Mindsnoop Marketing earned a live dofollow backlink from mic.com (Domain Authority 85) for Bloom Studio through one HARO pitch, a short email exchange and five client-supplied product picks.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Client | Bloom Studio, interior architecture and design studio (Ibiza and the Cotswolds, UK) |
| Agency | Mindsnoop Marketing |
| Tactic | HARO (Help a Reporter Out) expert pitch |
| Publication | Mic (mic.com), Domain Authority 85 |
| Article | Interior Designers Say These Are The Smartest Home Upgrades Under $35 |
| Journalist | Kate Miller |
| Expert quoted | Kit Maplethorpe, founder of Bloom Studio |
| Link type | Dofollow, in-content, branded anchor text (“Bloom Studio”) |
| Time from pitch to live link | A couple of weeks, with a couple of follow-ups |
| Outcome | Live link; the client later ranked for multiple keywords through the wider link building campaign |
About the client and the campaign
Bloom Studio is an interior architecture and design studio based in Ibiza and the Cotswolds, UK. Its interiors reflect a close understanding of each client’s vision and way of life, from the flow of rooms to the feel of a bespoke piece.
Bloom Studio outsourced its SEO to us and link building was one part of that project. We set one rule for the campaign: build only good-quality links. That meant focusing on three tactics:
- Guest posts
- HARO links
- Broken link building
This case study covers one result from the HARO workstream: a link from mic.com.
How we run HARO outreach
Mindsnoop Marketing is registered as a source on Help a Reporter Out, and we review its journalist queries every day. Signing up as a source gets you daily emails listing pitch opportunities from journalists.
We pitch only the queries that fit one of our global clients. A query has to match the client’s expertise before we spend the client’s time on it. For Bloom Studio, an interior design query was a direct match.
The opportunity: a Mic query on budget home upgrades
One of the daily HARO emails included query 19 in the Lifestyle and Entertainment category: “Interior Designers Say These Are The Smartest Home Upgrades Under $35” from Mic. The journalist was Kate Miller, and the deadline was 11:00 PM ET on 7 October.
The query asked for interior designers and home organizers to explain how to upgrade a home with Amazon products costing less than $35. Mic wanted unique ideas that feel truly “smart” and elegant, and it linked to a similar article as an example.
Why we pitched a general news site
Mic is a general news site covering culture, identity and lifestyle, so it is not an obvious fit for an interior design studio. We pitched anyway for two reasons:
- Authority. Mic has a Domain Authority of 85, which makes a link from it worth the effort.
- Link type. The example article in the query used dofollow links for every expert it cited, so we expected a dofollow link for our client.
Checking the example article before pitching told us whether the link would pass value. We do this for every HARO query that includes a sample URL.
The pitch and the journalist’s reply
We kept the pitch short. Disha Shah, a member of our team, emailed Kate Miller on behalf of our client, founder Kit Maplethorpe:
Hi Kate, my name is Disha Shah and I am writing to you on behalf of Bloom Studio, an interior design firm in Ibiza and London. Our founder Kit Maplethorpe would be happy to discuss some ideas as mentioned in your query. Let me know how to take this forward.
Kate replied that it sounded great and asked for 4-5 home items from Amazon under $35 that have a noticeable effect on a space, with quotes explaining why each item was chosen.
We passed the request to the client. Kit emailed five different Amazon links, each with a quote drawn from his own design experience. Kate confirmed the submission was exactly what she needed and said she would send a live link.
What made the pitch work
- Short and specific. The pitch named the client, the expert and the query, and left the next step to the journalist.
- Real expertise. The quotes came from the founder’s own experience, not from our team.
- Fast, complete follow-through. We delivered exactly what Kate asked for: five items, each with a reason.
The result: a live dofollow link on a DA 85 site
After a couple of weeks and a couple of follow-up emails, Kate sent the live link. The article, Interior Designers Say These Are The Smartest Home Upgrades Under $35, quotes Kit Maplethorpe and names him as the founder of Bloom Studio.
The brand name “Bloom Studio” in the article links to the client’s website. The link is dofollow, as we expected from checking the example article. The quote reads: “You don’t need expensive artwork to make a wall look sophisticated.” Kit’s recommendation was matching black frames in 11-by-14 inch sizes with elegant matting.
The backlink was one part of a wider, targeted, high-quality link building campaign. Over the course of that campaign, Bloom Studio ranked for multiple keywords.
See our detailed SEO Case study for Bloom Studio
Lessons learned and limitations
HARO is slow and uncertain. Pitching a query does not guarantee a mention, and this one took a couple of weeks and a couple of follow-ups after the journalist confirmed she had what she needed.
The link is not the whole story. It sat alongside guest posts and broken link building in one campaign, so we cannot attribute the keyword rankings to this single link. We also did not set out to measure its isolated effect.
Mic’s topical relevance to interior design is limited. We accepted that trade-off because of the site’s authority and the dofollow link, and because the article itself was about home design.
Takeaways
HARO links are hard to win, and I agree with that to an extent. When one lands, it can be a very powerful link. What worked for us:
- Check HARO queries every day, and pitch only those that match a client’s expertise.
- Open the example article in the query and check whether its links are dofollow.
- Keep the first pitch short, and let the journalist set the next step.
- Get quotes from the client, in their own words, based on their own experience.
- Follow up politely until the article goes live.
