The last word information to visitor running a blog
We discussed how blogging can help you build authority in your industry. Today we're going to take a close look at how you can get guest blogging opportunities and get the most of them.
Determine your guest blogging goals
Before we start, your first task is to decide what your guest blogging goal is. Knowing this goal early is key to determining the right type of blogs to post guest posts to. There are usually three main goals for guest blogging.
- Position yourself as an authority and household name in the industry.
- Bring exposure (traffic) back to your website.
- Creating backlinks to your website (although this should never be the focus as Google frowns on it).
With the right content on the top blogs, you can do all three things.
When trying to reach either # 1 or # 2, you should find blogs that have large and engaged audiences.
If you are just trying to reach # 3, you need to pinpoint blogs with strong root domain authority. You can check this for free using tools like Ubersuggest.
Knowing your goals ahead of time will make it easier for you to determine which blogs are best for guest posting.
Here's how to find ways to blog guests
The first thing you want to do is find guest posting opportunities. When looking for places to guest post, your main goal is to find websites that are relevant to your niche or industry. You're looking for blogs that meet the following criteria:
- The content focuses on your niche / industry
- The blog audience will be interested in your industry
- The blog has a readership (posts were shared and commented on socially)
- The blog owner is active on social media (so you know they are promoting your work on their website)
For example, if you're selling plant seeds, you'll want to find gardening blogs with an engaged audience of graders. The following should help you find the right guest posting options
Google search
Google is a great place to start looking for guest posting opportunities. You can use one of the following keyword searches to find blogs that accept guest posts. Just replace the keyword with keywords from your industry.
- Keyword "Submit Guest Post"
- Keyword "guest post"
- Keyword "guest post by"
- Keyword "accept guest posts"
- Keyword "Guest Posting Guidelines"
These searches should take you to the Guest Posting Guidelines page, the Guest Post Submission page, or actual guest posts from other authors.
Successful guest bloggers
Do you know productive guest bloggers in your industry? If you read enough blogs in your industry (which you should), you will know some of the same names that keep popping up on guest bogs.
Few of the influential marketing guest bloggers include Neil Patel, Jeff Bullas, Mark Traphagen, Tony Right, Jenny Halasz, Brian Harnish, Kevin Indig, Adam Riemer, Robyn Johnson, Benji Acciola, Kevin Rowe, Anna Crow, and Kirk Williams.
Use Google search to find the name of the productive guest bloggers in your industry and the term "guest post by". This will bring up all of the websites that these guest bloggers have posted to. They should also be a good place to post as a guest. A bonus would be if you actually know a guest blogger in your industry who can give you an introduction to who owns blogs they've guest posted to.
Competitor backlinks
If you (or your online marketing agency) have ever done a competitor's backlink analysis while working on your SEO campaign, chances are one or more of your competitors have backlinks from guest posts they created.
If you have access to tools like Open Site Explorer, you can look at your competitors' backlinks and see the blog posts they have written.
If you can't find any, you can do a Google search.
Link: domain.com -domain.com "Guest Post" (replacing domain.com with your competitor's domain) to display websites that a competitor has written for.
Example:
link: backlink.io -neilpatel.com "Guest Post"
Social search
Many bloggers and guest posters will share their latest guest posts on social networks. Since Twitter is the easiest to find, try doing a Twitter search for the keyword "guest posting" to get the latest guest tweets in your industry. Just follow the links to see which blogs accept the guest posts.
Look for ways to blog guests
Need more keyword search ideas or just a list with lots of different guest posting options?
Check out this post for 14 more ways to syndicate your content.
MyBlogGuest
Last but not least, My Blog Guest is a community of guest bloggers. Sign up for free and look for blogs that accept guest posts. Better yet, post your own information to say that you want to guest post on a specific topic so blog owners can find you!
Prepare a guest blogging post
Note that we're not jumping from just finding ways to blog guests to contacting the blogs. This is because there are a few things you need to do before suggesting a guest post for a website you just found.
Get to know the content of the blog
Getting to know the content of your target blog is key. Surely you know they have content on the keyword you were looking for while looking for guest posting opportunities. But you still need to know more about this content, such as …
- For which target group are you writing (beginners, advanced, advanced)?
- What kind of audience are you writing for? If your business is B2B, you want the blog audience for your guest posting to be businesses, not general consumers.
- What kind of content do you write? Are they mostly general concepts or specific, detailed tutorials? Do you like lists?
See how other guest posts work
While a blog may have guest posts, the question is, are guest bloggers doing well? Are guest blog posts on the site getting as many comments and social sharing as the owner's blog posts? Some websites may accept guest posts. However, if the audience is just tuning in to the blog owner, if you want to build authority or get traffic back to your website, it won't.
See who the guest bloggers are
Some blog owners are more likely to accept guest posts from certain groups of people than others. Check out some guest blogger bios on the blog to see if they are bloggers, freelancers, consultants, business owners, etc. This is important when introducing yourself to the blog owner for your pitch. For more information on guest posting success rates, check out this SEOmoz study.
Find out which posts do the best
To make sure your guest posting is accepted, target the blog owner with topics that suit their audience well. Use the sites below to get some great ideas on topics that will work with the blog's audience to see which posts have been popular on social media.
- Octopus: Octopus tracks and reports on your social media performance.
- Digg: This will show you the blog posts that have received the most Digg votes.
- Buzzer: Buzzer plans your social media posts and provides data and analysis.
Become a familiar face in the blog community
To increase your chances of being accepted as a guest blogger, you should first get some recognition from the blog owner. The best way to do this is to take a week or two and comment on the latest posts. You will receive bonus points if you also share these posts on Twitter. Include only the @username of the blog owner on Twitter. That way, you won't become a complete stranger when putting up your guest post.
The best time to write a guest blog post
You don't always get a unique guest post, but there are certain things that you can take advantage of when they come up. These include the following.
- when a blog mentions you in one of its posts or on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.)
- when the blog lists you, your company or your product in one of its posts
- If the blog is specifically promoting, they look for guest posts
- when the blog publishes another guest post
Basic pitch best practices
The following are absolute must-have items when submitting a guest blog post to another blog owner.
Read the guidelines
The last thing to do before contacting the blog owner is to read the guest posting guidelines, if applicable, and follow them carefully. Does the blog owner want you to come up with an idea or actually submit a full post? In what format do you want it? Would they like you to create an account and enter it into WordPress? These are all things that you should know beforehand before contacting the blog owner.
Personalize your email
As a blogger who receives daily guest posts, I don't mind anything more than an email that starts with "Dear Sir or Madam," "Dear Webmaster," "To the owner of Neilpatel.com", or just "Hello" .
There should be the name and contact information of the owner of the blog that you are targeting for your guest post somewhere on the blog.
You may have to search for it on the about page or on one of the blog's social media accounts, but it's more than likely it's out there. Find it and use it to start the email.
who are you?
Do you remember the part about who are guest bloggers on your target blog? In particular, some blog owners want to allow other bloggers to submit guest posts on their websites.
If you've noticed that most guest bloggers are bloggers themselves, you may want to introduce yourself as bloggers (add your personal or business blog here). You can always be a business owner on the side; Focus on your blogging skills first.
Why you should be a guest blogger
Make sure to include in your pitch why you should be a guest blogger. Add a few links to posts you've published elsewhere, including your own blog. Preferably go to posts that have good social engagement so that the blog owner can see your potential value in their audience.
How to come up with a guest posting idea
When the guest posting guidelines ask you to submit a topic idea, come up with a few different ideas (based on your research on previously popular posts) so the blog owner has a few to choose from.
How to send a great guest post
One of the most common questions about guest blogging is whether you should use your best content for your own blog or for your guest posts. It really depends on the quality of the blog you are submitting your content to.
If the blog only has more than 900 word posts with lots of screenshots, your post should be similar. If the blog only has posts of 500 words or less with just one image, your posts should be similar (again). Below are other great tips to help make your guest post as great as possible.
It's not about you
The first thing to remember about a great guest post is that it is not about your company, product, or service. Guest posts should be valuable sources of information. no advertising.
All information about your company and related articles should be reserved for the author's biography. Occasional mentions, stories, or examples are fine to illustrate a point, but the bulk of the post should focus on something other than your business.
Format posts like the ones on the site
Check out the posts on your target blog. Are you using lots of headings, bold text, images, quotation marks, or other special formatting? Make sure your post contains similar elements that match other posts on the site.
Include internal links and source links
Show the blog owner that you know their content by adding some internal links to some of their posts. The easiest way to do this is to do a Google search for site: domain.com intitle: keyword.
This will give you the best posts on a particular keyword so that you can link that post to the keyword in your post. If you mention certain products, books, etc, make sure you link to those too (assuming it's not self-promoting).
Add a call to action for comments
At the end of your awesome guest post, be sure to include a call to action for comments. The more discussions your post generates, the better!
How to make a great guest bio
The most important part of guest blogging (for you) is likely to be your guest posting bio. This is usually the only place you should include self-promotion links on your website, blog, product, service, book, and so on. What you write in this section will depend on your guest blogging goals.
- If your goal is to get good backlinks, make sure your bio includes a link to your website with your target anchor text and you're done.
- If your goal is to get traffic back to your website, then consider where you want that traffic to go. Depending on the subject of your guest post and the audience of the blog you're posting on, you may want to drive traffic to a custom landing page or page about a specific product / service.
- If your goal is to get more followers on your social accounts, add a line to the end of your bio that says something like, "Follow me on (add your top social network and link here). "
How to be the best guest blogger
If you want to blog regularly, or just want the blog owner to brag about what a great guest blogger you are, then you should do your best to get your post known to your own audience. The blog owner will love it when you send new readers on their way.
Also, answer comments or questions other people leave on your post. This will go a long way as you work to build authority in your industry.
Track your results
If the goal is traffic, your guest blog results should definitely be measured. The best way to do this is to create an advanced segment in Google Analytics.
This post will show you how to set up an advanced segment and find out which online marketing strategy is getting the best traffic. All you need is a segment that uses the multi-directive source dimension for each domain that you've blogged a guest for. This can be up to 20 per extended segment. Mine looks like this:
This will allow you to see all of your Google Analytics data based on referrals from your guest posts. This can help you determine the success of your overall guest blogging strategy in terms of traffic and conversions.
If you're not sure how to track conversions, check out this post on Getting Actionable Data to learn how to set goals.
How to get guest bloggers for your blog
Don't forget that guest blogging can be a one-way street. It is difficult to maintain your own blog content while guest posting to many other blogs.
Be sure to open an invite to the blog you wrote for to be able to guest post for yourself as well. This will keep your content up to date on your own blog. This can help gain your audience's perspective and hopefully attract new readers from your guest blogger community. It's a win-win situation!
Conclusion
Blogging guests on reputable websites is a great way to capitalize on the success of blogs that are already popular in your industry. To get the space for a guest blog, you need to send engaging pitches that show your worth.
Guest blogging is just one of many strategies you can incorporate into your content marketing campaigns. If you need help designing or tracking your content marketing methods, our agency is here for you.
Do you use guest blogging as part of your online marketing strategy? What other things would you suggest to a company looking to increase their guest blogging success?
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