Guest Blogging - Easy Steps To Become A Guest Post Writer

An Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging - Step By Step Method

This guide contains everything you need to know about guest blogging.

How to start Guest Posting? How to scale and how to get your guest post featured on HUGE authority websites.

We will also look at exactly how you can get guest blogging opportunities and make the most out of them.

Determine Your Guest Blogging Goals

Before we start, your first responsibility is to decide what your goal for guest blogging is. Knowing this objective ahead of time is key in discovering the right kinds of blogs to submit guest posts. Typically there are three main aims for guest blogging.

• Positioning yourself as a professional and well-known name in the industry.
• Gaining exposure (traffic) back to your website.
• Creating backlinks to your website.

With the best kind of content on the highest blogs, you can do all three of these things.

If you are attempting to achieve either #1 or #2, you will need to find blogs with a broad and engaged audience.

If you are trying to achieve #3, you need to pinpoint blogs with stable root domain authority.

Knowing your goals in advance will help you determine which blogs will be the most suitable for submitting your guest posts.

How to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

The initial thing you will need to do is find guest post opportunities. When looking for sites to guest post, your main aim is to find sites related to your niche or business. You are looking for websites that fit the following standards:

• The content is focused on your niche/business.
• The audience will be engaged in your industry.
• The blog has grabbed readership.
• The website owner is active on social media.

If you are selling plant seeds, you will need to find planting blogs with an engaged gardener audience. The following should help you find a suitable variety of guest post opportunities.

1. Google Searches

Google is an excellent place to start in the research for guest posting opportunities. You can use the following keyword searches to find websites that allow guest posts. Just replace these keywords with your industry/niche.

• Your keyword “guest post.”
• Your keyword “accepting guest posts.”
• Your keyword “guest post by”
• Your keyword “submit a guest post.”
• Your keyword “guest post guidelines.”

These searches should lead you to a blog’s guest post guidelines page, guest post submission page, or original guest posts by different writers.

2. Competitor Backlinks

Think you (or your online marketing agency) have ever picked up a backlink study of a competitor while working on your SEO campaign. In that case, chances are one or more of your contestants have backlinks from guest posts.

If you have access to Open Site Explorer, you can look at your competitors’ backlinks and spot any of the posts they have written.

If you don’t find any, you can do a search on Google.

link:domain.com -domain.com “guest post” (replacing domain.com with your competitor’s domain name), which should expose sites that a competitor has written for.

Example:

link:backlink.io -neilpatel.com “guest post.”

3. Social Searches

Many bloggers and guest posters share their newest guest posts on social networks. Since the lightest one to search is Twitter, you should try running a Twitter search for the keyword “guest post” to get the latest tweets about guest posts in your niche or industry. Just follow the links to examine which websites are accepting the guest posts.

Preparing to Pitch a Guest Blogging Post

Remark that we don’t just jump from finding guest blogging opportunities to reaching the blogs. That’s because there are a few things you should do before you submit a guest post for a site you’ve just seen.

Get to Know the Blog’s Content

Going to know your target website’s content is vital. Sure, they have content about the keyword you searched. But you have to know even more about their content, such as…

• What level of the audience are they writing for (beginners, moderate, superior)?
• What type of audience are they writing for? If your business is B2B, then you need the blog audience for your guest post to be businesses, not generic users.
• What type of content do they write? Is it primarily general theories or specific, specific tutorials? Do they want lists?

See How Other Guest Posts Do?

While a blog may have guest posts, the problem is, do the guest bloggers do great? Do guest blog posts get as many comments and social sharing as the owner’s website posts? Some sites might accept guest posts, but if the audience is only attuning for the blog owner, you won’t do so good if your purpose is to build authority or get traffic back to your blog.

See Who the Guest Bloggers Are?

Some website owners are more likely to take guest posts by several types of people over others. Read a few guest blogger bios on the blog to see if they are mate bloggers, freelancers, owners, and so on. This will be great when you introduce yourself to the blog owner for your pitch. You can read more about the success measures of guest posting outreach in this research on SEOmoz.

Find Out What Posts Do the Best

To guarantee that your guest post is accepted, you will want to pitch the blog owner with topics that will do great with their audience. To get some good ideas of topics that will serve the blog’s audience, use the following sites to see what posts have been popular on social media.

• Oktopus: Oktopus tracks and records your social media performance.
• Digg: This will show you the blog posts that have taken the most number of Digg votes.
• Buzzer: Buzzer lists your social media posts and provides data and analytics.

Become a Familiar Face in the Blog Community

To improve your acceptance as a guest blogger, you will need to get some attention from the blog owner first. The best way to do this is to take a week or two and comment on their newest posts. You’ll get bonus points for sharing those posts on Twitter, too — be sure to add the blog owner’s @username on Twitter. This way, when you pitch your guest post, you won’t be a newcomer.

The Best Times to Pitch a Guest Blogging Post

You won’t always have a great opportunity to pitch for a guest post, but there are some things to take benefit of when they occur. These cover the following.

• When a blog mentions their posts or on social media.
• When the blog lists you or your product in one of its posts.
• When the blog advertises explicitly, they are looking for guest posts.
• When the blog publishes an extra guest post.

Basic Pitch Best Practices

The following are perfect musts when pitching a guest blog post to different blog owners.

1. Read the Guidelines

Before reaching the blog owner, the last thing you have to do is read the guest posting guidelines, if applicable, and follow them strictly. Does the blog owner want you to pitch an idea or submit a whole post? What format do they need it in? Do they require you to create an account and enter it into WordPress? These are all things to know before you talk to the blog owner.

2. Personalize Your Email

As a blogger who gets daily guest post pitches, nothing turns me off more than an email starting with “Dear Sir or Madam,” “Dear Webmaster,” or simply “Hi.”

Somewhere on the blog, there should be the name and contact knowledge for the blog owner you target your guest post.

You might have to ferret around for it on the about page or the blog’s social media accounts, but it is more than likely out there. Find it, and use it to begin the email.

3. Who Are You?

Recognize the part about seeing who guest bloggers are on your target blog? Some blog owners are particular about only accepting other bloggers to submit guest posts on their sites.

Suppose you noticed that most guest bloggers are bloggers themselves. In that case, you might want to present yourself as a blogger. You can always be a business owner on the side; concentrate on your blogging abilities first.

4. Why You Should Be a Guest Blogger?

In your pitch, be sure to cover why you should be a guest blogger. Add a few links to posts you have published outside, including your blog. Preferably go with posts with a significant bit of social engagement so the blog owner will see your potential value with their audience.

How to Pitch a Guest Post Idea?

If the guest post guidelines ask you to submit a topic idea, then (based on your research of earlier popular posts), pitch a few unusual ideas, so the blog owner has some to pick from.

How to Submit a Great Guest Post?

One of the fundamental questions about guest blogging is whether you should be using your good content for your blog or your guest posting. It relies on the quality of the blog you are offering your range.

If the blog has no but 900+ word posts with lots of screenshots, your post should be alike. If the blog has nothing but posts with 500 words or less with only one image, then your posts (again) should be equal. The following are other great tips for making your guest post as excellent as achievable.

It’s Not About You!

The first thing to learn about a great guest post is that it is not about your product, business, or services. Guest posts should be helpful sources of information, not endorsements.

Any information about your business and related items should be held for the author bio. Special mentions, stories, or examples are OK to show a point. Still, most of the posts should be concentrated on something other than your company.

Format Posts Like the Ones on the Site

Take a peek at posts on your target blog. Do they use images, headers, bolded text, quotes, or another special formatting? Ensures that your post has similar components to match other posts on the website.

Include Internal and Source Links

Show the blog owner that you understand their content by adding a few internal links to their posts. The simplest way to do this is to do a Google search for the site:domain.com intitle: keyword.

This will get you their top posts on a distinct keyword so you can link that post to the keyword in your post. If you mention any specific products, books, etc., make sure to link to these too.

Include a Call to Action for Comments

At the end of your excellent guest post, include a call to action for comments. The more discussion your post makes, the better!

How to Craft a Great Guest Bio?

The most crucial piece of guest blogging will likely be your guest post bio. This usually is the only place you should include self-promotion links back to your website or product, etc. What you write in this section will depend on your guest blogging purposes.

• If your goal is to get good backlinks, make sure your bio includes a link back to your website with your target support text and you are all set.
• If your goal is to get traffic to your blog, you might need to examine where you want that traffic. Depending on the topic of your guest post and the audience of the blog you place it upon, you might like to forward traffic to a custom landing page.
• If your purpose is to grow followers of your social accounts, do this by adding a line to the end of your bio.

How to Be the Best Guest Blogger?

If you’re trying to become a frequent contributor to a blog or want the blog owner to brag about what a great guest blogger you are, then make sure to promote your blog post to your audience. The blog owner will like it if you send new readers their way.

Also, be sure to reply to comments or questions that people write on your post. That will go a long way if you are going to build power in your industry.

Tracking Your Results

When the purpose is traffic, the results of your guest blogging should be included. The best way to do this is to build an Advanced Segment in Google Analytics.

All you need is one segment using the source dimension with multiple statements for each domain you have guest blogged for. This can be up to 20 per Advanced Segment.

How to Get Guest Bloggers for Your Blog?

Finally, don’t ignore that guest blogging can be a two-way street. It’s hard to maintain your blog content while guest posting on a lot of other blogs.

Be sure to open an offer for the blog you wrote to write a guest post for you. This keeps your content fresh on your website, which can help get a view of your audience, and hopefully, reach new readers from your guest blogger’s community. It’s a win-win condition!

Conclusion

Guest blogging on popular sites is a great way to leverage websites that are already successful in your industry. To get the spot for a guest blog, you need to send compelling pitches that prove your worth.

Do you use guest blogging as a section of your online marketing strategy? What other elements would you recommend for a business looking to improve their guest blogging success?