What Is Qwoted & How Can It Help You with PR and SEO?
One platform that often comes up in conversations around Featured.com and HARO is Qwoted. And while they share some similarities, Qwoted offers its own set of features and nuances – ones that many small businesses and growing brands are using to gain an edge over competitors still struggling to build authority and visibility.
In this guide, I share with you how Qwoted works, along with simple and advanced strategies to help you use it more effectively. You’ll learn how to grow your PR presence, earn SEO-worthy backlinks, and finally get the visibility your expertise deserves.
What is Qwoted and How Does It Work?
Qwoted is a digital PR platform that connects industry experts and thought leaders with journalists who are actively looking for credible insights and real quotes for stories they're working on.
If your input gets selected, your name and business are cited directly in the piece. In most cases, that mention comes with a do-follow backlink from a high-authority site. That’s good news on both fronts. You improve your search visibility and gain trust from both readers and Google at the same time.
Now, if you’ve used platforms like Featured or HARO before, the process here will feel familiar. A journalist posts a query, you submit your response, and if it’s valuable enough, it gets published.
But I would say there are two things in particular that gives Qwoted an edge:
Cleaner and "Better" Dashboard
Qwoted's profile dashboard has a pretty clean, professional layout. To some extent, it feels a lot like LinkedIn, where a person's credentials are easy to scan.
For the expert, that's an opportunity to optimize your profile to call out a specific demographic of journalists. On the opposite end, it allows journalists to easily vet whether the expert fits the profile of what they're looking for. Very win-win for both if you ask me.
More Than Just Quote Requests
Qwoted isn’t just for article features. You can also find calls for podcast guests, speaker slots, product reviews, and even potential partnership leads. I and the Repulinks team mostly stick to it for PR and backlinks, but it's nice knowing those doors are open should you want to go beyond press mentions.
How Does Qwoted Help With PR & SEO?
If you’re wondering if Qwoted’s worth the $100, I’d say, absolutely. Yes, the price tag’s on the higher side but once you see what it can do for your PR and SEO (as I’ve outlined below), the value speaks for itself.
White-Hat, Editorial Backlinks
When we say “white-hat SEO,” we're talking about ethical strategies that focus on providing real value, not manipulation. With Qwoted, you’re not buying links or trading favors, but instead earning backlinks based on merit – by giving journalists useful quotes they want to include.
And when they do, those backlinks can be do-follow and placed naturally within the article. Exactly the kind Google favors.
Oh, and we’re not talking about random blogs here. We’re talking about Bloomberg, WSJ, Yahoo Finance, and more. Imagine what that kind of backlinks could do for your SEO.
Branded Mentions
There’s no guarantee that every successful Qwoted pitch results in a backlink. Sometimes, you only get a branded mention, your name, your business name, or both. But that still counts for something and here's why.
You’ve probably seen it happen before without realizing there’s a name for it. It’s called the frequency illusion, a concept in consumer psychology where, after noticing something once, you start seeing it in more places. Your brain begins picking it up in the background even without conscious effort.
The same effect applies in branded mentions.
When someone comes across your name or business once in an article published by, say, Forbes or The New York Times, they're more likely to spot it again in another big publication piece they come across later on.
Each mention leaves a digital breadcrumb that points back to you. That quiet repetition forms a trail across the web over time and builds familiarity, many might even start typing your name directly into search.
That kind of brand visibility supports EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) which are signals Google pays close attention to.
And yes, that’s very good for your SEO.
Increased Referral Traffic and Conversions
When you combine white-hat backlinks with branded mentions, you create the kind of visibility that attracts more than just eyes.
You create the kind that brings in people who are already primed to trust you, and thus, far more likely to convert, whether that means buying your product, subscribing to your service, or even just an idea or approach that aligns with what they need.
And probably one of the best things about Qwoted is that results like these aren't just reserved for big-name brands. Small businesses are absolutely capable of reaching such heights. I’d even go as far as saying it’s meant for solopreneurs or lean teams without a full PR setup.
Think of how smaller fish ride the current created by a much bigger shark, not needing to swim as hard since the path ahead has already been cleared. Same idea here. The same idea applies here. Qwoted lets you ride the momentum that high-authority publications have already built.
Scalability and Efficiency
To fully understand Qwoted's scalability and efficiency, let's compare it with guest posting.
If you're not familiar yet, guest posting is a proven backlink acquisition method. You write a full article for another site. In turn, they publish the piece and include a backlink to your site.
It all sounds so simple until you take a look at what actually happens behind the scenes. You need to pitch the topic, write the draft, go through edits, and wait for it to go live. Multiply that by a dozen posts, and it quickly turns into a full-time job.
Not scalable. Not efficient.
Qwoted, on the other hand, involves submitting multiple short responses (often just a few sentences) rather than full-blown articles. One excellent quote can already land you a spot in a high-authority publication. In some cases, that same quote even shows up in other media outlets.
That’s a huge return for a fairly small amount of effort, especially compared to what you’d spend doing guest posts.
How to Get Started on Qwoted
1. Build a Strong Profile
Fill out every field, including:
professional headshot
bio
titles and credentials
link to your website
social media links
media links (e.g. blog page, articles you’ve been featured in, research you’ve worked on, etc.)
And when I say every field, I mean every field. This helps the platform get to know more of who you are, which in turn, gives it more reason to push your profile forward and make you more visible.
On the journalist’s side, it also gives you a chance to handle objections. The more proof you provide (and the higher quality it is), the better your chances of getting picked.
2. Monitor & Filter Queries
Where hashtags are often used loosely (or just to sound witty) on social media, Qwoted gives them more practical use: Query targeting filters.
As an expert, you can add up to five relevant hashtags to your profile. These help the platform match you with the right journalist queries and send email alerts when something relevant comes up.
Moreover, it saves you from doom-scrolling through hundreds of random queries from industries that don't even apply to you.
For example, if you're in the solar space, you might use #solaranalyst. If you're running a one-person business, #solopreneur makes sense.
And here’s a tip: You can update your hashtags anytime.
That means you can take advantage of trends or seasonal topics. Say you’re a #wellnesscoach, and it’s October, you might want to add #breastcancerawareness to catch journalist requests tied to that theme.
So be specific when needed. Think about what writers are likely covering during the month or season to grab the best opportunities.
3. Craft Responses That Convert
After sending hundreds of pitches throughout my PR career, I’ve found these three key ingredients make a pitch stand out: Speed, angle, and format
Speed
The first hour after a journalist posts a query is when most of the action happens. As soon as that query goes live, pitches start flooding in almost instantly. And if you show up late to the party, the odds aren’t exactly on your side anymore. Always keep an eye on those email alerts.
Angle
Think about it. If you were the journalist, wouldn’t you get tired of hearing the same thing repeated over and over? Your pitch needs to offer something different.
That doesn’t mean pushing something controversial or quirky just for the sake of standing out. What actually works is pulling from your own experience. Your own story. You’d be surprised how much you can offer just by digging a little deeper into what you already know.
Format
With a name like Qwoted, it should be obvious: Your pitch needs to be quotable, something journalists can plug straight into their stories. So give them exactly that.
Be succinct. Avoid long walls of text or formatting quirks that make their job harder than it already is. I used to be a journalist myself, and I'm telling you that matters.
What brings all three together is this: Your relationship with the journalist.
That said, always begin with the mindset of showing up not to ask for a backlink but to offer genuine help. Something that's grounded in your expertise, not a sales pitch.
At the end of the day, there's no guarantee your pitch will be chosen or that a backlink will come with it. But this is how many lasting media relationships start. One solid pitch at a time.
Tracking & Scaling Your Qwoted Results
As I mentioned earlier, Qwoted’s $100/month price tag isn’t exactly cheap for a lot of businesses. So the best way to justify that investment is to actually track how much value you're getting from it.
In the section below, I break down key metrics and give you a clear idea of what to monitor so you can evaluate your Qwoted results properly and scale what’s working.
| Metric | What to Monitor | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Quotes Used | Count of accepted quotes | Shows how often your insights are seen as valuable enough to include in stories |
| Links Earned | Number of backlinks | Reflects SEO value gained; more links = more authority in search engines |
| Domain Authority | Quality of linking domains | Higher DA links signal to Google that your site is trusted by reputable sources |
| Referral Traffic | Visits from those links | Measures actual traffic impact beyond just SEO metrics |
| Follow-up Leads | Inquiries coming via media mentions | Captures business potential unlocked from visibility and trust built in the story |
As for which metric to track, that largely depends on your business’s current goals and what you’re trying to achieve.
You can use tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or Semrush to measure the metrics listed above. This allows you to see which industries and outlets respond best to your pitches, and from there, double down on what works.
Of course, that adds another task to your plate. And depending on your bandwidth, it might even turn into a bottleneck.
That’s why Repulinks is happy to take this off your hands. We handle both the digital PR side through Qwoted and the performance tracking that comes with it.
Advanced Strategies & Tips to Get More Spots in Media
Think Beyond Backlinks
What you should know is that not getting a backlink doesn’t always reflect on your pitch or your credibility as an expert. In many cases, journalists are simply following their publication’s rules, some of which restrict linking to external websites. They don’t always have the final say.
That said, even if your quote gets published without a link, don’t count it as a loss. Just being named in a high-authority publication already goes a long way in building credibility.
What you can do, however, is follow up and politely ask for fuller attribution. For example, you can request that they mention your company alongside your name.
Repurpose Quotes
Your pitch got picked, you earned a backlink. Nice. But it doesn’t stop there.
You can squeeze even more value out of that one placement, starting with something as simple as sharing the good news. Post it on LinkedIn, drop it on X, plug it into your newsletter.
It works as social proof for potential customers – and just as important, for journalists watching from the sidelines who might keep you in mind for future stories.
And since we’re already on the topic of social proof, don’t forget to highlight your wins on your website or other assets like lead magnets and sales pages.
It's one thing to claim you're the expert. But when you've got a “Featured In” section that links out to those articles? Now that says a whole lot more.
Pre‑Query Research
Before answering vague queries like "Tell me about X," take a moment to do a bit of background digging.
Look up the journalist. Check what kinds of stories they’ve written in the past. Have they already covered the topic in a specific way? Is there an angle they haven’t explored yet?
You don’t have to overthink it. A quick scan of their recent pieces might help you shape your response around a fresh take or even just more relevant context.
Build Media Relationships
Every accepted quote is a chance to build a relationship, not just land a backlink. Save the journalist’s contact info, whether that’s LinkedIn, X, or email, and follow up after your quote goes live.
A simple thank you or a short note with helpful context works. No need to pitch anything. Just keep the line open. Over time, these small gestures build trust that often leads to future placement opportunities from the same people.
Avoid AI Generated Content
While Qwoted is a powerful tool, it’s also more selective than other platforms like HARO or Featured.
Journalists and the Qwoted team are quick to flag low-effort, templated, or AI-generated responses and the platform has a strict no-AI policy.
Use the ‘AI Detection Tool’ after you’ve written a pitch, but before you submit it. It will tell you the percentage of AI writing vs Human-written content. Don’t submit until this number is as close to 100% human-written as possible.
Avoid Account Sharing
Account sharing is also prohibited. If multiple people log into or submit pitches from the same account, it can trigger a suspension. This rule exists to maintain authenticity, as stated in Qwoted’s Community Guidelines.
Quick-Start Checklist
We’ve covered a lot so far. But just to zoom out for a second, I've made a list that compresses everything into six simple steps you can take once you're ready to start pitching on Qwoted.
Sign up & complete your profile
Set topic filters and alerts
Respond fast and with strong, unique quotes
Track accepted quotes, links, and SEO impact
Build relationships; repurpose content
Refine outreach based on best-performing niches
Get High-Quality PR Backlinks With Qwoted
Qwoted is a powerful tool in any white-hat SEO and PR strategy. When you combine it with a broader link-building framework – like HARO, guest posting, digital PR, and original research – you build a backlink profile that’s not just strong, but sustainable and trusted by search engines.
This is exactly the approach we take with our clients at Repulinks through our fully customizable Linkbuilding Pro package. This setup works well for teams who prefer a truly hands-off experience.
If that sounds like you, someone who'd rather stay focused on growth than juggle subscriptions, monitor alerts, or juggle tool integrations, we're happy to take all that off your plate.
