Guest blogging
What is guest blogging? How to do guest blogging
Guest blogging is an excellent link building technique that involves reaching an agreement with another website to publish relevant content. It’s done for free, and generally, the goal is to place links within the content to improve SEO and build your personal brand.
There are two ways to look at this: from the perspective of the person receiving the article and from the perspective of the writer. In both cases, it needs to be beneficial, otherwise, it wouldn’t happen. That’s why it’s crucial to know beforehand that it’s a suitable blog for your interests, meaning it benefits you to be featured on that blog or website.
Without a doubt, the person receiving the article for their blog benefits from getting free content, but… is guest blogging worth it for the person writing for free? The answer is yes, and they benefit in at least the following ways:
- It attracts qualified traffic. The links you place to your website will drive qualified traffic, which you can retain on your site if the content you offer aligns with their interests.
- It helps your personal brand. Building a personal brand isn’t an easy task, but signing the article with your name gives you visibility among the readers of the blog where you guest posted.
- It captures new potential clients or users. If the content you published is relevant and valuable to their readers, some of them will turn into potential clients and follow you on social media or subscribe to your blog.
- It improves your website’s SEO. By publishing content on a different domain, the links pointing back to your own website will boost your rankings.
With guest blogging, just like any other inbound marketing strategy, you need to take a few preliminary steps to be successful. This success begins when you secure a spot to publish on other blogs. The process for guest blogging is:
- Find blogs to collaborate with. It’s obvious, but it requires perseverance and discipline. Create a spreadsheet with sites where it would be interesting to guest post. The sites you choose should have topics similar or complementary to yours.
- Identify blogs that accept guest posts. If you find that any of the blogs you’re interested in publishing on already include guest posts in their strategy, you have a much higher chance of securing a spot.
- Check the authority of the blogs. Once you’ve decided where you want to write, it’s time to research the domain authority of those blogs and rule out the ones with low authority, as they won’t help your SEO rankings.
- Create a list of topics to propose. Think about and clearly define the topics you are going to pitch. They need to be attractive and relevant to grab the blog owner’s attention.
- Make the first contact. Whether through social media, their website’s contact form, or by email, reach out to the people in charge and present a solid pitch.
- Start writing. You might not get it the first time, or the second… but if the content you offer is interesting and valuable, they are sure to accept your proposal. Create high-quality content, and that first guest post will open the door for others.