Guest Posting
There are plenty of search engine optimization techniques out there, and all of them range in difficulty in terms of execution, time, and budget.
You may have come across many different methods while researching ways to increase your search engine rankings and be a bit overwhelmed and not know where to begin.
Guest posting is an incredibly effective form of SEO and is also considered to be among the best and safest methods possible. All websites should try this if they can, especially if the website provides a direct source of income for the owner.
What is Guest Posting?
A guest post or guest posting is when a website or blog features a post written by someone else that is in their industry but doesn’t work for their website or blog. You are basically writing content for somebody else to publish on their website.
This may sound crazy, but, the aim of doing this is to get a link from this post to your website, either placed at the top, bottom, or contextually inside the post.
This can not only give your websites SEO a boost, but it can also give your website more exposure and visitors.
One thing to take note of if you do write a guest post, the content is not to be used as a shameless plug for your business; it is written for the website owner and sometimes on a topic of their choosing and it must benefit their audience, while your sole benefit is the link and exposure.
Not only is guest posting a great way to get a few links, but it also builds relationships with people in your niche. Becoming friendly with these people can also increase your brand awareness because people talk and word of mouth can spread about your brand.
They may even share your guest post on their Social Media accounts too and bring you more visitors and you could negotiate this before you submit a guest post to them. If you have a budget for this, you don’t even have to write the guest post yourself and can outsource the task to a freelancer who provides guest post services.
Benefits of Guest Posting
Establish Authority
If you want to improve the perception of your brand among consumers, there is nothing better than surrounding yourself with experts. Authority and knowledge generate confidence, especially if you address millennials, a generation that tends to distrust more traditional marketing.
And how are you going to make the members of your team demonstrate their expertise? You guessed it: guest posting on blogs in your sector.
Guest post blogging is one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert, especially if your articles appear on the most influential and popular blogs. If you also get your post as a guest author to appear in the top of the search results for terms related to your sector, you have managed to attract and influence a lot of users and potential buyers.
Improve SEO
What is guest posting in SEO? If you are up to date with the latest trends in SEO, surely you already know that the algorithms of the search engines do not stop evolving and, with them, they also change the guidelines to follow to get the best positions.
As search engines become more sophisticated, the natural positioning wins the whole versus the strategy of filling the post of keywords. In addition, the results are increasingly personalized, to fully adapt to each user.
But there are some principles of SEO that remain unchanged over the years, and one of them is the importance of link building. High quality and niche-related backlinks will always be essential to getting good search engine rankings in addition to On Page SEO.
Guest posting for SEO and getting backlinks from authoritative websites in your niche could give you an incredible SEO boost and help rank your website for competitive search terms.
Increase Your Audience
One of the objectives of all content marketing strategies is to reach an audience as large as possible that would be beneficial for your website.
Guest posting can enable you to reach an audience that goes beyond your own visitors. If you publish on the blogs of the right influencers, you can go much further with your brand’s messages.
For this strategy to work, it is essential to choose the right bloggers. Not only do they need to have a large audience in absolute terms, but also that it is the right audience for your brand. If you carry out a good market study of the influencers in your sector, you can surely find one worth working with.
Networking
Finally, one of the greatest benefits of guest posting is that it’s a way to do quality networking, and every business needs networking.
Whether you run a small local business or a global eCommerce website, establishing and fostering relationships is essential to your growth and success. These relationships could come in handy for you at any or multiple times and you never know just how they could benefit you. They could lead to future collaborations, promotions, and sales.
How To Find Guest Posting Opportunities
Finding guest post opportunities doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, it can be easily done with the help of Google. Try using the following footprints followed by your niche in a Google search.
Example: “submit post” fitness
“Submit Post”
“Add Content”
“Bloggers Wanted”
“Guest Post”
“Guest Blogging Spot”
“Submit a Guest Post”
“Become a Guest Blogger”
“Guest Post Guidelines”
“Submit an Article”
“Want to Write for”
“Blogs that Accept Guest Blogging”
“Blogs Accepting Guest Posts”
“Contribute”
“Submit News”
“Submit Tutorial”
“Suggest a Post”
“Become an Author”
“Become a Contributor”
“Publish Your News”
“Guest post by”
“Guest Contributor”
“This is a guest article”
“Add Articles”
“Submit Article”
“Add Guest Post”
“Guest Bloggers Wanted”
“Guest Posts Roundup”
“Write for Us”
“Submit Guest Post”
“Submit a Guest Article”
“Guest Bloggers Wanted”
“Submit Blog Post”
“Suggest a Guest Post”
“Contribute to our Site”
“Become a Guest Writer”
“My Guest Posts”
“Submission Guidelines”
“This guest post was written”
“This guest post is from”
“Now Accepting Guest Posts”
“The following guest post”
Once you have narrowed down a list of prospects, you can start to contact them. Don’t be alarmed if some of your prospects want a fee in exchange for posting your guest post, this is actually quite normal.
Some will and some won’t, so don’t be offended and only pay it if you’re willing to. Some websites may actually be worth the fee in exchange for the long terms benefits your website could receive.
You could also try Ninja Outreach as well to find prospects and this tool is great because you can also use it for Influencer Marketing too.
How to Submit a Guest Post
The way that you contact your guest posting prospects is critical and you must be professional, even if they are a small time blogger who can’t format an email properly.
Part of the process of learning how to do guest posting is perfecting the email outreach you send to websites who you think may be accepting guest posts.
There is so much more to it than just writing a guest post. You also need to take notes of important pieces of information to include such as:
Pay Attention To What The Website Is About
We can’t stress this one enough, read the content on the website you want to guest post on! You need to know what their website is about, the tone and style of their writing, the type of content that gets published and the quality of it.
If you can’t produce something of similar quality and structure or pay someone to do it for you, move on.
Is There A Name?
You may be able to catch the name of the owner or editor of the website you are pitching. Pay close attention and read through all pages of the website to see if you can find it then address them by their name when you contact them.
Typically, the About Us page would contain this information. This makes your inquiry far more personal and can immediately make them more interested in what you have to say.
Introduce Yourself
Don’t forget to formally say who you are and what you do. Include important and relevant bits of information when necessary that the person should know. This adds a formal and personal element to your contact rather than a stranger reaching out in search of a link.
Compliment Them
This one can be hit or miss. Some people love it when you suck up to them and stroke their ego. Others see it as if you are just trying to get in their good books and jump the queue and they will immediately delete your email.
This one is entirely up to you if you decide to compliment them but, the safest way to do this is to mention that you have read through their website and particularly loved a certain article and give a good reason why.
This is a subtle compliment but also shows that you can pay attention and know what you are talking about.
I remember a friend who launched a viral content and humor website a few years ago. They got guest post inquiries every day and there was no shortage of bad pitches and poor attempts to impress them.
One of the people who was inquiring specifically said this word for word; “love this website guys! I’ve been a loyal reader for years”.
What’s the problem with saying this?
They had just launched their website 3 months prior so they knew straight away he was a liar and wouldn’t be worth the trouble of doing business with. It’s ok to try and do a bit of schmoozing, but if you lie about it you may get caught out.
This may seem like a little harmless white lie to you, but he got caught out and lost a guest post opportunity as a result, regardless of how good his guest post would have been.
Say How Your Post Will Benefit Their Readers
What’s the point in a website publishing a guest post if it won’t benefit them? While some people will be able to recognize some benefits of publishing your guest post, make it easy for them and tell them how and why it will. Make everything nice and simple for the prospect so they can do as little work and thinking as possible. This shows how ready and organized you are and makes you look like an ideal candidate who knows what they’re doing.
Do They Have Guest Posting Guidelines?
Quite a few websites will have a section dedicated to their guest posting guidelines and also a contact form. These pages can outline specifically what topics they want guest posts to be written about, the length it should be, the use of subheadings, keywords and more.
Be sure to address this information when you make an inquiry so they know you have paid attention to their guidelines and understand the requirements. You will then need to detail these points and include information such as a headline, outline of the content and other applicable information.
If you have to be very specific with exactly what your post is going to be about, be sure to make it as easy and concise as possible for them to read. Have a short introduction paragraph introducing yourself, where you are from, mentioning their website, and then outline your heading of the proposed article and the subheadings.
Be sure to bold each subheading and include a short paragraph on what it will include. Also, put the outline in bullet points so it can easily be read.
Include a Call to Action
This is when you say something that influences people to react in a certain way. These are very powerful to use and can be the difference between making your pitch sell or not.
Please let me know what you think of my idea, I would love to write this for you!
Kind Regards,
Your Name
This leaves a clear message to the reader to let them know what they think, whether it be good or bad. It doesn’t give them the opportunity to say no or make an excuse; it’s a straight-up request to contact you back.
Don’t write them a message like this:
Subject: Guest Post
Message: hi I want to do a guest post on your website is this ok?? thanks.
While some people may actually reply to this abysmal point of contact, most will just delete it and ignore all your future correspondence.
Try wording it to be very specific even if they don’t have a clear outline of what they are after.
Guest Post Email Template
Now that you have found a suitable website to contact, it’s time to write a good email to them requesting your guest post.
If a website shows no guidelines on their guest posting protocol, you can try sending a message similar to this:
Hello Name,
My name is Your Name and I am from yourwebsite.com
I have been reading your articles for a while now and I love the content you publish. They really get me thinking and just wanting more!
I just loved your most recent article about insert topic here. I feel as though it really connected with me and the part about the insert part here was just great! Insert a relevant comment about the part.
After reading this article, I just had to reach out to you and see if you would be interested in featuring a guest post from me and my website. I believe my post will add some real value for your readers and leave a lasting impression with them.
Here are a few topics I have in mind:
Topic 1
Short summary or bullet points on the outline.
Topic 2
Short summary or bullet points on the outline.
Topic 3
Short summary or bullet points on the outline.
Thank you for reading my request. I just know that your readers will love this. I can also send you a properly formatted document that you can just copy and paste so you can easily upload it to your website.
Please let me know what you think of my ideas, I would love to write this for you!
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards,
Your Name
Tell them you will also internally link to a related post on their website too to improve their SEO.
This can make them far more likely to accept your request as you have already buttered them up and they are interested. If you ask for the link in the first point of contact, it may discourage them and they will not reply to you.
This guest post email template may seem a little long to you, and honestly, it is a bit of a long email. The thing is; the best blogs for guest posting are going to have strict criteria and will weed out the time-wasters.
This email may be a bit long, but if it addresses the criteria and gets the website owners attention then it’s doing its job.
When it comes to writing a guest post, it doesn’t need to be much different from writing a blog post, since that’s pretty much what it is. It just needs to be tailored to the criteria of the website it’s getting published on.
If the topic is a bit out of your league, considering hiring a freelancer who offers a guest posting service. Sometimes, it’s better to spend the extra cash and get it done right rather than doing it on the cheap and screwing it up.
What to Do After A Guest Post is Published?
Now that your guest post is live on your target’s website and you have that sweet backlink pointing your way, it’s time to give that link some extra juice.
That’s right; you’re going to build backlinks to your backlink. You may think it’s crazy to build links to someone else’s website, but, as you now know the power that backlinks have on your website, imagine the power that the links pointing to your backlinks will create!
Building these links is quite simple, just share the guest post on your Social Media accounts and to try to find a few blogs or forums where you could drop the link to the guest post.