In an older article (in German) I introduced you to HARO. HARO stands for Help A Reporter Out and is one of my favorite backlink acquisition methods. On HARO, Journalists and Publishers submit requests seeking experts for stories they’re working on.
The other day, a client approached me about HARO not being worth it and that a simple backlink purchase would be more efficient. I don’t agree. Please do not buy backlinks. It’s classified as link spam and you run the risk of being penalized.
And also, HARO is not that expensive.
Let’s do the math.
In spring 2020, I pitched on 10 HARO alerts. I invested 5 hours on that.
A few months later, I saw the result. I received 2 valuable backlinks. Once from smallbiztrends.com with an Ahrefs DA of 89 and once from Outwittrade.com with an Ahrefs DA of 61.
If I would have charged myself for this service, I would have used my Swiss hourly rate of CHF 130 at that time. 5 hours x CHF 130 equals a total of CHF 650.
We divide the 650 Swiss francs by two because I received two backlinks. CHF 650/ / 2 = CHF 325.
A DA60+ backlink with HARO costs 325 Swiss Francs.
Update 2023: What are the alternatives to HARO?
I’ve heard critical thoughts on HARO and have used the following alternatives.
- Terkel: Same as HARO, but you get only 5 free pitches per month.
Link: https://terkel.io/ - Help a B2B Writer: While with HARO you still get the odd newspaper coverage, Help a B2B Writer is focusing on blogs and online media. I love that you can activate emails for your niche only.
Link: https://helpab2bwriter.com/ - Slack-Gruppe Superpath: Superpath is a wonderful Slack Community for Content Marketers. Oftentimes, content writers are asking for the expertise of the members for an article they are writing. Which is then rewarded with a backlink.
Link: https://www.superpath.co/community
