Guest posting is an SEO tactic that has been in practice for a long time. Many people think that guest posting is dead, but this is not true. If used correctly, it can help boost your blog or business by:
Bringing referral traffic: When you run a blog or an online business, you want more traffic, and guest posting can do it. For instance, if you guest post on a quality blog of your niche, the readers will click on your link too.
More customers: As a result of guest posting, you can grow your numbers of audience. How? With a little incentive, you can get them to subscribe which helps with the increase in followers.
Now, these are two main advantages of writing a guest post for other quality blogs or letting someone else guest post on your blog. Most importantly, guest posting helps you build a relationship with other bloggers, and that can be beneficial eventually. Also, don’t forget that guest outreaching posts help build an image for your brand.
All of this can sound overwhelming, especially for a new blogger. So, in this article, we will explore some ways that can help you make guest posting your forte. Once you are on top of your game, it will be easy to get good traffic and grow an audience. In other words, knowing the tricks of writing the correct guest posts and finding the best blogs for the same is necessary.
Let’s Move on to the Tips
1. Know Your Goals
Research says that 60% of bloggers write about one to five guest posts per month. Why do they do this? There must be a goal in their mind due to which they are guest blogging this much? For instance, the reason could be that they are looking to be a leader in the guest blogging career. Or maybe they are looking to increase their traffic or looking for business opportunities?
It could be anything, and unless you know, you cannot create a plan. So, make sure that you know what your end goal is with the guest posting technique.
When you are setting a goal, keep in mind that it should be:
- Specific so that you know exactly what you want, and when and why.
- Measurable as you want to have a method that can prove that you are nearing your goal.
- Attainable/realistic don’t want to set a goal like reaching 10k audience in a month using guest posts.
- Relevant to your brand.
Time-bound meaning you have a limited time to achieve this goal
2. Find Opportunities for Guest Posting
You cannot guest post on any website that offers this service. You must be careful in choosing a medium which is:
- Relevant to your business or niche
- Catering to readers who would love to read your blogs
- Producing content who has good engagement
- Of high quality in nature and is one of the top blogs
Don’t go for quantity over quality. You can write 100s of guest posts for various sites in a month. But if they don’t provide any results, it would be a waste of your talent, time, and manpower.
So, make a list of all websites in your niche. You can do so by using the keyword ‘guest post’ or ‘writing guest posts’ or so on. Even social searches or monitoring your competitor’s guest posting habits can provide you with a hint. Once you do that, read their blogs, see how much traffic they get, how many people engage with their content, before submitting your pitch.
3. Scan All Those Blogs
You will have a big list once you go through with the above step. So, it’s time to scan the lists. Keep these tips in mind:
- Figure out whether they still accept guest posts, or they don’t. It can happen often.
- Re-check their traffic number, engagement rate, whether their audience would choose to read your blogs or not.
- Know their guidelines. It will help you achieve your goals.
4. Things to Know Before You Create a Pitch
So now you know which blog you want to write for. Now what? Do you mail them with an offer or what? Well, before you contact them, make an outstanding pitch that they cannot refuse.
Here are steps to do this right:
- Know the blog: Knowing the blog completely is crucial if you want them to like your pitch. So, read their content and try to understand what type of audience they are targeting. Is it regular or experts or what? Also, know what type of content they write? For instance, some blogs write on general topics, while others on specific. If you don’t know this, your pitch can fall flat.
- Know the other guest bloggers: It is crucial to know whether other guest blogger’s posts do well on a blog or not. If it doesn’t, what they are doing wrong, which you can avoid. Also, get to know the bloggers a bit too.
- Have a topic list: You want to pitch the best topic ideas. So, use keywords that your users might be using to search for relevant content. It will help you find the best topics that are in demand right now.
- Get in with the blogger: If the blogger knows you a bit, it increases your chances of getting accepted. So, before you pitch, comments on their blogs to build a relationship. The comments should be relevant and intellectual.
5. Writing The Pitch
Read guidelines as they will clarify what type of guest post they are looking for? Maybe they already have a topic in mind or so on.
- Personalize your email by addressing the mail to the editor or the person in charge of the guest blogging. Don’t use hi or dear, no one likes that.
- Keep the pitch short, like under 200 words.
- Be specific with your ideas and why you think it will work?
6. Write The Pitch
When you send the pitch and they accept, only half the battle is over. Now, you must write a good quality post which approves with their guidelines. Tips:
- Research the topic well and know how many words or font style they want.
- Use statistics to support your content
- Use images to appeal to people more. You can create original images using Canva.
- Write more than one headline, it should have a keyword and must be appealing
- Edit it, and check every spelling and grammatical error
- Write an author’s bio in the third person.
Guest posting can revive your business but only if you are careful and dedicated to it.
This is a guest contribution from Prince Kapoor.