Guest posting is a great way to reach audiences created by other people.
If you can find the sites whose target audience overlaps with yours, you can reach them without putting lots of effort to make them interested in you.
While guest posting sounds very easy (all you need to do is to find someone who can post your articles), in practice, it really isn’t.
There are more steps than how it sounds but if you do everything right, you will get the most of guest posting.
Why Guest Post?
Guest posting is popular among writers who want to raise brand awareness, increase their backlinks, or drive traffic to their websites. Guest posting can deliver all three:
- Authority – A line on a blog can raise your authority as an expert in a field. It is like proving the fact that you’re trustworthy. It also increases brand exposure.
- Backlinks – If you want your website to rank high, you need quality backlinks.
- Traffic – When you publish a guest post, the blog host will let you add a link to your own website, which brings in referral traffic for you.
What To Look For In Guest Posts?
You won’t get many benefits from a blog that accepts every guest post. It is usually a major collection of garbage and no one reads it.
What you need is a blog that is known for quality content and which carefully considers who can guest post. This blog has real followers who are interested in new content.
The guest posting sites you choose must also be in the same niche as your site.
How To Find Guest Posting Opportunities Using Google Search?
Luckily, you don’t need expensive software or special knowledge to gather your list of guest posting sites to reach out to.
All you need is internet connection, a bit of time and a good step by step guide (like the one below).
Just follow these 6 steps and you’re good to go:
- Develop an initial list of keywords relevant to your niche/industry. Think of the main categories/products/services of your business and then write down the phrases that customers would use to find them. These are your keywords.
- Create a list of queries. The list can be as long as you want but from my personal experience, long lists do more harm than good (diminishing returns effect). I recommend using these three tried and tested queries for a start:
- “write for us”
- “submit an article”
- guest post
- Go to Google and type the query plus your keyword. Visit Google.com and type “[query] [keyword]” into the search bar. So, for example:
“write for us” dog training
You will get sites that are accepting guest posts about the chosen topic. - Go through the results and analyze each and every of them. Some websites have specific requirements about guest posts and some will send you information via email. I usually keep going page after page until most results on a page are no longer relevant.
- Choose high authority websites. Copy URLs of each website and go to a website that allows you to analyze domain authority and/or trust rank. I personally use SEMrush but you can choose the one you like most. Other popular tools are Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz. The higher the score you get, the better. Generally, I keep anything that has a trust score (SEMRush) or domain authority (Moz) of at least 10. You can up the lower bound limit if you like.
- Record the sites in Excel. You can create an excel file and save all sites that have high score with emails to contact them. Some sites have only their contact pages. In this case, note down the contact page for guest posting. This will be your list of guest posting sites to reach out to.
If you need more help on this, here’s a video to show you how I did my research for guest posting.
Keep a Stringent List
You probably have a huge list of guest blogging opportunities by now and you should get rid of undesirables. Here are the blogs to avoid:
- Blogs whose bloggers aren’t your target audience;
- Blogs that don’t allow you to link to your website/social networks;
- Blogs that only allows sponsored posts or ‘nofollow’ links. (Consider them if you have the budget or wants to add some variety to your follow/nofollow link profile. For the latter, I recommend one nofollow link in every five links as a general rule of thumb.)
What you should look for are blogs with social media accounts because when they post your article, they will share it. This requirement is optional though, as some sites are just not on social networks yet (believe it or not!).
How To Increase Your “Yes-es” From Webmasters Of Super High Authority Sites
You don’t have to do this with every site on your list.
You can usually get by with smaller sites just by sending them an email straight up. (More on this later, I promise I’ll give you my success email template…)
However, it’s a different story with super high authority sites, since they get tons of requests from people every day. You really need to stand out from the crowd!
Before you send out your requests to high authority sites (sites with domain authority of 50 or more), make a name for yourself first:
- Spread the word about the chosen blogs on social media; Use mention tags so the site’s owner or editor gets a notification about your mentioning.
- Post comments on their blogs;
- Send the blog owner an email to thank him or her (optional). Note that this is not your guest post pitch yet.
- Twitter is one of the best places to get acquainted with a person in your field. Thanks to Twitter head shots, you will attract the attention of a blogger you’re trying to get to know.
Once you’re ready to email that person, make sure to use the same profile picture in the email and they will remember you. For this, you will need to set up your gravatar.
- Another great way to make yourself known is with blog comments.
Of course, your comments should be thoughtful. Do this over a period of a month, posting regularly every couple of days. Observe how the site owner reacts to your comments. If you can help to generate buzz with your comments, all the better.
- Finally, you can send a note. For example, write an email note to the site owner on how posts on the blog made a difference in your work or life. Flattery works great to soften someone up! But make sure it’s genuine. Do NOT say that you have been following their blogs for a long time and loved what you saw when you haven’t!
Once you have warmed up the person, you are ready to move on to the next step.
Sending In Your First Guest Posting Outreach Email
My most important advice is…
“Keep it short and cut out the fluffs!”
In my first email asking for guest posting, my only objective is to check whether they are open to accepting an article contribution from anyone. And you should too.
Here’s the template I use:
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Subject: Article contribution to (guest website domain name)
Hi,
Are you currently accepting article submissions to your site?
I came across your guest post guidelines: https://socialmediarevolver.com/guest-posts/ (for example). And I’ll like to make an article contribution.
Look forward to hearing from you soon!
Regards,
(Your Name)
(Your Website Name)
– – – – – – – – – – – –
I wouldn’t even say anything else in here, because I respect the blog owner’s time. And I want to make it easy for him/her to reply back to me. Even if it’s a “no”.
Loading your email with too many questions and pitching your ideas at this time makes it laborious for the receiver to reply. He/she needs to take the time and effort to think through your questions and ideas in order to reply.
And they hardly have the time for that.
So your email is likely to be chucked aside first so that they can look at it later when time permits.
Usually, it get buried underneath other emails very quickly. As much as the blog owner may want to get back to you, it may never happen.
Pitching Your Ideas
Some sites will reply back to you saying “Yes” and ask you to simply send them the completed articles for review. For these, you are ready to move on to the next step – writing the guest post (more on this later).
In some cases, you may be asked to pitch some ideas to them first.
Give 3 to 5 specific article ideas to the blog owner.
Take these simple steps to make sure that the posts you write are relevant to the blog you’re submitting to:
- Get an idea of what kind of content the blogger covers.
To do this, look at the topic categories they cover on their blog (usually found on the menu on the site). - Read some of the articles to find out what topics are covered in each category.
Sometimes, a blogger can miss a certain topic or hasn’t covered a topic for a long time and you can do an update.
It is very helpful to link back to the original post but don’t Just because the post is outdated, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t cutting edge in the past. - Brainstorm the blog topics based on the research.
Come up with article ideas based on the topics regularly covered by the site. But make sure that it’s not something they have already published.
For example, if you notice the website covers a lot about makeup on a beauty site, you could write something specific such as “Fabulous Makeup for Your Prom Night – A How-to Guide”.
- Give specific article ideas.
Avoid something vague such as “5 Internet Marketing Tips”. The ideas should also be relevant to the blog where it will be published. And if you have to absolutely write about Internet Marketing, make it a comprehensive knowledge resource like this one here. - Gauge audience expertise.
If you write for professionals in a certain field, jargon-filled posts are fine. Otherwise, don’t forget about what kind of writing the audience prefers.
Bottom-line…
Plan on writing something tailored to each guest post blog you write for.
It’s On! Writing Your Guest Post
Once the blog owner gives his blessings, you are set. It’s time to write the guest post article.
Remember this…
You have put in all the research and effort to get the guest posting opportunity. Do not mess it up at this stage.
Here are a few important pointers to note and do:
- Make sure you write a kick-ass content that is worthy to post. After all, if it is just a rehashed article, or worst, a spun article, why would anyone bother to publish on their good sites?
- Make sure that you adhere to all the site’s requirements for guest posting. Refer to their guidelines often during writing. And do a final check on this before submission.
- Remember to attach your author bio and a nice photo of you. The author bio should contain a link to your site’s homepage or a category page relevant to your article topic.
- If the guest site allows links in the article body, make sure you substantiate any claims by linking to the resources. Also, add a link to a relevant, high quality article on your site that will add value to the readers reading your guest post.
- Provide relevant high quality images to go with your article. Your guest site will appreciate this extra effort. I usually zip the images before I send it out. Indicate where in the article to place the images. This makes it easy for the blog owner. In addition, provide a summary of the image sources. This will assure the blog owner that your images are legit and do not infringe copyrights.
Once you are confident that your article has met all the guidelines above, submit the article to the guest blog.
Don’t forget to thank them once the article is published. Some sites will take up to a month to review your article. The review duration differs from site to site. Respect their review process, and refrain from bugging time all the time.
Conclusion
Do you guest post?
If yes, feel free to share your tips and tricks that work successfully for you. If you are not guest posting, tell us what’s stopping you, or what’s the road block you are facing?
Guest posting is a great way to raise brand awareness and referral traffic to your website as a result of the backlinks.
It is really effective if you do it the right way and put the effort in reaching your guest posting goals.
It is important to build relationships with other bloggers but it requires time and energy and you will have to give a lot before you get something in return.
Start now and be consistent. Very soon, you will be guest posting like a pro.
Good luck!
[Image credits – Main: iStockphoto, GSPictures; Images 1, 2, 4 & 6 Pixabay; Image 7: Business photo created by rawpixel.com – www.freepik.com]
Jinghong Chiu is a resident instructor for SEO at Derek Gehl’s Ignited Academy on ProjectIgnite.com. He is a specialist on website launch, SEO, and outsourcing.
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