Backlinks stay important for natural search visibility, but link-building alternatives are more and more uncommon. Most techniques are both dangerous or ineffective. Those who work effectively — digital public relations, direct outreach — are sometimes too costly or time-consuming for small and medium-sized companies.
However one link-building technique is each cheap and efficient: being quoted in on-line publications as an professional. This technique produces backlinks and builds topical authority.
The tactic is “entity-driven” as a result of it helps the quoted professional turn out to be an “entity,” i.e., a model. Historically, the tactic concerned laborious guide outreach to editors and writers providing experience for articles.
There are actually platforms to simplify the method. All join publications with consultants. None promote paid hyperlinks or placements so far as I do know.
Listed below are three choices.
Featured
Featured is a freemium platform itemizing requests from publications searching for experience. Any account holder can submit quotes in response. Account holders could be both publications or people, permitting them to request and submit quotes from a single account.
To be cited and linked:
- Submit your professional quotes to the requests.
- Counsel related questions based mostly in your experience, helping publications with concepts.
- Reply to publications searching for writers.
- Create a profile to draw publications on the lookout for interviews.
When submitting a quote, present your attribution to assist guarantee a correct quotation.
Account holders can submit as much as three quotes without cost every month. Premium packages begin at $19 per thirty days for 10 quotes.
Featured just lately acquired HARO (Assist A Reporter Out), a longtime and sturdy database of publications and reporters searching for consultants.

Featured permits account holders to finish a profile and submit three responses per thirty days without cost. Click on picture to enlarge.
Supply of Sources
HARO’s founder has launched Supply of Sources to attach journalists with consultants. It’s a publication itemizing categorized requests for quotes. The format is straightforward to scan and click on requests to find out the subject and want.
Supply of Sources is free, but it surely requires guide monitoring of requests. There isn’t any dashboard to trace submitted quotes, statuses, and deadlines.

Sources of Sources is a publication itemizing categorized requests from journalists for quotes. Click on picture to enlarge.
Journo.com
Journo.com is a freemium platform connecting reporters with professional sources. Reporters can submit quote requests with out creating an account.
Consultants require an account, which is free for 20 month-to-month responses and a dashboard to submit and monitor these responses. Paid plans begin at $99 per thirty days for 100 responses and 200 Information Searches — a instrument to search out related shops for PR campaigns.

Journo.com’s free plan permits consultants to answer 20 quote requests per thirty days through a dashboard. Click on picture to enlarge.