Guest posting has become quite popular in recent years since it provides writers with a wealth of advantages, including the chance to establish a solid reputation, expose their brand to new audiences, gain hundreds or thousands of new devoted followers, and improve their SEO metrics. I don’t believe I have to convince you of the benefits of guest posting. Most likely, you already practice some form of it.
However, occasionally it might be challenging to locate opportunities for high-quality guest posting. Even when you do find deserving ones, how you approach and reach out to them will determine whether or not you are successful in getting your work published.
Below, we’ll go through the key elements of guest posting, various methods for finding blogs that accept guest posts, and then a step-by-step process for pitching your contribution.
Important Factors to Take into Account When Guest Posting
- Run a blog about a specific specialty.
Create a blog with a professional layout and abundant material before submitting guest pieces. Your website should topically match the website’s specialty that you are contacting.
After all, well-known blogs that welcome guest contributions get a lot of pitches every day, and the content editors will look at your blog’s quality first. They want to know who you are, your qualifications, whether your writing style is appropriate for their readership, and any special expertise or insights you might have to provide.
Because of this, your blog’s material should always be of the greatest caliber. You simply never know who is looking at you and evaluating you.
- Having social media accounts
When considering whether to accept your pitch, most site editors will look at your social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I personally do this to weed out SEO businesses since someone who has 10,000 phony followers on social media and an empty profile is likely to deliver you low-quality work that they purchased from Elance.
Ensure that the bios on your social media profiles are complete and include a link to your website. Moreover, refrain from using your profile’s default photo (in the case of Twitter, the white egg). And if you only have a few followers, don’t worry. Your profiles’ authenticity and dependability are more important than their quantity: quality over quantity.
Locate Sites That Accept Guest Posts in Your Niche
The majority of serious bloggers will begin by locating the influential people in their area and make an effort to consistently engage with them on social media. You can avoid some of the bureaucracy by developing relationships with other popular bloggers. If not, you’ll need to devise a disciplined approach for contacting and presenting yourself to these businesspeople.
1. Compile a list of every blog in your industry
The first step in compiling a list of authoritative blogs in your field is to conduct a Google search for keyword phrases that describe it. Then, add the 200 unique, high-quality websites that appear.
For instance, “how to shave,” “how to shave your head,” and “shaving advice” would be some keywords to concentrate on if you were to create a blog on shaving. Add all the distinctive websites you find in the search results to your list after ignoring the sponsored ads portion. Attempt this with several keywords. Right now, we are compiling a thorough list rather than evaluating sites.
Searching for “Guest post by [insert name]” on a popular blogger’s competing blog is another strategy.
Finding all the blogs that this rival blogger has contributed to is the goal here since, in essence, you want all the same links that they do.
2. Find out whether the websites on your list permit guest posting
Start by looking in the most obvious places: the “Contact Us” and “About Us” pages to see whether they make any mention of guest posting policies. Pages titled “Guest Posting” or “Write For Us” can be found on some websites. Be aware that certain links might not be shown prominently, like near the header, so be sure to look at the sidebar and the footer for more information.
3. Examine the blog
While there are numerous advantages to guest posting, such as expanding your audience and developing a name, you should also concentrate on blogs that will help your SEO. This doesn’t imply creating 100 backlinks from guest posts with the phrase “how to shave,” but rather using the chance to subtly diversify your link profile and let Google know what other search terms you can provide information on.
Here are several methods for determining whether a blog is worthwhile.
- Verify the “dofollow” status of the in-content outbound links. If they are “nofollow,” remove the blog from your list immediately.
- Look at the Domain Authority. This is a gauge of the domain’s ranking power. Take this statistic with a grain of salt because Moz provides it and it is not linked to Google’s algorithm, but it still helps. Remove the website from your list if its score is less than 30.
- Finally, click on around ten of the site’s most recent posts. Has the content been disseminated across several platforms? Social shares are a sign of interest and a vibrant blogosphere. Through promoted posts, anyone may purchase thousands of fictitious Twitter followers or even Facebook likes, but most blogs that pay for advertising won’t have consistent sharing for all of their articles across various social platforms.
The only thing that actually matters at this stage is that your list will be shorter yet comprise the best sites.
4. Get ready to pitch
It’s time to focus on your pitch now that you’ve decided which blogs you want to submit guest posts to.
- Find out whether these websites have writing requirements. You will frequently find the rules linked to or detailed there if you find pages about guest posting. For details that must be included in your pitch, review the site’s criteria for guest posting. Some editors request writing examples and suggested topic ideas.
- Never submit an article without carefully reading and adhering to the guest posting rules.
- This could undermine your credibility in addition to leading to the rejection of your offer. Popular websites receive dozens of submissions each day, and articles that don’t follow the rules offer editors the perfect chance to reduce the time spent sorting through submissions by ruthlessly removing proposals.
- Always make your pitch unique. Make sure to find the correct email address and to correctly spell the names of the editor and blogger. I’m sick of reading complimentary remarks about my website and being addressed as “Hi,” “Hey,” “Dear Webmaster,” or “To Whom It May Concern,” only to discover indicators that the email is a standard marketer’s email. Once more, you are contacting a high-quality website, so you should consider it an honor to write a FREE guest post there. Spend the time making it worthwhile.
- Identify yourself. You can stand out by giving a brief introduction that covers your background, experience, and the subjects you write about. Keep it succinct, understated, and impactful.
- Give a brief justification for why we should allow you to guest post. Mention and link to the names of well-read articles you’ve published, both for your blog and for other publications. Because it sets clear expectations and reduces the receiving blogger’s hesitance, quality writing is crucial. Additionally, if a well-known authority blog accepts and publishes your content, the subsequent pitches get a lot simpler.
- Mention the article concept. Give the editor the option to review any three to five of the proposed article names. If the blog’s rules include more explicit instructions, like suggesting a few concepts along with thorough summaries of points and arguments, make sure to follow them.
Whenever you receive permission to submit a contribution for review, make sure to follow through. Don’t waste the editor’s or blogger’s time in interacting with you or make them regret giving you a chance. Write a compelling article with a compelling, memorable title.
Send in pictures, graphs, and charts as well for addition. Resize them ahead of time, please. Make every effort to make it easier for your content to be published.
Conclusion
Despite what the cynics claim, guest posting is still alive and well. Just keep in mind that linkbacks aren’t the point of guest posts. Links are obviously a bonus, but if you view guest posting as a way to network and make friends, you’ll never have to worry about spamming or submitting subpar content. Why would a friend act in such a way?
So have the following in mind:
- Find the websites that are best suited for your content by taking into account their authority, niche, and keywords.
- Observe the submission/pitch guidelines to the letter. Give no one a reason to disregard your email or sales presentation.
- Make sure to offer them something they can’t reject, such as excellent material that is free.
If you take the methods outlined above, rather than having bloggers approach you about guest posting, it will be their request.