Editorielle Guide: How to Use it To Get More Quality Backlinks

Connectively was, for a long time, one of my favorite tools to use to build backlinks. It served as a great option for networking and connecting publishers and experts, and in my position as a content marketer, I could take on both roles. I could solicit quotes and expert information for my clients, and I could use those clients and myself as subject matter experts to build links to all of our sites.

So, when Connectively announced they were closing their doors, I scrambled a little. HARO inspired many others to create their own spins on the platform, and with Connectively (the rebranded HARO) closing up shop, many of those competitors have pushed to be the successor. Others have sprung up in response to the news.

I've been systematically going through these alternatives and evaluating how valuable they are. So far, I've reviewed Featured.com, taken a deep dive into Qwoted, and written my view of a beginner's guide to SourceBottle. I have my own opinions on which is best so far, but I'm still exploring the industry and watching to see where all of the journalists end up settling.

After all, each and every one of these platforms lives or dies by the journalists and publishers who use it. Connectively shutting down has left a lot of those journalists seeking an alternative, and the industry will follow where they go. It will be interesting to see where they end up in a few months.

For now, let's do a dive into another one of the Connectively alternatives, one that only recently came to my attention: Editorielle.

What is Editorielle?

If you know what Connectively is – and I'm guessing you do, if you've found your way to this post in the first place – you already know more or less what Editorielle is. Journalists and publishers (that is, bloggers and other content creators) sign up and submit requests for quotes and information. Businesses, PR firms and representatives, and subject matter experts sign up and submit their pitches to the journalists, who can then follow up or simply publish the information as-is.

What makes Editorielle unique?

As the name likely implies, they're focused on a particular spectrum of industries. While anyone can sign up, they have the best representation across industries like beauty, fashion, fitness, health, kids, home and garden, and similar. It's the slate of industries I like to think of as the "Pinterest Pack" – the industries that tend to be more visual, more creative, and more "offline" than others. That said, they also have dedicated categories for business and finance, so it's not all leaning on the creative side.

From what I know, this is because the founder of Editorielle was a PR specialist working in the luxury fashion industry, and she decided to make her own HARO-like based on what she knew, so she was able to launch it to the kinds of people she already worked with first and foremost.

They lean in the HARO direction and rely heavily on email for their operations. They send out daily (on weekdays) emails and even instant emails depending on the needs of the journalists. But they also have a dashboard, both for managing your own team and for tracking your successes.

Editorielle is also London-based, which is slightly unusual for most of these platforms. A lot of them are US-based, and I've seen a couple that are European or Australian, but this is the first I've come across that is UK-based. This is, in a way, a downside because Editorielle is also kind of small. They have around 4,200 journalists and 1,000 media outlets in their network, which isn't too bad, but it's still smaller than some of the big alternatives like Qwoted or Featured.

One important note: since Editorielle is UK-based, they use UK time for their email scheduling. They send out their daily emails at 12 pm UK time, which is 7 am US East and 4 am US West. This can be pretty inconvenient timing, especially for an outreach platform where speed is critical. Keep that in mind if you want to use Editorielle!

Editorielle is also both quite cheap and simple. They don't lock you into a contract or mandate a minimum term; you just pay for as long as you want to use it.

When you sign up, you can also pick a few categories, and those categories will give you instant notifications for publisher requests rather than waiting for the daily email.

Editorielle also claims to vet the pitches that go through their system but also sends them to journalists "instantly." I'm not sure what system they use, whether it's word filters, template checks, AI checks, or something else. If anyone knows, let me know in the comments!

How Much Does Editorielle Cost?

As usual with the HARO-likes, the pricing depends on the angle you're coming from. When you're a publisher, you "pay" in the citations and links you deliver, which is the value you provide and the reason people use the site in the first place. So, for journalists, it's free to use.

For businesses, PR firms, and everyone else on the expert side of the equation, there are two possible plans you can pick.

The first is Individual. This plan is £10 per month, with an additional £5 per month per category you want to get instant alerts for. You also have to pay VAT if applicable.

In this plan, you get the daily newsletter and the individual dashboard. You have unlimited pitches to journalists, though, of course, they reserve the right to ban you if you get spammy with it.

The second plan is the Team plan, and it costs a whopping… £15 per month. You also have the £5 per month per instant category. The Team plan lets you collaborate with up to one other person – a two-person team – but you can also add more team members for £5 each. There's a cap of up to 100 team members.

So, basically, it's a 50% discount per added member to your team. You also get access to the team dashboard, which isn't significantly different from the individual dashboard, except you have team tracking features to see who is pitching what.

Overall, it's a very simple platform. There are no weird AI pitching systems, no mechanics meant to keep free users limited (because there's no free trial or free plan at all), no credits system, or other gimmicks. Just a simple platform where journalists put out requests, paying experts submit their pitches, and citations are delivered.

How to Use Editorielle to Earn More Backlinks

If you want to make use of Editorielle to build links to your site, go for it! It's cheap enough that you don't really need to worry about the waste if you fail to see results. Of course, if you follow my guide, you'll be more likely to succeed.

Step 1: Manage Expectations

The first thing you need to do is manage your expectations.

The truth is, Editorielle is still relatively small and fairly concentrated in the UK. Some larger publications, like Forbes, GQ, and Cosmopolitan, have used it in the past, but that doesn't mean they're actively using it now. You're more likely to find a lot of low- to mid-range UK-based publications, blogs, magazines, and similar publishers.

It's also, as mentioned, mostly focused on the "Pinterest Pack" industries. A B2B tech firm is going to have a harder time. It won't be impossible, but you shouldn't expect to be filling out a dozen pitches every day.

On the other hand, if you're UK-based, if you can leverage the UK market, or if you're market-agnostic and can make use of the fashion, lifestyle, and similar industries, it can be a great option. You'll be positioned to get the best results out of it.

And, of course, keep time in mind. The back and forth of link building through a HARO-like network is relatively slow, and there's often not much feedback. You really need a backlink tracker that can watch for those links when they show up. Otherwise, you might never know whether or not you actually had success with your pitches.

Step 2: Get a Basic Account and Pay for Instant Notifications

I've seen mentions of codes you can use for a free trial of Editorielle, but I don't know if they work. You can always ask. That said, for just $12.50 USD (at least as of this writing, exchange rate-wise), there's really not much to lose paying for a week or two to see how it goes.

I also strongly recommend picking 2 to 3 categories centered around your main industry and paying for the instant alerts. Time is, as always, of the essence when you're using one of these PR platforms. If you're too slow with submitting your pitch, there's a decent chance the opportunity will have already been filled by the time you're writing.

Note: They only have 12 categories, and you could just pay to get instant notifications for all of them. Unless you're a huge brand covering all of the categories or a PR firm or marketing agency that represents clients in all of them, it probably isn't worth it to do that, though. Instead, be more focused on what you actually have expertise in.

Keep in mind, as well, that since a lot of the site is UK-centric, you'll probably be getting a lot of these pitches in the middle of the night. Don't be afraid to work some long hours if you need to. You'll probably miss a bunch of opportunities while you get a feel for it, but that's fine.

The goal is to be narrow, on point, and fast. Spend some time reading the kinds of pitches you're going to see – even if you'd be late replying to them – and start figuring out the kinds of things you want to include.

Step 3: Write a Great Pitch

Actually writing a pitch can be surprisingly difficult. In no particular order, here are my best tips for pulling it off.

Include the most relevant information. Who you are, who you represent, what your main focus is; the 2-3 sentence elevator pitch for you as a source. You don't want to go on and on about yourself, but you want enough detail that if the publisher wants to cite you based on your response, they can do so with no further back-and-forth.

Be specific and relevant to the query. Generally, a reporter or publisher will have a specific question or request for information, and they want to get an answer with minimal fuss. If you can respond with a publication-ready quote, you'll be a step above the average. Make sure you actually answer what the journalist is asking rather than just supplying basic, generic information. The exception to this is if the journalist is asking for deeper interviews; you can answer a question or two and go into more detail about who you are so they can pick you for the follow-up.

Don't get too templated or use AI to do it for you. One of the biggest challenges the HARO-likes are currently fighting is people using ChatGPT to write pitches and spam them. But here's the thing: while you might look at one export from GPT and think it looks good, a journalist receiving dozens or hundreds of them can easily tell the ones that were AI-generated and will probably ignore them. On some platforms, this can even get you banned. In my experience, while you can get GPT to spit out something that works, it takes as much time writing the prompt as it would to just write the response. Just use your own words.

Don't give up. Probably the biggest challenge with sites like Editorielle is just that there's not much feedback. You submit your pitches, and it often feels like throwing them into a black hole. That's why I recommend using a backlink tracker; it will show you when you get successes that aren't reported. Keep at it, and it'll work, sooner or later. Like most white-hat SEO, though, it's pretty slow.

Step 4: Let Me Do It For You

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, or you're not very confident in your pitches, or you just want to offload the outreach and link-building to someone who knows what they're doing, why not let me do it for you?

I set up a link-earning service, originally focused on HARO, but expanded into many of the other sites. Moreover, since Connectively closed, I've been working on getting established on as many of these sites as I can. If you want to give my service a try, check it out!