise to talk about this subject?
• Is your content a reliable and authoritative source of information?
• Does your content display enough credibility to warrant users’ trust?

     4. Use AI-Powered Tools to Speed Up Research

Some keywords draw more traffic than others, so having a list of top-ranking ones is handy for getting backlinks. You can also use AI-powered research tools to refine your strategy further. They are incredibly useful for finding target keywords by traffic, difficulty, and ranking potential.

While AI tools are powerful enough for all keyword strategies, you still need a clear idea of where to look and how. For instance, BuzzSumo allows you to filter search results by source. That lets you review all journalistic pieces for a keyword and get amazing SEO content ideas.

     5. Work To Build Backlinks Instead of Buying Them

Backlink building is a give-and-take in that your relationship with the linking website has to benefit you both. Genuine connections are what make high-quality content so valuable for SEO. Search engines know when you buy backlinks or if your links are artificial and penalize you for it.

Some ways to earn authentic and high-quality backlinks are:

1. Offer to write an article for a newspaper or magazine to highlight your expertise

2. Join local or online groups and start networking with potential content collaborators

3. Do something attention-grabbing or newsworthy to get the media talking about you

5 Ways To Find Quality Journalists’ Keywords

A journalist's keyword includes any and all search terms that news writers use on search engines to find the information they need. It differs from other keywords in terms of intent — that is, journalists’ keywords focus mainly on finding studies, research, and expert opinions on a subject.

For that reason, you cannot wait for them to fall in your proverbial lap. You need to master advanced SEO practices, such as using AI-powered keyword tools, to get the job done. It takes some practice and a few adjustments, but these are great for discovering journalists’ keywords.

Apart from research tools, high-quality keywords can come from a wide variety of sources, including Google itself. You just need to know where to look for them and then dig deep.

1. Hop on social media. Journalists are always on the lookout for new information, and sometimes social media beats them to the punch. Twitter, for one, is a major internet highway for the latest updates anywhere. Instagram and YouTube are excellent alternative sources as well, especially for trending topics.

2. Check Google SERPs. Like you, journalists rely on search engines to bring them information. Ordinary people likewise pose their questions to Google for answers. That makes suggested keywords and ‘People also ask’ snippets goldmines for potential journalist keywords that you might not have considered.

3. Look at new studies. Research data and statistics are backlink magnets, so looking at news publications that cite them (especially industry statistics) gives you clues on what information to focus on providing. While not everyone can fund a research study, you can make data roundups to gain backlinks.

4. Check news outlets. Similar to the other points above, you can conveniently find hot-button issues on news sites themselves. Again, it has to do with patterns of what they want and need from sources. You might even find articles to which you can contribute insider information; you never really know.

5. Sign up on HARO. Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is an online platform where journalists and sources can reach out to one another. Simply signing up to receive the daily email digests is enough to get the ball rolling on your journalist keyword research strategy — and you get it straight from the source.

Summing Up

Great SEO backlinks are a precious commodity for websites, especially those from authoritative sources such as journalists and news outlets. Therefore, learning to discover and utilize journalists’ keywords is necessary for backlink building.

Need help finding journalist keywords to power your strategy? Contact us to learn how we can help.