How to get free publicity by hacking SEO (AI Marketing Tips)

Why are people saying SEO is Dead? Recent organic algorithm changes are causing businesses to look at different strategies, but this is one SEO strategy that's going to remain effective even as search gets decimated. Today, I'm going to be sharing with you the exact SEO strategy this company used to explode their organic traffic by over 300%. I'm Adam, by the way. You may have seen me posting about marketing automation and AI on TikTok. I also run a marketing consulting business working with some of the fastest growing brands. But before we get into the details, let's talk about what this strategy is and why it's still so effective. Now. In the SEO world, things are constantly evolving. You need to make sure your website is optimized so you can drive long term growth for many years to come. To do that, you'll need to conduct an SEO audit. But how do you go about that? HubSpot has you covered with this free guide on how you can audit your own site. This guide will take you step by step through the process and how you can monitor your rankings to optimize over time. If you're interested, I'll drop a link in the description we're going to be using two websites, the First Helper, Reporter out and Sourcebottle. Both platforms offer journalists a way to post queries seeking expert sources for their articles. For example, if we go into Sourcebottle right now, we can see countless news websites and high authority blogs looking for expert quotes. By responding to these queries with valuable responses, you can earn high quality backlinks from reputable websites. Here's an example of a successful response that managed to get me featured on a high authority website. First of all, in most cases we don't know the name or company of the journalist, so generally I start off pretty casual. Hey, I've learned a lot about managing my finances over the years and I would love to share what I've learnt with others. I then provide a brief example of why I would be perfect for this piece. I show that I'm willing to provide more details via a phone call or video call, then offer value by saying I'm also willing to share the article with my audience, then finally adding in a couple of links to show credibility. I'll normally match the social profile with the callout as this one was very much B2B related. I added in my LinkedIn and my website. Getting featured on high authority websites is valuable as these backlinks can significantly boost your website's SEO by increasing its authority and visibility. Backlinks from reputable websites signal to search engines that your content is credible and worth ranking higher in search results. So let's get into it. First, we're going to want to create compelling profiles on Both Haro and SourceBottle. We want to highlight our expertise, credentials and the value we can offer journalists. Make sure your profile is professional, engaging and showcase your unique perspective. Both platforms send out daily emails with relevant queries. You want to use keywords and filters to narrow down your search and focus on opportunities that align with your expertise and target audience. This is a great way to build your presence online, no matter your niche. Even if you're a boring business, staying relevant is crucial and this platform offers you the perfect opportunity to do so. To identify high value questions, look for those that closely match your expertise and target audience. Consider the authority of the publication, the potential reach in how well your query matches your knowledge base. Sticking to what you know ensures that you provide valuable and credible responses. AI and automation tools can help you quickly scan through queries and identify the most promising ones. You also want to make it easy to get notified about relevant opportunities. I'm going to show you how to easily set up this automation. For this we're going to be using three tools OpenAI's API, Slack and Zapier to bring it all together to summarize and send you the best and most relevant opportunities daily. First, setting up the trigger in zapier for the for this, we'll start by selecting Gmail as our trigger app. Now connect your Gmail account by following the on screen instructions in the trigger setup. We're going to want to import the SourceBottle sender email into the search string and set it to monitor the inbox where these emails are received. Finally, test the trigger to make sure that Zapier can find the recent email to match your criteria. Now we'll set up an action to summarize the emails. Choose OpenAI as the action app and we want to select an event like summarized text, connect your OpenAI account and choose ChatGPT. And for this I'm going to use GPT4O. Right now I've been testing out GPT4O for this automation, but in the past I've been using GPT 3.5 and it's been working incredibly well. Something to keep in mind as currently GPT 3.5 Turbo is a lot cheaper. Now we set up the action to pull the body of the email from the initial trigger, test this action out and confirm that the summarization works as expected. You might want to Play around with the prompt to make sure we get the best response. Here's a simple prompt I've been using that's been super effective. Summarize the above email and identify the best PR opportunities presenting them in dot points. Segment the information into three categories Marketing Related, AI related and General Business related. Use the heading Source Bottle Opportunities Include the following link at the end for easy access to the rest of the callouts. Choose Slack as the Action app and pick Send Channel Message Event. Connect your Slack account and choose a channel where you want your summary posted. Use the summarized text from the previous step Step as your message text. Test this action to ensure your summary is being sent correctly to your Slack channel. Once you're satisfied that everything is set up correctly, go ahead and activate your zap. By setting up this automation, you'll save time and ensure that you never miss an opportunity. Now onto the pitch. This is your chance to shine and stand out from a sea of responses. You need to make sure that you get to the query as fast as possible. Keep it concise, personalized and relevant to the query. Highlight your expertise, offer unique insights and demonstrate why you are the perfect source for the journalist. But one thing I see many people getting wrong consistently is using AI to write generic responses that can sometimes get flagged or even blocked from the platforms. Now we need a way to automate the work we are doing. You're going to want to be set up to manage your follow up emails and precisely track your success rate. For me, I personally use HubSpot for this. You can also have templates to speed up your responses. This streamlines the process, saving you time and effort whilst maximizing your chances of obtaining the backlink. It also creates a repeatable process that you can then pass on to other team members. Building relationships with journalists is a key to long term success with this strategy. Make sure to send personalized thank you emails when your pitch has been accepted and follow up with additional insights and resources as many times you may be speaking with an independent journalist that may work across different businesses. Track your progress by monitoring the number of backlinks you acquire, the referral traffic they generate and the impact on your website's domain authority. For me personally I use Semrush for this but I know there's a lot of people out there that prefer ahrefs. Remember, consistency, speed to response and a data driven approach are key to success. Now it's your turn to take action. Start exploring these platforms, experiment with automation and watch your website's authority soar. Remember, this will not only help your website build authority, but also reach a large audience. I'll be linking some resources I mentioned in the description below. Do you have any questions or are you already using this strategy? How's it working for you? Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Sam.