Citation Harvesting & Link Building skill

Citation Harvesting & Link Building

Overview

Citation harvesting is the most efficient link building strategy for B2B SaaS: respond to journalist and blogger source requests with expert commentary, and earn backlinks from high-authority publications. This skill covers the full citation harvesting motion.

Authoritative Foundations

• Moz — Beginner's guide to link building — Prioritize relevant, authoritative referring domains and evaluate each link opportunity for quality before volume.
• Google Search Central — SEO Starter Guide — Earn links with genuinely useful content and expertise; links should be a byproduct of being worth citing.
• Google Search Central — Spam policies (link schemes) — Never buy or trade links for ranking; mark paid or sponsored placements with rel=sponsored.

When to Use

• "Build backlinks"
• "Citation harvesting"
• "Get featured in publications"
• "Digital PR for links"
• "Get cited by journalist sources"

Step-by-Step Process

Phase 1: Source Request Monitoring

Monitor these platforms for source requests in your domain:

• Qwoted: Journalist source request platform — high-quality requests, verified journalists
• Muck Rack: PR platform for finding journalists by beat, monitoring coverage, and building media lists
• Help a B2B Writer: Slack community for B2B writers seeking expert sources
• SourceBottle: Free source request platform with daily digests for expert opportunities
• Twitter/X: Search "[your topic] + seeking sources" or "journo request"
• LinkedIn: Follow journalists and editors in your industry
• Connectively (formerly HARO): The original, still high volume
• Help a B2B Writer: Slack community for B2B writers seeking sources
• Twitter/X: Search "[your topic] + seeking sources" or "journo request"
• LinkedIn: Follow journalists and editors in your industry
• Subreddit: r/Journalism, r/PR, r/HARO

Phase 2: Response Strategy

Respond within 2-4 hours of request posting. Journalists work on deadlines.

Response template:

Subject: Re: [Their subject line]

Hi [Name],

[Direct answer to their question in 2-3 sentences — lead with the quote]

[A bit more context or data to support your answer — 1-2 sentences]

About me: [Full name], [Title] at [Company]. [One sentence on why you're
qualified to speak on this topic — relevant experience, data, or perspective].

Happy to provide more detail or data if helpful.

[Your name]
[Your title + company]
[Link to your website or LinkedIn]

Rules:

• Lead with the answer. They don't care about you — they care about the quote.
• Be specific. "According to our data, 67% of..." > "I think it's important..."
• Be concise. 3-5 sentences total. They're skimming 50 responses.
• Include credentials. Why should they quote you?
• Never pitch your product. This is about being a source, not a vendor.

Phase 3: Data-Driven PR

Create original data that journalists want to cite:

• Industry surveys: "2026 State of [Industry] — Survey of 500 [ICP]"
• Data studies: "We analyzed 10,000 [X] and found..."
• Benchmark reports: "Average [metric] by [segment]"
• Trend analysis: "The 3 trends shaping [industry] in 2026"

Publish the data on your site. Then proactively pitch it to journalists covering your industry. "I have data on [topic] — would it be useful for your piece?"

Phase 4: Expert Commentary Database

Build a database of your internal experts and their topics:

• CEO/Founder: Industry trends, startup/scale-up, fundraising
• CTO/VP Engineering: Technical architecture, engineering culture, scaling
• CRO/VP Sales: Sales methodology, GTM strategy, pipeline metrics
• Product leader: Product development, UX, customer feedback
• Customer success: Retention, onboarding, customer health

When a request comes in that matches an expert, route it to them with a pre-written response draft they can customize in 5 minutes.

Phase 5: Measurement & ROI

• Citations earned: Total mentions and backlinks per month
• Domain authority of linking sites: Weighted by DA/DR
• Referral traffic: Visitors from earned links
• SEO impact: Keyword ranking improvements from new backlinks
• Pipeline: Deals influenced by PR mentions (ask: "How did you hear about us?")
• Cost: Time spent (5-10 hours/week) + any tools (Qwoted, monitoring)

Output Format

Citation harvesting playbook with: source monitoring setup, response templates, data-driven PR calendar, expert database, and measurement dashboard.

Quality Check

Before delivering, verify:

• All required sections are complete
• Output matches the user's stated need
• Named frameworks are cited for key recommendations
• No vague claims — every recommendation has a specific action
• Deliverable is ready for operational use, not just conceptual

Common Pitfalls

1. Writing for search engines, not humans. Keyword-stuffed content that reads like a robot wrote it. Fix: write for your ICP first, optimize for search second.
2. Publishing and praying. Creating content without a distribution plan. Fix: every piece gets a 30-day promotion calendar across email, social, and paid.
3. Ignoring content freshness. 2-year-old content with outdated data and examples still ranking. Fix: quarterly content audit — update or retire stale pieces.

Execution Artifacts

• references/framework-notes.md — B2B link tactics, HARO ops, data PR, Pattern 25 routing
• templates/output-template.md — Deliverable shell for agent output
• scripts/check-output.py — Lightweight deliverable validator
• references/seo-strategy-playbook.md — Repo root: §6 link building, §8 LLM citations
• the using-gtm-skills skill — Pattern 25: B2B SEO Stack (step 5)

Related Skills

• seo-strategy, content-marketing, social-media-strategy, founder-brand, podcast-gtm