How to Find the Best Guest Blogging Opportunities

Even though many people are unsure about the power of guest blogging as a link building technique, no one can argue with the value it provides. Imagine guest posting on an authority blog that gets 100,000 visitors a month? This can provide enormous brand recognition and generate the type of buzz your looking for, especially, as a beginner. However, there are some fundamental rules you should follow when choosing the right guest posting opportunities. For example, your time and effort are better spend on a handful of blogs which can provide the EXACT value your looking for so you need to be able to determine what blogs provide the value and which are simply a waste of time.

Over the years, I’ve determined what factors are important when submitting your guest post to blogs. Here is a quick breakdown.

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Search Engines

Whenever I’m trying to find the best “guest blogging” opportunities, I always do a quick search using “best + keyword + blogs”. Google is great at generating the best results even as they apply to the “top” blogs within a niche. For example, when I did a quick “top seo blogs”, I got the following results…

  • Top SEO Blogs in 2014 | Gravitate
  • Top 40 SEO Blogs to Read in 2014 – MySiteAuditor
  • Best SEO Blogs: Top 10 Sources to Stay Up-to-Date – Moz

All these websites quickly provide a list of the top blogs within my niche and I can use them to narrow down the information I need. Next, I’ll visit each website and start skimming through the top 3-4 blogs looking for guest posting opportunities. Remember, at this point we are NOT sure if these blogs accept guest posting opportunities so before doing further research it’s important to do the next step outlined below.

Visit Each Blog

I decided to visit the 1st SERP result in Google: Top SEO Blogs in 2014 | Gravitate and skimming through the top “3” results in the page. Here are the websites in order: Moz.com, SearchEngineLand.com and SearchEngineWatch.com. The next step is very easy as your simply going to skim through looking for a “contribute”, “write for us”, “guest post submission” menu button. Many blog owners who’ve been in the niche for years love guest post submissions. Why? As these blogs gain in popularity they have a hard time managing personal blogging time and other side projects. They are constantly looking for fresh new content ideas and give newbie’s a chance to showcase their talent. I’m NOT surprised that all “3” blogs I checked out allowed for people to submit guest posts. However, you need to keep a close eye on the following…

  • Writing length guidelines
  • Formatting guidelines
  • Link guidelines
  • Other general rules

Many people submitting guest posts fail to follow the guidelines, which automatically disqualifies them from getting published. Make sure you read them through before submitting your content to ensure you have followed everything.

Wait! Before Submitting…

You are trying to get the highest ROI from your guest posts so I would recommend doing the following. By now you know what factors help when promoting content. For example, whenever I’m submitting a guest post, I always look to see what type of engagement the blog gets. Some factors like…

  • Posting frequency
  • Social followers
  • Social engagement
  • Comments
  • Domain and Page Authority

All these factors can provide some detailed information about the blog itself and how well your content will be promoted. These factors are important because if the blog your getting published on has 100,000 Twitter followers, you can imagine how much traffic it can generate quickly. If you have links back to your personal blog within the author bio box, you have just increased potential visitors to your blog by 100,000. Anyways, here is a quick breakdown of each element for you to pay close attention to…

Posting Frequency –

The more frequently a blog publishes content the more loyal the readers. This is great for those guest bloggers trying to build brand awareness. Next, the more frequent posting schedule the quicker the indexing process through search engines like Google. Don’t forget that Google has incorporated a freshness update into their algorithm.

Social Followers –

Blogs always share content and when your guest post goes live, it will most likely be shared on social networks. If the blog has a large social following it can lead to social engagement and traffic to your personal blog. This is great for brand recognition as people always read the author bio box below the content.

Social Engagement –

Whenever I’m looking for guest blogging opportunities, I’ll check out other posts published for engagement. I look for things like comments and social shares. Why? The higher social shares and comments the higher chance of my content getting in front of more people which leads to traffic, ROI and conversions. I’ve always believe that social engagement can be achieved in two ways. First, when a blogger shares freshly posted content with their social followers and secondly, when new visitors arrive on the page and share my content because they enjoyed the value my content provided. These are all relevant people and are great for my bottom line which is getting recognized in an industry I’m passionate about.

Domain and Page Authority –

Since a domain with high authority has a better chance of ranking within the SERP’s, I like to paste the URL within OpenSiteExplorer.org to make sure I’m getting published on a website which Google considers of authority. A high domain authority means the longer it’s been around and established credibility over time. Page authority simply means a higher chance of people linking to it either internally or externally. I believe they both work hand-in-hand as a domain with credibility will increase your page authority much more quickly because of its authority online.

Useful Resource

I recently completed my ultimate guide to guest blogging which consist of 11,000 words on how to find the best opportunities, writing content, outreach and emphasis on domain and page authority.

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