Did you know there is a specific type of content that 94% of editors are planning to consistently publish this year? There is, and it’s called guest posts.
Guest posting or guest blogging is a powerful and popular strategy that writers and website owners use to increase both their domain and brand authority in one go. It can increase traffic, boost your rankings, and establish you as an expert (in some cases even a thought leader) in your niche.
Have you yet to take advantage of the strategy? Are you wondering “what is guest posting?”, and are eager to find out more? If so, you’ve come to the perfect place.
We are about to talk you through everything you need to know about guest blogging basics. So don’t go anywhere.
What Is Guest Blogging?
First things first. What is guest blogging?
Guest blogging consists of two parties. The publisher and the creator of the content.
Typically, the creator (writer, website, brand, etc) will approach the publisher site and ask them if they will accept a guest post. If so, the creator submits an article to the publisher site free of charge.
In exchange, the creator of the content is generally allowed to insert a link to their own site, and include a bio of themselves for publicity.
In short, the publisher site gets (hopefully) an authoritative and relevant article, for free. In exchange, the creator of the article gets a backlink to their site and exposure for their brand.
If you are unfamiliar with backlinks, this simply means a link to one’s site. However, backlinks drive more than traffic. They are also good for overall SEO.
The more quality backlinks a site has, the better this looks to Google. Quality backlinks indicate that your site is worthwhile sharing and linking to and that other sights are referring to it.
How Does Guest Blogging Work?
So now that we know what guest posting is, how does it work exactly? How does one go about the process of creating and getting a guest post published?
To answer your questions we have broken the process down into roughly 4 steps. Let’s take a look.
Step 1: Find Potential Publishing Sites
The first thing you’ll need to do to get a guest post published is to find potential publishing sites. There are literally thousands and thousands of sites that will accept guest posts. However, youreally don’t want to be featured on all of these sites.
Remember what we said early about quality backlinks? Well, let’s explain this a little further. When you get a backlink from another site to yours, the SEO ranking of the other site matters.
If you have a backlink pointing to your domain from a site like Forbes, this makes for great link juice. To Google, it’s indicating that your site is something valuable because a reputable, high ranking site like Forbes is linking to it.
On the other hand, getting a backlink from a spammy site that has been penalized by Google, can negatively impact your ranking. Therefore, you need to be selective in the sites that you pitch to.
To start, you can begin by googling something like “guest post” and a keyword associated with your niche. For instance, if your site is in the gaming industry, you could search “guest post + gaming”.
From here you can start compiling a list of potential publisher sites. To check their rankings, you can also run their URLs through Alexa.
If you want to learn more about finding reputable publishing sites, check out this post of ours on finding guest post opportunities.
Step 2: Pitch Potential Publishers
Once you have a list of well-ranking publishing sites, it’s time to move on to pitching them.
There are many tricks to writing the perfect guest post pitch, however here are a few general guidelines to get you started.
You should aim to personalize each pitch so that it doesn’t come across as spam mail. Aim to create a compelling and insightful subject line. Also, introduce yourself, provide a link to your site, and outline why your voice is a good fit for their content.
Additionally, make sure that your actual pitch outline is relevant to their niche.
Step 3: Create Your Post and Submit It
Once your guest blogging pitch has been accepted it’s time to create the post. There are a couple of ways you can do this.
One way is to write the post yourself. This is ideal if you are a thought leader in your space (or an aspiring one), or a writer. On the other hand, if you have nothing to gain by writing the post yourself, you can also get a professional content writer on the job.
Whichever route you choose, ensure that the post is well written, thoroughly researched, and has a click-worthy title.
Hot tip: when incorporating your backlink into the post, make sure that it appears as organically and as non-promotionally as possible. Something like “visit this wonderful website today for the best back cushions/supplement/deals” just looks like spam.
Once your post is ready to rock and roll all that is left to do is submit it.
Does Guest Posting Work?
Guest posting is a classic link building technique. Besides that, it is also great for building up a name for yourself or your brand. Having your content published on reputable sites can open up unforeseen opportunities and garner you high-quality exposure.
If you are wondering “does guest posting work?”, yes it does. However, when starting with guest posting it’s imperative that you employ white hat guest blogging techniques, and thoroughly vet your publisher sites to avoid being penalized by Google.
What Is Guest Posting? A Powerful Linking Building Technique Waiting to Happen to Your Site
Now that you know the answer to the question “what is guest posting” all that’s left is to go out and put it into practice so you can leverage the results guest blogging can offer for your online presence.
Ready to start guest posting but aren’t a writer? If so, we have some good news. There is a whole team here at Writer ready to roll out top-class content at your demand. To get started, go and check out our pricing structure.
If you have any questions about the process, feel free to drop us a line and we will be happy to help.
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