Is HARO Worth Using?

When it comes to link building and building links without spending a huge budget, is HARO worth using?
For those of you that don't know, HARO or Help A Reporter Out is a platform where you can answer queries and provide information for reporters, in return for a link within the article.
It's a great way of getting your name and site out there, but do you actually benefit from HARO?
Check out this video from Itamar Blauer on HARO!

It’s worth using if you know how to target the right reporters and you actually bring something of value to the table.

If you're thinking of just using Haro so you can build random links for topics that you really don’t have any expertise in, it’s going to be rough for you.

Why?

These are reporters—they’re skeptical!

So if they can see a mile away that you don’t know what you're talking about, or you're not even connected with the industry that they're writing a story on, they're not going to bother.

So it pays to be more focused in picking out link opportunities at Haro.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

You might have to wait until a reporter is going to be writing about a story that is within the topic niche or area of the blog that you'd like links for.

Don’t look at Haro as just this ready base of backlink sources that you just need to tap into.

It doesn’t work that way; it’s actually the opposite.

You are the source of information, and you just have to wait for people who are looking for information that you can help them with—and they don’t always need this info or expertise.

HARO is 100 % worth using to get backlinks from websites of which you couldn't never-ever buy them off no matter how hard you'd try.

I've got some really good links from there, but it's a really really competitive field. Your writer needs to be top-notch... There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who are after links in that program.. So you get the picture of what type of competition you will be facing.

Also, time is of the essence and you need to respond to queries quickly... Even if you have a good writer there is no chance they could do more than 5 queries a day because they need to tweak these pitches to perfection.

Very often a writer will be doing this work every day of the week for the entire month and you might gain only a few links for the entire's month worth of work.

How can we pitch for HARO by targeting the Cannabis niche? Is it possible though?