If you’re looking to attract more traffic to your site and improve your online visibility, a good way to start is to get as much online coverage as possible. Backlinks are quite important and can boost your reputation and ranking immensely. By getting your guest articles posted, you build credibility and trust with search engines such as Google or Bing.
However, Google doesn’t condone mass posting in order to keep their algorithms in check. Still, this won’t prevent you from regularly posting more than a dozen guest posts. Guest posts are quite an effective SEO marketing strategy and can boost ROI. Your online visibility and exposure improve the more you get linked on/to other sources (websites).
Benefits of guest posts as a marketing strategy for SEO:
- Writers and website owners both build an online reputation and get exposure for their site/content.
- Attract more organic traffic to your site and help authors get recognition through featured posts.
- Grow social media following, get more shares, and expand your reach.
- Improve your site’s authority and search engine results ranking through backlinks.
- Build your brand’s reputation and get more feedback from a wider audience.
- Get better at writing with each article and create even higher quality content.
Get Backlinked on Other Sites
Insert backlinks into your posts and author bio. Make sure to “no-follow” the author bio links to avoid Google marking them as spam.
Insert relevant anchor texts, which Google uses to determine your site’s credibility through links. Also, insert relevant contextual links on other sites where you guest post.
For example:
Insert relevant contextual backlinks that lead to your website’s content and generate more traffic. Rank higher in SERP by improving search engine authority.
Show Authority and Raise Popularity
You might ask yourself – why write for someone else instead of posting on your own site? Well, it is highly possible that people aren’t familiar with your site, as there are millions of similar sites out there, and this helps you raise your online popularity. Guest posts often reach a wider audience, offer you more feedback, and increase conversion rates.
Guest posting can be difficult at times but if you work hard enough and write quality articles it will allow you to stand out and show that your site is trustworthy.
Once you get posted on other websites, their authors and audience will get to know you better and you can then build strong business connections that can help you get respect and online exposure. It acts as a free advertisement on their page and benefits both parties.
Website owners get more content and it helps raise their profits and popularity, while authors get exposure and recognition.
Get More Organic Traffic
By writing quality guest posts and having them posted on credible websites, you’ll see an improvement in traffic within days. Quality guest posts are important as you want to grab the audience’s attention and for them to come to your site. Even if you get posted on sites with lower credibility, you’ll still get some ROI but the larger the site, the bigger the audience.
More traffic equals more revenue and guest posts allow for more potential business offers.
Guest posts are a good way to keep the audience entertained and help you connect with people who are interested in your content, which can also increase your sales margins.
Get More Subscriptions and Memberships
Author biography boxes are powerful and can help you grow your number of subscribers and members very quickly. Write interesting articles and make someone else’s audience come to your site as their top source of information.
Be creative with the description, make them want to learn more about you, and motivate them to click and visit your website.
For example:
Author bios allow writers to get recognition for their hard work and increase exposure. Never write for sites/blogs that don’t allow author bios, as you won’t receive any recognition for your work.
Place backlinks and improve your SEO, as well as online authority.
Get More Followers on Social Networks
Since all your relevant links such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. are visible in your author bio, you can easily get more followers and expand your social influence. Take care of your social profiles and try to be available for any future inquiries.
Social networks are powerful tools and can be used for marketing purposes. They are free to use and allow you to share, or better said, advertise your work.
Get Better at Writing
The more you write, the better you’ll become. Use this chance to improve your writing skills and become a better writer by creating high-quality guest posts. Website owners highly appreciate good writers and are more likely to accept their posts. With more articles comes more traffic and most importantly, the opportunity to sell your products/services to their and hopefully your future audience.
Splitting the Rewards
Guest posts make sure that both the author and website owner directly benefit from their use. Everyone receives recognition and by working together both parties can grow faster and improve conversions.
Set Your Goals
Before doing anything, you must do your research and set some basic goals for your marketing strategy.
For example:
- Attract traffic to your site or a specific landing page and get more conversions
- Make your brand, products/services visible online
- Boost SEO through backlinks
- Get cited and increase authority
- Increase email subscribers and social media following
Find Sites That Allow Guest Posts
After you’ve done your research and set the goals, you have to find sites/blogs that are in your niche and allow guest posts. Stick to relevant sites/blogs with topics similar to yours. If you’re trying to get more organic traffic, you have to stick to your target audience.
Find sites that allow guest posts by searching for:
- [niche] + “write for us”
- [niche] + “guest post”
- [niche] + “become a contributor”
- [niche] + “this post was written by”
Blogs That Accept Guest Posts
Lots of blogs accept guest posts as they help them reach a wider audience by posting guest articles that are relevant to their niche. Here are 5000 Sites That Accept Guest Posts.
A few examples:
- WebFactory blog
- Coming Soon and Maintenance Mode blog
- Daily Blog Tips
- The Next Web
- Tech Walls
- The Secrets of Entrepreneurship
Social Networks
You can use social networks and search for similar queries on Facebook and/or Twitter. Simply search for “guest post” or “guest article” and you’ll see various relevant posts.
The Difference Between Guest and Sponsored Posts
Most sites/blogs that accept guest posts will do it free of charge. In return, website owners get free content and writers get free backlinks to their website, which improves SERP rank. Some are even willing to pay you for a quality guest post, but only if you’ve already established yourself as a prominent writer.
There are also sponsored posts that advertising companies offer to high-ranking sites to advertise and promote their products/services by writing sponsored reviews. These generally require you to write a full review of their product/service and publish it to their target audience on your website. They might also ask you to include their advertisements in your relevant posts or your website’s ad space.
Get to Know Your Competition
Do your research and follow what your competition does regularly. Check out their social profiles, subscribe to newsletters, and go through the posts that are similar to yours. Learn from their work and mistakes, if you see them implementing a new strategy, it might be worth giving it a try. Find out where they post guest articles and contact them to see if they’re willing to post your articles as well.
Open Site Explorer
Easily find a topic for your guest post by checking which pages have the most backlinks. Create a free account and enter the site’s homepage URL to get the backlink profile and Domain Authority feedback.
Tip – Click on the “Top Pages” tab to see which pages have the highest “Page Authority”.
SimilarWeb
Find out how much referral traffic to expect from guest posts as SimilarWeb can give you a glimpse of your post’s ROI. Simply enter the site’s domain name from your guest post. It gives a general idea of a site’s traffic, popularity, and some other useful stats.
Analyze the direct traffic chart that tells you how much search engine traffic potential the site has.
What to Write About
If you’ve followed the previous steps and tips, I’m sure you’re already halfway there. Once you’ve found a potential site for your guest post, make sure to go through their pages and see which topics they cover. Try to learn from their topics and use them to come up with your own. If you can’t come up with a topic, you can contact them to give you one, which I’m sure they’d even prefer.
If you’ve visited lots of different sites/source, you’ve probably realized that there are lots of similar topics which have been covered numerous times but still generate clicks and views. You want to grab the readers’ attention and this is why you need to cover topics relevant to your target audience.
I suggest creating a list of topics you’re comfortable with and sending them to the person in charge of guest posts. They’ll review them and give you useful feedback on what is good and what needs to be changed. It doesn’t’ hurt to show incentive and be the first to start the conversation.
To sum up, the more site owners you contact, the better the chance your guest posts get accepted.
How to Write a Guest Post
Consider these few things before writing a guest post:
Go Through and Read the Guest Posting Guidelines
Make sure to go through all of the rules before writing and submitting your article(s). You don’t want to waste your time on sites that don’t allow guest posts or don’t appreciate your time and work. Since all websites have different rules, you’ll have to go through all of them separately.
Take the Audience into Consideration
No matter the quality of your guest post, if it gets posted on a site with a different niche, it’ll fail immensely. You have to write about relevant topics to maximize conversions and organic traffic. It is even better to get rejected than to post irrelevant articles, which can negatively affect your site’s reputation, as well as your author credibility.
Check Your Guest Post Topic to Make Sure It Hasn’t Been Exhausted Already
If a topic has been covered multiple times in the past and hasn’t received much popularity lately, it is best to skip it and write about something else. Check their site for keywords related to your desired topic.
Check What’s Popular on the Site You Want to Write For
Check their “Popular Posts” or the “Trending” section and see what would work best for that site in particular. Don’t use the same headlines, be creative, come up with your own. If you can’t decide, ask the owner or the person in charge to help you out.
Write a Catchy SEO Headline
If you’re looking to grab someone’s attention, you’ll have to come up with creative and interesting titles with SEO in mind.
Headline Tips:
Use questions in headlines but make sure to answer them in your article. Insert odd numbers as research shows that odd numbers grab people’s attention more often. For example, “Want to Improve SEO? Use These 7 Tips …”
Make them a promise (an offer they can’t refuse) but be sure to deliver on it. For example, “How to Get a Million Views in a Day?”.
Use Backlinks, Internal Links, Screenshots, and Graphs to Build Trust
By including screenshots, graphs, backlinks, as well as internal links (if possible), your article shows trust and credibility. Create high-quality articles that will be highly sought after and rank much higher.
Internal Versus External Links:
- Internal links – point to content on the same website
- External links – point from one website to another
Use both external and internal links to gain an SEO advantage by building online visibility.
By inserting external links into your guest posts, you get more organic traffic and positively influence Google’s search engine algorithms. Keep in mind that the number and quality of links matter. You don’t want to place links that lead to poor ranking sites/blogs as this can negatively affect your post’s reputation. Place one or two relevant links that lead to content on your website. Don’t try to squeeze in as many links as possible, unless you’re asked to do so.
External links benefit readers and authors, as they allow users to find your content and let you showcase your posts and/or services/products.
Internal links are best used for building your website’s SEO. Search engine bots scan your site for links to find pages on your website. They do this so that they can index your site properly. By linking pages to each other, you can make sure that search engines analyze your site quicker and connect as many relevant pages as possible to your website.
If you leave your pages unlinked, it can take weeks for the bots to crawl your pages for useful links.
Screenshots are very useful as they help you make your point much clearer and allow readers to get a better grasp of the situation. There are multiple ways of creating screenshots but the most common method is to “PrintScreen”. You can also use tools such as Snipping Tool, Lightshot, Awesome Screenshot & Screen Recorder, etc.
When you’re explaining how to do something or if there are multiple steps to be covered, you can use screenshots to provide more useful insight.
For example:
Readers don’t just want to read through a tutorial, they want to see how it works and will appreciate as many pictures as possible. People like to visualize things and can go through pictures quicker than words. By posting relevant screenshots, you show credibility and trust, which is important for authors when establishing connections. Visitors are more likely to trust someone who shows some sort of proof such as quotes and/or screenshots, so make sure to upload images.
If you’re dealing with lots of numbers and/or comparisons, simply use charts to show your results, as they are easier to go through than general text.
For example:
Colorful charts are easier to understand and also attract and keep attention better.
Research Keywords for Your Topic
It is important for your guest posts to rank well in search engine results. By carefully researching relevant SEO keywords, you’ll make sure your article is up-to-date and generates as much traffic for the site as possible.
Quality Content Is a Must
If you aren’t willing to put in good work, don’t even think about writing guest posts. Lots of articles get rejected as they are simply poorly written. Doublecheck for grammar mistakes and make sure to use professional terms and phrases. Stick to your vocabulary, don’t use words or sentences that you can’t pronounce or understand.
There are many good writers out there, so you have to stand out from the crowd by offering unique and high-quality content that is plagiarism-free. Nobody like copycats, so only use other people’s work to get a better understanding of what you’re writing about. You can quote others but make sure to cite them as well.
The Sales Pitch
First of all, put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. Now, you’re the site owner who has loads of work and whose inbox is probably filled with all sorts of different proposals, offers, and suggestions. If you were to receive a generic (dull) guest post proposal in your email, you probably wouldn’t even finish the first two sentences and be done with it.
This is why you need to be creative and follow bulletproof tips and/or templates that have been proven to work.
Make sure to include:
- Who
- What
- Where
- Why
- When
Template example:
Subject: Why not blog about [Your Guest Blog Post Topic]?
Hey [Their First Name],
I am [Your First Name], and I frequently visit and read articles on your site/blog. I think it would be useful to write about [Your Guest Blog Post Topic] as it has recently become a very popular topic and could benefit your readers.
I know that you are busy but I’d like to offer you my help as a guest post author on your site. I’m confident that I can help you with your work, which is why I’m sending some of my best work for you to check out.
I have attached my articles in this email and I assure you that I’m not a spammer. I also hope you enjoy my articles. Looking forward to hearing from you.
[Article #1 link]
[Article #2 link]
Best regards,
[Your Full Name]
It is not that hard to do and besides, you can find various templates and tips all over the Internet. Be confident and polite, also make sure to attach your articles in advance to beat the competition at the start.
Promote Your Work
Share your guest posts on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. If you have a subscription list, send promotional emails to your contacts and ask the site’s owner to do the same. Use the power of social media and get more free coverage.
Don’t Forget to Reply to User Comments
Lots of times, people will use the comments section to ask general questions and for tips about the stuff you mentioned in your guest post. Use this opportunity to show the audience that you care and are willing to help as much as you can. I’m sure that the site owner(s) will appreciate your commitment and will be more willing to do business with you again.
You can track mentions and shares of selected posts with Google alerts.
Use Author Bio for Lead Generation
Make sure to post links that lead back to your site. If you can, try improving lead generation by linking to a landing page with a lead magnet, so you generate more conversion from people who like your content and want to find out more.
For example, link back to your homepage, social profiles, or any page on your website. If you’re trying to promote a product, you can create a specific landing page and forward all of the traffic there.
Get more followers by inserting a phrase such as “Follow me on [your social network here].
What to Avoid
Avoid inserting unrelated (personal) advertisements into your articles. It is good for your business to use as many of your links and promote your work, but only in your author bio. The article should focus on relevant information and should be catered towards their audience directly.
Don’t underestimate your audience and site owner(s). If you’re already looking for shortcuts, this isn’t your type of work. Thousands of poorly written articles get rejected daily and you don’t want to be one of them. So don’t waste your and other people’s time with low-quality articles.
- Don’t write for sites with low traffic numbers as there is nothing to benefit from.
- Always have a target audience in mind, don’t write about irrelevant things, and avoid unpopular sources.
- Be concise when writing, stick to your topic, don’t be rude, or use foul language.
- Make sure to stick to the guidelines if you want your guest posts approved.
Conclusion
Guest blogging is a highly effective link-building and SEO marketing strategy for reaching a wider audience, which generates more organic traffic for your website. Start ranking higher and get more online visibility by implementing guest posts. Since both parties benefit from guest posting, it is simply far too good of an opportunity to pass on.
Hopefully, you’ve learned something useful from this guide and are ready to start writing guest posts. If you’re a site owner and are looking for ways to get more content and online credibility, start accepting guest posts to grow popularity within a few weeks.
