Guest Posting is a digital marketing strategy that effectively boosts your online promotion. It usually falls under the ambit of SEO and traffic generation. This, in turn, helps online visibility, leading to multiple avenues of revenue opening up.
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A Beginner’s Guide to Guest Posting:
Time and again, we return to the same topic of ‘Guest Posting’, probably because of the following facts-
- Guest Posting is still one of the best ways to increase website traffic.
- Guest Posting is still the preferred option for getting the best kind of links.
- Genuine and quality Guest Posting does not incur the wrath of Google.
- Guest Posting helps you get the biggest online visibility in a natural and organic way.
In this article, we discuss some tips to get your Guest Posting to match the top industry benchmarks.
If you are new to the term or the field of expertise, I have just one sentence of caution. Please do not fall into the trap of thinking about Guest Posting as some sort of digital hysteria.
It would be best to stay clear of all the chaos and the confusion that this term is associated. A casual search of the term ‘guest posting’ throws up 31,80,00,000 results!
This is a lot to take in. However, if you play it right, you can convert evolve a method to this madness.
To start your guest posting strategy you will need-
- Good outreach capabilities.
- Excellent command over your language.
- Excellent authority over your industry niche.
- Fantastic people-to-people skills.
- Lots of patience, and;
- The will to succeed, eventually.
You might be wondering what this is all good. However, it would be better if there were some actual concrete steps. Right?
Of course. I have taken the liberty to offer in-depth analysis of the actual approach strategy in the following sections.
Before, we get to that; I would briefly try to educate you about why does everyone like Guest Posting.
What is Guest Posting?
Guest Posting or ‘guest blogging’ is the practice of writing a piece of content by yourself, to be published on someone else’s website.
At this stage, you might be wondering, why should I write for someone else. What is in it for me?
To begin with, guest posting has a ton of benefits attached to it. Even after Google exec Matt Cutts infamously wrote about the “Death of Guest Posting in 2014”, guest posting continues to thrive.
Personally, for me, the number 1 purpose Guest Posting serves is link building. No ‘Private Blog Networks (PBNs)’, no ‘Link Directories’, no spammy content!
You might think that link building through guest posting is easy. Let me just clear the air on that one- no it is not!
Quality link building through guest posting is tough until you are someone like Neil Patel. If you are a regular Joe (Sorry Fat Joe, no pun intended), you will have to strap yourself in for the long ride.
Let me be clear, I am not trying to scare anyone. All I am trying to say are the cold facts. Facts that pretty journals and magazines are never going to say.
However, if you are able to navigate the murky waters of guest posting, you will be a success story. Guest posting is a rewarding digital strategy and one for which you won’t have to wait for too long.
The benefits of guest posting far outweigh the effort that you are going to put in. Just trust me on that front.
Without further ado, let us dive deep into some of the best tips from experts on Guest Posting.
Top 10 Guest Posting Tips:
To critics who say guest posting is dead, I have something to say- IT IS NOT!
What is dead is doing manipulations, creating bad content, and using black hat strategies. If you want natural, organic, link building, Guest Posting is still the Number 1 method.
I am sure that in the next five years, guest posting is still going to dominate authentic link building.
1. Create a list of 50 Leading Country specific blogs:
Everything good starts with a list, right? You should make a list of the top 50 blogs in your industry niche who accept guest posts.
Do not make just one list, make at least five lists of ten blogs each. Rotate the same and keep adding, and subtracting at all times.
These blogs or websites should be different in terms of their metrics and their readership. It is also a good idea to look for leading countries when you are deciding.
Try to write to blogs that have traffic in different leading countries. For example, if you are a tech reviewer, see sites in USA, UK, Australia, etc. Do not just go for sites that are popular in one country.
2. Do not aim for the sites with the Top Metrics:
One elementary mistake that guest bloggers do is always aim for sites that have excellent metrics.
If you have just started out in digital marketing, do not expect the Search Engine Journal to publish you. If that is the case, you might be living under the biggest rock on the planet.
Sites that have 40+ DA are more cautious and wary of accepting first-time guest posts. You might try, but there are more chances, you might fail.
Start small; try to reach out to sites that have a DA in the ranges of 10-20. At the starting stage, it is all about reaching out for the lowest hanging fruit.
3. Write Fantastic Content with Great Ideas:
Ideally, this should have been point one, but I did not want to be rude right away. Everyone can write, but not everyone can write excellent web content.
Writing web content is serious art. Ever wondered why so many people start blogging but end up as quickly as they started?
If you are not writing something different that is-
- Novel
- Innovative
- Serves a Solution
- Informative
- Fun and Exciting
- Correct, grammar wise
- Long format
Trust me, you will not be successful at blog writing or guest posting. You need to have writing skills, be great at grammar, and always keep innovating.
4. Building Relationships is the Key to Guest Posting:
The top content sites that accept guest posts, work with at best two to three guest post writers. Why you ask? To put it simply, few guest post writers are easier to maintain meaningful relationships with.
(Also, it gets increasingly tiresome to moderate and manage content from 10 different guest post writers).
On a serious note, the guest posting industry is surviving because of actual human relationships. A couple of years I would not have the audacity to say such a statement.
It is true that you need to establish a great professional relationship with the owner/editor of a content site.
You will be able to build it, not at one go, but over a period. Engage with the person, through comments, social media, mails, and pitch ideas.
No one is so brutal, that they will not hear you out. If your content is great, and you are not asking for a hand and leg in return (four or more do-follow links), you will get a platform.
5. Find your Writing Niche and Industry:
No matter how good of a writer you are, you cannot write about everything under the sun. Do you think Neil Patel can write about Spirituality for instance? No, I guess not! Or can he? Well, we will never know some things…
Finding what your niche is about investing in your passion or hobby. If you are not passionate about something, you cannot make it into a writing profession.
Many people write to me and ask about some good topics. They want to start blogs to start. If I say, ‘Global Warming’ or the environment does not necessarily mean that you can write on that.
There is no dearth of good sites for practically anything and everything under the sun. You need to find your passion. Once you have found that, stretch it out, and let it soak up the competition.
Do not write just for the heck of it. Write something because you mean it because you think that this information will add value to the industry.
6. Find Overlapping Markets:
Finding your niche is good; running out of content ideas for your niche is bad, very bad. What is a good idea? Finding overlapping industries.
This means that you will always have some adjacent ideas to work on. You will do so while still being under the purview of your niche.
For example, if you are writing on household pets, you can stretch it out to write about nutrition in animals. You can even write about food habits, diets, and the whole ecosystem.
This will open up you to three different niches of content sites-
- Pet Rearing/Grooming Behavioural Sites.
- Pet Diet and Nutrition Sites (Big Billion Dollar MNCs, which produce pet food).
- Medical Care in the Pet Industry related sites.
By finding your niche overlap, you will keep adding to your knowledge. You will also be able to maintain adequate levels of exposure.
7. Allow Guest Posts on your Site
Guest posting or guest blogging is a two-way street. If you are looking for guest posting opportunities for your site, someone else might be doing the same.
It is always a good idea to create a fellow community of 5 or 6 bloggers. Try using the resources of each other meaningfully.
I hope that if you play it right, you will start growing your site, as well as your relationship. I have seen numerous stay at home moms grow their site to a DA of 70+, using this method.
By allowing guest posts, you will meet numerous people, and engage with them. You never know who might come in handy.
8. Engage with people who engage with you:
Another huge mistake that bloggers is not engaging with people on their website or social media.
(Why start a website in the first place and not engage people who you wanted to attract?)
If you like a blog and are interested in guest posting for it, pursue it. Pursue it on the website’s comments section, social media pages, and forums.
Once you are able to attract the attention of the editor/owner, start-pitching ideas.
If your ideas are good enough, and your writing skills match their guidelines, you might get a shot. However, please remember to keep your link requests within limits.
90% of bloggers have stopped guest posting because of unfavorable link requests from guest writers. Do not push for more than one link under any circumstance.
9. Be active on Quora:
I never thought I would ever put Quora on this list if I were writing in 2017. However, let’s face facts, Quora is a powerful tool. It has revolutionized the digital marketing industry.
If you are smart, you will take advantage of the rise of Quora. Search your niche, and engage with the thread. Offer valuable, constructive information, which is at least 500 words long.
If you are smarter, try to give a link at the end of your response. If your 500-word response merits any credit, you will see people clicking on the link.
Using Quora for growing your guest posting profile as an avenue was not possible some years back. Now, marketers and writers swear by it.
10. Optimize your Content’s SEO:
Last but not least, SEO! No matter how well you write, you will reach nowhere if your article is not SEO optimized. Call it the curse of the digital eco-system, even Shakespeare would have had to use keywords to write The Tempest!
If you do not know how you can optimize your article in terms of SEO, WordPress Publisher is your tool. If you are only able to follow the guidelines on WordPress, before you publish, you will be successful.
You can also use great apps like the Hemingway Reader, or even Grammarly. A great writer needs to be an SEO technical writer first.
SEO will give your article discoverability and exposure. Once you get the basic level of exposure, your quality content will win audiences over.
Guest Posting Tips: The Final Word
Guest posting or guest blogging is not easy. On the other hand, it is also not very hard. Like any other discipline, it needs to be followed according to a process.
People who follow the process, and make the right approaches get successful. The others just end up as great writers who never get an audience.
If you want to pursue guest posting, the single biggest thing that you should remember is patience. If you are patient, you will see the results.
I do not mean that you wait for a year, and keep trying. If you follow the above stated 10 tips, there is no way that you will not be successful
If you want any more information on guest posting, feel free to reach out to me. You can do so at- [email protected] or drop us a message in the comments section.
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