Whatever industry you are in, you will likely find yourself competing for page views. Although great blog content will attract visitors, it is not enough on its own. Whether you’re blocking for profit or as part of a broader marketing campaign for your business, driving traffic to your site is critical. This is why you need a link-building strategy.
Guest posting is one of the useful strategies that involves creating material for other websites in return for a reference directly to your own. It is one of the most effective SEO techniques for gaining links. Backlinks from high authority websites will have a positive impact on your search engine rankings and improve the chances that your website will be noticed by the right people.
Does Guest Posting Help Your Rank Higher?
There are risks that come with building inbound links through guest posting. But that’s only because many opt to just jump carelessly, trying to place backlinks wherever they want without a plan. But one thing is for sure: when a guest posting campaign is done right, it will give you the best SEO results you’ve never even expected.
Here are the good reasons why guest posting can help your website rank higher:
- Guest posting helps webmasters acquire premium quality articles for their website, which turns out to be a great ranking factor.
- Guest posting additionally aids in the creation of high backlinks for bloggers.
- Contributors might develop authority in a certain field by guest writing.
- Contributors may extend their readership and acquire more authority by guest blogging.
- Guest posting aids in the acquisition of high-quality backlinks as well as the generation of necessary organic web traffic in question. As an outcome, the website receives a higher position on Google.
Search engine results can make or break your site. If you rank well for relevant keywords, the right people will find your content. If not, you will have a hard time attracting the audience you want to reach.
You’ll need backlinks from elevated sites if you ever want to make money from blogging. The higher quality backlinks you get, the higher your content will rank. Guest blogging should be included in the content strategy of every company that works in content marketing.
The benefit of guest posting is that it becomes a scalable technique. Many high-profile websites will be happy to share your content as you accumulate more posts. You will improve your search engine rankings and bring more visitors to your website. Consider employing a professional ghostwriter to assist you if you can’t cope with so many possibilities to publish. It takes time to build an effective guest posting program. It requires a great deal of endurance, some experimentation, and a lot of work. However, if you devote the necessary time to perfecting your plan, you will begin to see outcomes.
Tips on Guest Posting
Guest posting is the SEO technique for those who are willing to go the extra mile. It can’t be done by those who are just simply asking for links without a plan; nor the one without expertise about the topics that a website’s blog provides. It is not just about the links but the value and the quality of the content itself.
Guest posting requires time and effort. But even if you are not an expert, you can for sure, always learn to become one. Here are some tips that can help you with your guest posting campaigns:
Identify the sites you want to submit guests posts to
When looking for sites to submit guest posts to, you have to make sure first that they allow guest post submissions. As much as possible, look for websites that are relevant to your niche. Once you find a potential website accepting guest submissions, use the following criteria to help you identify if it can help bring traffic to your website:
- It has monthly traffic of 3,000 visitors or more.
- A Domain Authority (DR) score of 50 or more.
- A Trust Flow score of at least 15.
Read the guest post submission guidelines
Once you get to learn and confirm that the sites’ status is good, check the guest post submission guidelines of that website so you will have a good idea about which topics you can write and learn about their rules. There are specific guidelines for each website so you must always take note of them when writing your content. This way, your content will have better chances of getting accepted.
So, do you submit a pitch first, or write the content before talking to editors/publishers?
Well, it depends. If you already have a good portfolio and enough online authority, you can choose to write a pitch first before proceeding to write the content. However, it will capture the site owners’/publishers’ attention most if you already have content ready.
Write a high-quality content
Writing high-quality content is the most important task for your guest posting campaign. Although the main intent of this campaign is to earn backlinks, it will not succeed if there are no blogs or magazines that are willing to accept your content.
So how do you create a high-quality guest post?
The following tips will be useful for you:
- Write a good title. You have to make sure that the title of your guest post stands out. If you don’t have enough creativity to pull it through, at least make sure that it’s attractive enough to convince readers that your content will add value to them.
- Improve your content readability. Write in short paragraphs, avoid jargon, use lists, and divide your content into small sub-parts. This will make it easier for readers to read your content. You can try using the Hemingway Editor to help improve your content’s readability.
- Add your keywords/links professionally. This means that it should go along within the context of your written ideas; not in a way that looks (or reads) forced and all over the place.
- Always check for spelling and grammar. Grammarly is a good tool to help you with this.
- Add images. Images play a huge role to help your content look more attractive. Use images that are relevant to your topic, not just a mish-mash of random aesthetic photos you find online. For certain photos that have distracting backgrounds, you can use a free online photo editor to help clean those images and create anew.
- Always focus on value. Make sure that readers can learn something from your content; that’s what makes it valuable.
Write your guest post pitch
The best outreach emails are clear, direct, and concise. Don’t be tempted to rack up flattery for the publisher to accept your proposal. Treat your disclosure email like a business proposition (which it is!) And focus on these key points:
- Who are you?
- What do you need from them?
- What’s in it for them?
Your email should be professional. Use a friendly greeting, introduce yourself, and succinctly summarize your request. If you have posted content on well-known sites and/or are a recognized expert on a specific topic, you should also mention that. Social proof is useful if the editor doesn’t know you or your work.
Reach out to your target websites
In most cases, you are a complete stranger to the people who run your destination sites. Therefore, you need to find the right person and send them an email of the appropriate scope.
If you don’t know the name of the site owner, start by searching LinkedIn for the site name and job titles like “Editor” or “Content Manager.” Once you’ve found a name, We recommend using an email search engine to look up their contact information.
Send your email and wait a few days, then send a polite follow-up if you don’t get a response. If you still do not receive an answer, assume the answer is no and go to the next prospect.
When running your cold broadcast campaign, don’t worry too much about being rejected or ignored. It happens to everyone, and you better learn to shrug your shoulders and move on. As soon as you get the “go-ahead” from an editor, it’s time to come up with some ideas on important topics.
Treat your publishers as partners
Once your content is published, take time to thank the publishers/website owners and build a good partnership with them. This way, you’ll have more opportunities to write more content next time and they can possibly introduce you to more sites where you can submit more guest posts.
Come up with more ideas for guest posts
After every guest post submission, always prepare more content as plan B. Also, the more available content that you have, the more websites you can reach to get your ideas published.
Also, keep your ideas fresh, but don’t stress if it seems like every topic under the sun has been covered before. Because for sure, it already has! It’s fine to examine current themes unless you’re reporting on cutting-edge science and research or current affairs.
Start Guest Posting Now…
Guest posting must be a win-win negotiation. Both parties must provide for each other’s needs so you have to make an effort. You want to work together, not against each other, even if you are a bit competitive. The publication of invited articles is a process of collective community building. Doing the above will help build a community around not only you and your site but other websites in your niche or topic.
While SEO growth through guest posting is possible, necessary, and powerful, what is more, powerful is the relationships you build with readers and industry leaders. The SEO benefit is being featured on the first page of Google, which means more people will find your site. If you use these guest posts to create a reputable voice in your industry, people will find your site as well. It is a method that achieves two goals with a verbal stone. So what more do you need before you start guest posting? Go on out there and start writing!
Author’s Bio:
Jenn Pereira is an experienced designer and full-time digital marketer. Her passion is to help others learn and grow by offering them valuable resources and sharing her expertise in the field of design, branding and marketing. You can read more of her content on Medium.
Currently works as the Lead Marketer at Removal.AI, a photo editing platform that provides image background remover solutions for ecommerce and all other web/app purposes.