Do you have a blog and know how to generate content? Do you want to increase brand awareness and reach wider audiences? If yes, guest posting is your helping hand.
Guest blogging involves writing articles to be published on other websites. This topic may cause heated debates among marketers. How does it divide specialists’ opinions? Some make guest blogging an indispensable strategy. Others consider this time-consuming process to be useless for their business. The reality is somewhere in the middle ground.
Yes, you need to be an expert in writing quality articles for numerous websites. It is crucial to know how to reach out to other resources and persuade them to pick you as a contributor. And finally, no one guarantees article publication. You may spend hours on outreaching and writing posts, which may not pay off.
Image credit: Freepik
On the contrary, guest posting offers numerous benefits to content creators, such as:
- establishing authority in your niche
- attracting traffic to the website
- improving the website position in search results
- partnering with professionals in your field
- to name a few
In this article, we’ll study how to create a guest blog partnership and find places for your posts.
6 Tips for Finding a Guest Blog Partnership
1. Optimize Your Website to Satisfy Users Coming From Guest Posts
Image credit: Freepik
To start guest posting, you need to have a website of your own. Readers will click links in a guest article and go to your resource, so it needs to provide value, be user-friendly, and meet their expectations. What can you do to satisfy the newly arrived visitors?
First, check the website speed. A slowly loading website diverts readers from reading the blog and leads to skyrocketing bounce rates. Then, look at the website through your visitors’ eyes. Is it easy to proceed to other pages or locate the desired things?
Website owners configure on-site search for users to insert keywords and receive relevant information. What businesses need on-site search? It benefits various niches, be it SaaS blogs, online stores, or travel agencies. So, if you are an online merchant, improve Magento site search or the same functionality for your platform.
2. Determine Topics to Write About
The next step is to generate ideas for your guest articles. The first thing to consider is the goals you want to achieve by sharing an article. Do you want to increase referral traffic? Or is improving SEO your ultimate goal?
By the way, guest posting isn’t the best link-building technique. Why? Because Google frowns upon this strategy. But backlinks from other resources positively influence the website’s position in search. So if connected pages are relevant and expand on the topic of the source article, it will signal search engines to promote your website.
Create a spreadsheet with your website pages. You need to include these links in guest articles, so it’s crucial to come up with keywords and anchors. Suppose you take “email automation” as a keyword phrase. There are several types of articles to create on this topic:
- how-tos
- round-ups
- curated materials
- comprehensive guides
- listicles with tools and providers
- among others
Note that the topic shouldn’t be covered on the website you contact. Utilize keyword research tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs (or similar) to determine search volume, extract more ideas for articles, and see estimated visits for this search term. That’s how Ahrefs Keywords Explorer looks:
Screenshot taken on the official Ahrefs website
3. Look for Guest Blog Partners
The next step deals with searching for websites accepting guest posts. But first, here are some tips before looking for guest blogging opportunities:
- Websites should be relevant to your industry
- The blog audience should coincide with your target market
- Resources should have a decent domain rating (DR) as it’s better to have one link from an authoritative website rather than five from the worse ones
- Articles should have high engagement levels: comments or shares on social media
An article about email automation should appear on marketing or technical resources rather than fashion blogs. Why? Because the link from your website should provide value to readers. Google punishes backlinks from unrelated posts. And it won’t bring you targeted traffic to your business. As a result, people will bounce, harming website metrics and position in search.
Organize the process with another spreadsheet. Include blog address, DR, contact information, and the stage of negotiations.
Where can you find websites meeting your requirements? Here are some sources:
- Keyword search on Google. Type in phrases like “guest post”, “content contribution”, “guest post guidelines”, and others. The results may lead you to the requirements for content creators, so it’s the easiest way to discover partners and whether they accept guest posts. Check an illustration from the HubSpot website in the screenshot below.
Screenshot taken on the official HubSpot website
- What if the website doesn’t have a dedicated page for guest contributions? It doesn’t mean you should skip the opportunity. Study the blog for posts created by authors from other companies. If the publication date isn’t so old, contact web admins and offer your guest posting services.
- Exploring places where other bloggers publish their articles. Another option is to search for the contributors’ names on Google. The chances are high that they appear on numerous resources. It will also expand your base of potential guest post partners.
- What are the sources of your competitors’ backlinks? Competitor analysis may bring possible websites for guest blogging to you. Analyze websites pointing back at your rivals to spot those that are open for guest contributors.
- Have you tried social media to search for venues to publish your articles? Many authors and website admins promote their posts on social media to increase views, attract visitors to the website, and get a backlink to the page. The easiest way to begin is to use hashtags on Twitter and LinkedIn. Insert keywords like “guest post” or those relevant to your niche.
Screenshot taken on the official LinkedIn website
4. Pitch Website Owners
After creating a list, pitch your ideas to the websites. It’s also reasonable to become recognized by website owners in advance. Comment on the latest posts, share them on your social media, or subscribe to the newsletter two weeks before contacting people. Here are the steps when reaching out to potential partners:
- Reading guest post guidelines. As mentioned above, guidelines summarize the criteria for contributors and whether the website is open to partnerships at the time. It saves you time choosing a topic, content format, and others.
- Personalizing the letter. Personalization is key in today’s interactions with clients. It boosts conversions and lets you stand out from the crowd of faceless messages. Guest blog partners aren’t an exception. They receive dozens of offers every day and may skip your email, starting with “To Whom It May Concern” or similar. Take time to find the recipient’s name and include it in the letter. And a video email always helps!
- Introducing yourself in line with requirements. Consider who becomes guest authors. If they are typically developers, CTOs, or technical bloggers, you may need to stress your experience in coding. Explain why you are a perfect fit for this blog and how the article will benefit readers. Most people will ask you to provide examples of previously published articles like Neal Schaffer does in his guidelines.
Screenshot taken on the official NealSchaffer.com website
5. Write a Brilliant Guest Post
So, you’ve received a green light to create your piece. The next step is to organize your work and finish the article according to the discussed deadline.
Keep in mind a typical word count in the blog if it’s not specified in guidelines or discussion. Study as many sources as you can. Provide recent statistics that aren’t older than two years.
Remember to include images, screenshots, and examples. And don’t make a guest post an advertisement for your company. There shouldn’t be more than two or three backlinks. Consider adding all the needed information in the author’s bio, such as education, company, links, social media handles, etc.
The post should be SEO-friendly, contain headings and subheadings, and be readable by the audience. If you use videos, make sure to optimize them for SEO. Interlink it with other pages on the website. And encourage people to leave comments. The blog will benefit from the increased readership. Also, you can visit studycrumb to help you with your content writing, such as a plagiarism checker, URL shortener, readability checker, and
many others.
6. Return to the Article to Measure Results
Remember to reply to comments and questions to sustain high engagement. Track how the article performs and whether it fulfills your goals. Does it attract visitors to your website? To answer this question, look into Google Analytics. Study the tool’s interface in the provided screenshot.
Screenshot taken on the official Google Analytics channel on YouTube
Google Analytics provides data on where the traffic is coming from, including:
- organic search
- CPC traffic from ads
- referral from other websites
- direct visitors
Another option to track your results is to employ SEO tools like BuzzStream, Ahrefs, Semrush, etc. They help examine the number of backlinks, referring domains, organic traffic results, or even the amount of keywords the website ranks for in Google. So if you lost a backlink, you can contact the web admin or reuse the article if it was deleted.
Conclusion
Guest posting is a mutually beneficial strategy for blogs. The recipient of the article can enrich the content marketing strategy, share valuable content with readers, save time on creating a post, and boost organic traffic. A guest blogger, in turn, gets visitors from referral links, improves SEO, and grows a personal brand and authority.
How do you find guest blogging opportunities? We’ve discussed the steps to find your partners, including:
- searching on Google or social media
- conducting competitor research to see where they get backlinks from
- looking for top names of contributors to determine where they publish their pieces
- pitching web admins to propose your submission
- creating articles in line with the blog style, audience, and topics
- tracking the effectiveness of submitted posts and responding to comments
These tips will help you create a guest blog partnership and ensure these relationships will bear fruitful results.
