So you want to write a guest post to get some exposure for your business and generate some high-quality backlinks?
We are sure you have a lot of questions about guest posting.
Before discussing how guest posts work and what they can do to help your brand and web traffic, let’s first cover what guest posts are!
What are guest posts?
Guest posts are a popular way to share your expertise with the world. A guest author shares their knowledge, skills and insights on another organisation’s published website.
It’s as simple as that!
Why do people do guest posts rather than publish the article on their website?
People prefer guest posts over publishing their content on their websites for several reasons.
- They gain brand awareness as their content will be visible to the other websites viewers, resulting in referral traffic when readers click on links that you include within the content.
- If the website accepting the guest posts allows do-follow backlinks, then the link juice from their website will flow back to you, helping to increase your Domain Authority (DA). This is very beneficial as there is a strong correlation between the number and quality of backlinks, Domain Authority and SERP results.
So let’s get into some tips so you can discover how to best leverage the power of guest posting.
Define Your Guest Posting Goals
Guest blogging can be a great way to attract new visitors and extend your brand into other niches.
Before you start guest posting, you need to know what you want, figure out which blogs will best reach that goal for you (there are no one-size-fits-all), then make sure the post itself accomplishes its objective without too much fluff or useless content padding.
You should have three main goals that you want to achieve from guest posting;
- Establish yourself as an authority in your niche and a known name people trust.
- Increasing exposure for your brand, in particular, web traffic
- Develop a backlink profile as your article will likely include links to various sources, including yours. As more people share the content, your backlink profile will grow.
Depending on which of the three goals is your highest priority, the websites you decide to guest post with shall vary.
For example, if you are looking to increase exposure personally and grow web traffic, you want to focus on websites with a vast audience and many active site visitors.
If your goal is to build up your website’s backlink profile, you will want to partner with websites with a high Domain Authority so that the links are valuable and pass sufficient link juice back to you.
How to Find Websites That Allow Guest Posting
When looking for websites to guest post, you will want to find websites relevant to your niche or the industry in which you operate.
Test the guest posting websites you discover against the following criteria:
- Is their content appropriately focused on your niche or industry?
- Is the website’s audience well aligned to your industry, and will they be interested in reading your article?
- How engaged is the audience of the website? For example, do you see evidence that articles are regularly shared?
- How active is the website at promoting new content on social media?
For example, if you are selling dart products, you will want to find dart blogs with an engaged audience of dart players or enthusiasts.
Here are some tips to help you find the best guest post opportunities – or get our list of 500 websites that accept guest posting! Simply contact us to ask for it.
Google Searches
Google is a prominent place to start for searching guest posting websites.
You can use some of the keywords below in your search, but remember to include your industry or niche in the search request to ensure relevant results come up.
- submit a guest post
- guest post websites
- guest post guidelines (one of our favourites)
Where Are Other Guest Bloggers Being Published?
Read enough articles on the internet for your niche or industry, and you will quickly become familiar with some of the authoritative individuals and where they post their articles. You can use this as a guide and see if these websites are open to accepting guest posts from you.
Even better, reach out to some of these well-known bloggers and ask if they can introduce the key people at the guest posting websites to you.
Competitor Backlinks
Check your competitors’ backlink profiles using tools like Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker to see where they have published guest posts. You can then reach out to those websites or submit guest posts from their article submission pages.
Social Searches
Many guest posts get shared on social media as the author is keen to get their content out into the world! Search the hashtag #guestpost, especially on Twitter and see what comes up. You are bound to find several guest posting opportunities to explore.
Try MyBlogGuest
My Blog Guest is a community of guest bloggers, and it’s free to join. You can search for blog websites accepting guest posts and even make it known that you are looking for guest posting opportunities in your niche so websites can find and reach out to you!
How to Pitch to a Guest Posting Website
Once you have found your target list of guest posting websites, the next step is not to fire off an email asking them if you can write to them.
No, you need to do some research! It would be best if you stood out from the crowd so that they WANT you to write for them.
Understand What Their Blog Website Is All About
Here, you need to understand what they do and what they are really looking for from their guest post contributors.
- Are they writing for advanced users or beginners? It makes a big difference to the type and style of content they will be looking for from guest bloggers.
- What is their target audience? Is it B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer).
- What is the style of their content? Are they standard blog articles, tutorials, infographics or something else?
See Which Types of Guest Posts Perform Well
You want to get the best bang for your time when it comes to guest posting, so see what sort of articles do well with the guest posting website you have found and see if you can write content that has a similar style.
Using the same approach, see what sort of topics do well too. From there, you can come up with a topic and style that will get the website owner excited to have you write for them!
Be Active In The Blog Community
Increase your chances of being approved as a guest blogger by taking a week or two and commenting on the website’s latest posts – even share them on social media to get the website owner’s attention (don’t forget to tag their handle!).
Turn your pitch from a cold one to a warm one!
Best Practices For a Guest Posting Pitch
Follow these tips to give yourself the best chance of being accepted for guest posting opportunities.
- Read the guest posting guidelines
- Personalise your Email
- Explain you are
- Tell them why you should be a guest blogger
Tips For Writing Your Guest Post
It’s Not All About You
Guest posts should aim to be valuable sources of information and not an article full of self-promotion.
Limit information about you or your business to your author bio.
Format Posts Like the Ones on the Site
Keep your formatting consistent with what other popular blog articles are like.
Include Links to Source Information Including the Blog Website
You will be helping out the website owner by doing some internal linking to relevant articles on their website.
You can Google search for site:domain.com intitle:keyword to see their top posts for a particular keyword.
Have CTA (Call To Action) to Encourage Comments
Generating discussion is excellent for the guest post article and great for generating more exposure and authority for you as the author. People will not write a comment instinctively, so have something in your conclusion to encourage engagement. Of course, be active in replying to comments promptly too. Don’t miss that opportunity!
How to Design a Great Guest Post Author Bio
Your author bio is likely the only place you should include self-promotion links back to your website, making it one of the essential components of the entire process.
Here are some author bio tips.
- Include a link to your website.
- Use a target anchor for the link
- Consider a custom landing page to better reflect the specific audience for your article.
- Provide details of your social profiles and simple words like “Follow Us On LinkedIn“
- Keep your bio concise and informative
- Try to cover why you are an authoritative source for your niche
The Final Wrap on Guest Posting
Guest posting on reputable websites is a great way to grow your business, and it does tick a lot of essential boxes.
That said, guest posting is just one of many strategies to use as part of your content marketing plans. If you are going to do it, be sure to do it well and for the right reasons. Chatter Digital can help you to write your guest post articles or even assist with the outreach process. Get in touch with us to learn more.
Have you ever written a guest post? What was the topic, and for who did you write the guest post? Let us know in the comments.
