From Fish and Chips to Forbes Links

I asked Chris what he was doing before starting Linkify.

Chris went to university with a degree in economics. When he graduated, he did what most half-Cypriot people do in Britain and took over the family business: fish and chips. He ran that shop for about 10 years, growing the business and introducing new products.

About two years before the pandemic, things started changing rapidly. Costs were rising. Competition was exploding from every direction - big name brands, small mom and pop places, every type of cuisine you can imagine. The whole industry was getting squeezed.

Chris found places online discussing making money online. He started an affiliate site and pretty quickly was making $1,000 a month. He was doing his own link building, which is when he discovered HARO.

Discovering HARO Changed Everything

HARO connects journalists with experts. Chris started using it for his affiliate site. He didn't get anything at first. He kept practicing, kept honing his pitches, changing his response time, getting better at the process. Eventually he started landing really good links.

At the same time, he knew his money pages needed some direct links, so he started a guest post campaign. That's when he met his now business partner. His partner looked at Chris's link profile and was shocked to see Forbes, New York Times, Business Insider - how did you get these huge links?

Chris had just been answering journalist requests on HARO. His partner asked if he could do that for clients. Chris figured why not, as long as they let him pitch as them. They started getting amazing links for clients, got referrals, and realized this could be a real business.

This all happened right as Chris got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes during the pandemic. If he could make this work and get off his feet 12 hours a day, six days a week in the fish and chip shop, it was a real opportunity.

Why Local Service Businesses Are Perfectly Positioned for PR

I asked Chris why local service businesses are so primed for PR.

It comes down to what people are genuinely interested in. Pest infestations during heat waves when bugs are invading homes. Frozen pipes in winter. Auto mechanics explaining how to stop windshields from freezing. This stuff resonates on a deeply personal level. Journalists want to write about it because it gets eyes on content. People read it, click it, share it.

Here's the critical insight: "People that run local service businesses are absolute experts at what they do and therefore their opinion is 100% valid," Chris said. "Someone who owns a pest control business is a pest control expert."

Unlike some random affiliate website selling pest control equipment where it's really just an SEO churning out content and buying links, someone who actually owns a pest control business is a legitimate expert. If they're giving expert commentary about how to get rid of pests or protect your home during a specific season or news event, it ticks all the boxes for journalists. They get quoted and win links back to their websites.

This is such an important point that I don't think enough people understand. Most pest control owners have several certifications. They've been doing this for at least 10 years. Maybe they worked for their dad's company or worked for Orkin or Terminix. They have a long history and deep experience.

They're not just experts in pest control generally. They're experts in pest control in their specific area. If you've been doing pest control in Chicago for 20 years, you know everything about pest control in that area. The seasonality, the specific pests that come every 10 years, all of it. Almost no one knows better than the company owner.

What HARO Was and Why It Died

For people who aren't familiar, HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out. It was started by Peter Shankman about 15 years ago. It began as a free email blast three times daily, Monday to Friday. Each email had a curated list of requests from journalists looking for expert comments to include in articles.

The subject line would tell you what the request was about. Maybe a journalist needed a plumbing expert to give tips on preventing pipe freezing during an unusually harsh winter. It would tell you the publication name - Real Homes, House Beautiful, Realtor.com, big tier one publications.

You'd click a reply link to send your response back anonymously. Then you wait. Sometimes journalists follow up with more questions. Sometimes they just include your comments in the article. It could take days or weeks. Chris has won links where they pitched for a client and it went live six months later. You're at the mercy of editorial calendars.

Then it became pay-to-play. As AI became more prevalent, people realized they could send 20 responses in 5 minutes by just putting the question into ChatGPT without even reading the answer. Journalists got bombarded with spam garbage. The company that bought it, Cision, transitioned it from a free email-based platform to a dashboard-based UI where you pay per pitch.

HARO officially shut down, but the original founder Peter Shankman restarted the exact same format under a new name: Source of Sources. And it's 100% free.

Why the Concept Isn't Dead

I asked if HARO as a concept is completely dead or if alternatives will emerge.

The concept absolutely isn't going anywhere. It's a functional way to connect experts with journalists. In the era of AI where content is going to be more scrutinized than ever, journalists need quality stories. The way they bolster credibility is by citing experts.

Think about it this way: if there's a storm that hits Chicago every 10 years and brings a crazy beetle infestation, and there's a Chicago-based pest control expert who's been working in that industry for 20 years backing up the journalist's points, that's journalism 101. It's a fundamental part of delivering a quality, facts-based story.

Although HARO itself has died, those journalists are just going to other platforms. There's Press Plugs, Response Source, Editorial, Quoted. Journalists also post directly on Twitter with the hashtag #JournRequest. The need hasn't gone away, just the specific platform.

How Local Businesses Can Start PR Themselves

I asked how a company doing a million dollars a year can get into PR if they're not doing anything currently.

Chris's recommendation is to start with inbound requests by utilizing the experts you already have in your business. You have highly qualified people who can answer journalist requests. Make it a small part of the workflow - maybe a couple hours on a Friday or an hour a day looking at requests.

You could even incentivize employees. If they land you a link or coverage, give them a bonus. The hard part for many people is they don't have the credentials and they're trying to fake it. But if you have qualified people in your business, they can absolutely do this and get links.

Building Your Own Journalist List

For outbound campaigns, I asked Chris how you build a list of local journalists.

His strategy is brilliant and actionable. You know the local publications in your area. Do a Google search for "Pest Control Chicago" and set a filter for the past 6 months. You'll see all the publications that have covered pest control topics in that area recently.

Scrape that data. Scrape those publications. Scrape the journalists' names. Then find their emails, which is usually pretty easy. Journalists aren't hiding. They typically have forward-facing emails because they want to be contacted.

How do you determine if a publication is good? Chris looks at a few metrics: Ahrefs domain rating or Moz's domain authority, plus organic traffic from third-party tools. They want high DR, high DA, and high organic traffic.

But relevancy is also a deciding factor. A hyper-relevant, hyper-niche publication might have lower metrics but still be incredibly valuable. If you've got a local Chicago-based pest control publication, you want those journalists on your list even if the DR is only 48 with 10,000 monthly traffic instead of millions.

The same way someone is already ranking number one on Google, someone has already done PR in your space. Look at who's already done it, how they did it, what size company they are. Learn from what's already working.

Why Earned Media Destroys Paid Links

I asked Chris about the difference between earned media and paid media and why Linkify focuses on earned.

For the type of link building Linkify does, you can't pay. If you're paying, it's not editorially earned media. You're buying links from someone's list for an agreed amount in a transactional process.

If Chris wants to give a local pest control agency a really good five or ten link campaign, he wants to make sure what they're buying is links they couldn't just go buy from anyone else. That's the point of PR for real PR agencies.

Chris warned about unscrupulous vendors who say they're PR agencies and will get you PR links, but really they've just bought a guest post and made it look like a PR link. He gets people reaching out saying someone offered them a PR campaign for $100 a link for five links. When he asks for a sample link report, it's just a purchased press release for $150 that goes out on newswire sites. It's not earned, it's got zero value.

"You might as well have just chucked that money in the bin," Chris said. "Whereas if you stay with us or you do a campaign yourself you're targeting those editorially earned media placements by delivering value and you get those links on realtor.com, you know DR 90 with 10 million organic traffic."

The benefits go way beyond SEO. You're aligning yourself with a hugely trusted website in Google's eyes and your customers' eyes. If you've been featured on Realtor.com on the front of your website, you're aligning yourself with a very well-established trusted brand. You're building brand credibility and increasing conversion rates for customers who land on your website.

Quality Links Beat Quantity Every Time

This really hammers home the point that quality links are infinitely more valuable than quantity. A link from Realtor.com with DR 90 and 10 million monthly visitors is more valuable than 90% of links in the world. That single link beats getting 10,000 random PR sites with DR 0 and no traffic.

A good principle to follow: the harder it is to get the link, usually the more valuable it is. Those sites that are super tough to get on - when you finally get it, that means almost no one else is getting it because you really had to work for it.

Chris made an important caveat though. He's not saying you should only do PR link building. He understands how links and Google work. You need inner page links as well. You need social links, directory links. You need a natural-looking backlink profile with a mix of do-follow and no-follow.

If you have a service page ranking on page one spot five, a couple inner page links with well-selected anchor text could jump that up two or three spots, making you way more money.

But digital PR link building has massive benefits. First, it protects your other efforts. If every link you've got is just a link to your service page with really specific anchor text, Google sees that pattern. But if you're also getting links from Forbes and other authoritative sites, it waters down the manipulation signals.

Second, it powers up all your other efforts. You're getting homepage link juice from these huge authority links. That link juice spreads through your website, passing page rank, bolstering your on-page SEO efforts and powering up all those other links you've got. It builds on itself to create an exponential trajectory in search visibility.

How to Actually Get High Authority Links

I asked Chris for practical advice on getting those high-quality backlinks from super authoritative sites.

The key is putting together factual data or informative pieces. Chris did a massive data study where he sent out thousands of emails and got 675 responses from entrepreneurs about what makes them successful. He asked four questions. That gave him a story: I asked 675 entrepreneurs what it takes to be successful. It was painful to do, but incredibly valuable for getting links.

A pest control company in Miami could do something similar. They could put together an informative piece about when flying cockroaches are really bad in June. Here are the areas you need to plug up on windows so they don't come through. Use steel wool under the sink. Put together data points on where cockroaches come through and how to stop them.

Then you pitch it to local publications. Hey Miami Herald, cockroach season is coming. Rats and mice follow the cockroaches. We put together this comprehensive thing with data points on where we see cockroaches come through and how to stop it. That's a valuable, informative piece.

"Miami Herald if you're a pest control company out in Miami dude they're giving you that link I guarantee," Chris said. "I guarantee you man that you're getting that link easy."

As long as you put in the work to create something valuable, you'll get it. Once you get a few links from Miami Herald, you've built a relationship. You can keep leaning on that relationship. Over a year or two, you could get 10 links just from Miami Herald alone. Then start doing it with other publications.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Chris is that local service businesses are sitting on a goldmine for PR opportunities. Journalists are constantly writing about pest control, plumbing, roofing, and other home services because people genuinely care about this stuff. It gets clicks, shares, and engagement.

The second big takeaway is that earned media from tier one publications like Forbes, Realtor.com, and New York Times is infinitely more valuable than buying cheap guest posts or niche edits. One DR 90 link with 10 million monthly visitors beats 10,000 garbage links. Quality absolutely destroys quantity.

The third thing is that you can do this yourself if you're willing to invest the time. Start with HARO alternatives like Source of Sources, Press Plugs, Response Source, or search Twitter for #JournRequest. Build your list by finding who's already covered topics in your niche in your area in the past 6 months. Scrape those journalists and reach out.

If you want to learn more from Chris or need help with digital PR and link building, check out linkify.io or email him at chris@linkify.io. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn under Christopher Pantelli or find him on Twitter at linkifyHQ.

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The Reality of Link Quality Over Quantity

Let me dive deeper into Chris's perspective on link quality versus quantity because this is something most local businesses completely misunderstand.

Most pest control companies think they need hundreds of backlinks to rank. They'll go on Fiverr and buy packages of 500 links for $50. They think more links equals better rankings. That's completely backwards.

One link from a DR 90 site like Realtor.com or Forbes is more valuable than 10,000 links from spam sites with DR 0 and no traffic. It's not even close. That one authoritative link tells Google you're credible and trustworthy. The 10,000 spam links might actually hurt you.

Chris's agency Linkify averages above DR 79 for links with average domain traffic in the millions. That's insanely high quality. Those are the kinds of links that actually move rankings.

For local businesses, the calculus is slightly different. A DR 48 hyper-niche publication like a local pest control industry site might be worth more than a DR 60 general news site because of the relevancy factor. Google understands contextual relevance.

The principle Chris emphasized: the harder it is to get a link, usually the more valuable it is. If everyone can get a link from a site, it's not valuable. If only a handful of companies can earn placement on a major publication, that link is gold.

Why Earned Media Builds More Than Rankings

Chris made a critical point about earned media that goes beyond just SEO value. When you get featured on Realtor.com or Forbes or a major publication, you're not just getting a backlink. You're building brand credibility.

Think about it from a customer's perspective. They're researching pest control companies in their area. They land on your website and see "As Featured In" logos for Forbes, Realtor.com, New York Times. Immediately you're more credible than every other pest control company they're looking at.

That social proof increases conversion rates. You're not just ranking higher. You're also converting a higher percentage of the traffic you get. This is the compounding benefit of PR that most people miss.

Compare that to buying guest posts on random blogs nobody's heard of. Even if those links help your rankings a bit, they do nothing for your brand credibility. Customers have never heard of those sites. They don't care.

Chris's point about aligning yourself with hugely trusted websites applies both to Google's eyes and customers' eyes. Both matter for actually growing revenue.

The PR Agency Scam You Need to Avoid

Chris warned about unscrupulous vendors operating in the PR space. This is critical for local businesses to understand.

Some agencies claim to do PR and get you PR links. But they're just buying guest posts and making them look like PR links. Or they're buying placement on newswire sites that distribute your press release to hundreds of low-quality sites.

Chris gave an example: someone offers you a PR campaign for $100 per link for 5 links. They send a sample link report showing a newswire purchase for $150. You could just go buy those yourself. They're not earned media. They're purchased placements with zero value.

Real PR takes time and effort. You're pitching journalists, waiting for responses, getting featured editorially because you provided value. You can't scale that to $100 per link. It doesn't work that way.

If someone's offering you cheap PR links, they're not doing real PR. They're buying placements and marking them up. You're getting scammed and you'd be better off saving your money.

The Power of Digital PR for Protecting Other SEO Efforts

Chris made an interesting strategic point about how digital PR protects your other SEO efforts. This is advanced thinking most people miss.

Let's say you're doing some aggressive link building. Maybe some guest posts with exact match anchor text pointing to your service pages. Maybe some niche edits. Stuff that works but could potentially look manipulative if that's ALL you're doing.

Digital PR provides cover. When Google looks at your backlink profile and sees links from Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and other major publications pointing to your homepage with branded anchors, it waters down any concern about those more aggressive tactics.

You're telling Google: look, major publications trust us. We're not a spam site. Yes, we have some exact match anchor links, but we also have authoritative validation from trusted sources.

The PR links also power up all your other links. Homepage link juice from huge authority sites spreads through your website via internal linking, passing authority to all your pages. It bolsters your on-page SEO efforts, your content efforts, everything.

This creates an exponential trajectory in search visibility. Each element supports and amplifies the others. This is integrated SEO strategy, not just tactics in isolation.

Starting Small with Local PR Opportunities

For pest control companies not ready to hire an agency like Linkify, there are local PR opportunities you can pursue yourself.

Local news outlets are always looking for expert commentary on seasonal topics. When cold weather hits, they need plumbers to talk about frozen pipes. When summer comes, they need pest control experts to talk about mosquitoes and ticks.

Build relationships with local journalists. Find the reporters who cover home and garden topics in your area. Connect with them on LinkedIn or Twitter. When you see them post asking for expert sources, respond immediately with helpful information.

You don't even need to pitch stories. Just be helpful. Answer their questions thoroughly. Provide valuable insights. Over time, they'll remember you and reach out when they need a pest control expert.

Local TV stations are even better for brand building. A 3-minute segment where you're demonstrating how to identify termite damage or showing what a wasp nest looks like builds massive credibility in your market. Plus it's content you can repurpose across all your marketing channels.

The barrier to entry for local PR is much lower than national PR. You're competing with a handful of local businesses, not thousands of companies nationwide. Take advantage of that.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest thing I learned from Chris is that local businesses are sitting on a goldmine for PR opportunities. Journalists constantly write about pest control, plumbing, roofing, and other home services because people care about this stuff. It gets clicks, shares, and engagement. If you have real expertise and credentials, you can absolutely earn placement in major publications.

The second takeaway is that earned media from tier one publications like Forbes, Realtor.com, and New York Times is infinitely more valuable than buying cheap guest posts. One DR 90 link with 10 million monthly visitors beats 10,000 garbage links in every possible way - rankings, brand credibility, and conversion rates.

The third thing is that you can start doing PR yourself if you're willing to invest the time. Source of Sources is free. Local journalists are accessible. You just have to be proactive about looking for opportunities and responding quickly when you see them.

The fourth lesson is that digital PR protects and amplifies all your other SEO efforts. Those authoritative homepage links spread authority throughout your site and provide cover for more aggressive link building tactics. It's strategic SEO, not just random tactics.

If you want to learn more from Chris or need help with digital PR and link building, check out linkifi.io or email him at chris@linkifi.io. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn under Christopher Pantelli or find him on Twitter at linkifyHQ.