Guest posting or guest blogging has become one of the most important ways of expanding online presence. Whether it’s SEO, content marketing, link building, relationship management, or just reaching a wider audience, guest posting is one of the best ways to make it happen.
What is Guest Posting?
Guest posting is writing blogs or articles for someone else’s website. It may seem strange to give away well-written content to someone else, but there are several advantages to guest posting which make it worthwhile in the long run.
What Are the Benefits of Guest Posting?
Guest posing isn’t giving away content for free. There are many tangible benefits that have made it a staple of content marketing for over a decade now. Good guest posting can lead to the following benefits:
- Posting quality content on other people’s websites is an opportunity to engage with a new audience
- High-quality guest posts can direct traffic back to the original website
- Guest posts are an excellent way of getting backlinks to boost SEO
- Guest posts are a great way of connecting with other people in the industry which can lead to further mutually beneficial collaborations
- Posts across several websites establish authority
All these tangible benefits have led to some problems with guest posting though, which is why guest posting services have become important tools for anybody in the digital space.
Problems With Guest Posting
Guest posting has been around for over a decade now, which means people have found ways of abusing it. One of the biggest mistakes people make is either posting content on a spammy, clickbait website or hosting content that is low quality. This is a quick way of upsetting potential new readers because hosting or creating low-quality content undermines authority and legitimacy.
What is guest posting in SEO? Search engines are getting more intricate which means they are getting better at discerning between quality content and spam content. Essentially when it comes to backlinks, quality is much more important than quantity. Content for guest posts must be well written from an SEO perspective and be aware of the quality of the partner sites.
Finding the Right Partners
It may seem challenging to come up with the right people and websites to partner with, but there are several ways to develop high-quality relationships. The most important thing is to conduct thorough research to make sure that any potential partner maintains the same or higher quality.
- A good partner is well respected
- A good partner has a wide following and posts regularly
- A good partner has values and opinions that align with yours
- A good partner does not use spam or clickbait articles
A great place to start is looking at partners’ websites and suggesting guest posting both ways. Partners usually have specific niches but are complementary to each other’s operations, giving an opportunity to create insightful content that will engage readers.
Another great place to look for potential guests post partners is the websites and blogs of non-competitor companies in the same field or industry. Direct competitors may be hesitant to promote a rival’s interests, but working with a noncompetitor can be mutually beneficial.
It’s possible to find good partners for guest posting using the internet. Running a Google search with relevant keywords like guest blog, guest post, right for us, can result in some quality partners but more often than not lead to clickbait and low-quality websites.
There are also many types of guest post services that connect potential guests post partners. These Services can help find partners but are often paid services, so consider the pros and cons before using one.
An organic way of finding guest post partners is by actively searching through blogs and finding people who post guest posts. Follow their links back to their website and send them an email asking for an opportunity to post something unique.
What Is Guest Post in SEO
For many people, the main reason for guest posting is improving SEO ranking. Backlinks are how guest posts improve SEO. Essentially, a backlink is a link that takes readers back to the original website. Having many backlinks to a variety of websites improves the original website’s ranking considerably.
Link placement is an important factor. Google considers organic links that are within the context of a paragraph towards the beginning of an article as more important than ones at the end.
Anchor text is another important factor in guest posting. Anchor text is hyperlinked phrases that tell search engines and the audience what the main purpose of the article is. Make sure you choose appropriate anchor text and use them multiple times throughout the article.
Be careful when using anchor text though. Using the same anchor text multiple times can make search engines think of the content as spam, so pepper in hyperlinks and anchor text to other related phrases as well.
How to Write a High-Quality Guest Post
A low-quality guest post can damage reputations and negatively affect SEO rankings. So it is vital to create the best quality post possible. A guest post is not an advertisement, so it should not be structured like one. A guest post adds value and offers the reader important information or some kind of insight.
The goal of a guest post should be to impress a new audience so that they follow the backlink, to build relationships with companies, bloggers, and websites in the field. And to become an authority on a subject.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing a guest post:
- Include a call to action towards the end of the post so that readers remember to engage with it by commenting and sharing
- Include an author bio section with permanent backlinks. This way even if the website changes its policies, a permanent backlink will exist.
- Include a link within the article to the partner companies’ websites or previous blog posts. This makes it more likely that they will promote the article and partner again.
- Share guest posts on social media to improve reputation as a guest poster and to gain more traffic
Finals Tips About Guest Posting
Guest posting done right can create new opportunities and affect the bottom line. While there are several challenges to overcome, developing the right partners can quickly expand a business or blog. Here are a few final tips:
- The headline is the first thing a potential reader sees, so make sure the headline of a guest post is interesting and engaging without being clickbait.
- Consider the audience you want to attract and tailor the language and style of the article for that audience.
- Always follow guidelines from the host company but in general guest posts between 1500 and 2500 words perform well.
- If the host company allows videos and pictures use them but don’t overdo it. The main draw of a guest post should be the quality of information of the writing.
- Use formatting tricks to create an aesthetically pleasing layout for both web and mobile versions of the site
- This is true of any writing but make sure to proofread the article before guest posting. Many companies will deny a guest post with typos, and readers will be hesitant to follow a backlink if the post is full of mistakes.