Guest Posting Guide for Your Website

Thousands and blogs are hosted on the internet and a large aspect of blogging is what’s known as guest posting. So, let’s take a look at guest posting, why it's important and how is best to go about it.

Table of Contents

What is guest posting?

Guest posting simply put is writing an article and publishing it in a blog belonging to a third party. In that blog, the writer of a guest post is regarded as a guest blogger or author.

Why is guest posting important?

To get a clear picture of where we’re headed, it’s sensible to define guest posting with respect to search engine optimization.

Guest posting can in this sense be defined as writing an article and publishing it in a blog belonging to a third party and in return get backlinks to your website.

With this, one can begin to understand the importance of guest posting.

Guest posting is important because it’s a great way to connect to new readers. With guest posts, an author is likely to reach out to the audience who may not have otherwise visited his/her site. By this act, the audience of the blogger is widened.

Guest posting helps to increase the exposure, popularity, and authority of a blogger. A bigger audience means more people know you.

When an author makes guest posts, it avails him/her the opportunity to stamp authority and show expertise in specific fields or areas. A bigger and different collection of readers also avails the author opportunity to get fresh ideas and different kinds of criticism.

All these will only lead to improvement and greater exposure.

Another perk of guest posting is that the author of the post can create backlinks to his/her original site. This will increase the traffic to his/her website or web pages.

How to find guest posting target?

There are a number of steps that can be taken to find guest posting target(s).

You need to be sure that you understand your audience very well.
Try to figure out other sites where familiar faces you see in your site or other sites that are relevant to your niche visit. This is what I would call “positive stalking”. The chance that you will find other relevant sites in the collection of sites visited by posters or readers in your site or sites you visit is very high. With this, you can compile a list of potential targets for your guest blogging.
From the compiled list, you can narrow your results down by filtering targets who have posts that are most relevant to your niche. Your readers could still have other interests outside your niche so this step is vital.
Afterward, select the targets with the best quality content. It shouldn’t just be all about niche, quality is key. At this point, you have a shortlist of great targets.
Other smart ways of finding targets are searching for them in search engines, interacting with your audience and commenters, and checking forums and blogger directories. (These will help you figure out sites with great traffic and quality content).

Preparation for pitch

Due diligence is required if one is to come up with an outstanding guest post pitch. Here are some steps that should be taken in preparing for a pitch:

Be sure that you’ve found the right target. A pitch to an editor who is not interested in the niche you want to write about is a waste of time.
Go through existing posts in the target site. Get acclimatized to how things work and try to find common grounds.
Find images relevant to topics or ideas you would want to talk about.
Be confident.

Pitch guest post ideas

To pitch guest post ideas, these steps will aid in making a pitch stand out to an editor.

Find common grounds to talk about. This can get the reader biased and skewed to in your advantage. It will work in your favor if the reader feels both of you share the same point of view or have intersecting perspectives regarding certain topics.
Use images in your pitch where necessary. You could be dealing with a person who loves visuals.
Refer to posts on the target blog. This should especially be about recent posts. This can portray you to be really interested in and up to date with the blog.
You can go ahead to critique some of the views or posts in the blog, suggesting other views. This should not outright invalidate or completely oppose the existing opinion.
Make a great value proposition and be convincing about it.
Portray a strong voice and a high level of authority and confidence.

Follow up

You could send a pitch to a blog and be 100 percent that your pitch was amazing. Days could pass without you getting any feedback all the same.

It’s advisable to send a follow-up email rather than sit in bed and sulk all day, wallowing in self-pity.

Chances are that there could be a million and one other things the receiver of your pitch is preoccupied with. It could also be that your email might have been missed and just a reminder might be all the nudge needed to get them aware and make your case a priority.

Write guest post

So, your pitch is accepted and you’re now a guest poster. Do not wait up. Set the stone rolling immediately.

Surely, it’s expected you would want to write in your unique voice and stamp in the different air your presence brings. It’s still very vital that you pay attention to posting guidelines.

There are blogs that may permit you to use f-bombs for instance or use spoken slangs and similar stuff. On some other platforms, that may not be the case.

Try to play by the rules. The first impression matters too. Always remember that.

Guest posting tools/sites

There are numerous guest posting tools available and they may not all be exhaustively discoursed here on but below are some great guest posting tools and links to them. Take a look.

Guest post tracker

guest post tracker tool is amazing and it helps you to find and track guest post sites. With about 1500 blogs in its database, you have a large variety to choose from. They also help out with writing, outreach, and publishing in the event you do not feel up to it.

Prepost SEO

Prepost SEO is another great tool with over 1400 guest posting sites in its database. You can also submit guest posts directly to different blogs on their platform.

Hunter

A key service offered by hunter is that they show you the email address to any blog you search for on their platform and no cost is incurred for the first 100 searches you do every month. How many searches could you possibly do in a month?

Mozbar

MozBar helps you see instant metrics while viewing any webpage or SERP.

It allows you to quickly assess the Page Authority and Domain Authority of any site or page.

It also lets you access and compares link metrics across pages while viewing any SERP.

With Mozbar, you can find and highlight keywords on a page and differentiate links by type: Followed, No-Followed, External, or Internal and much more.

Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the best grammar checkers that helps you keep your text sharp. It even has a Chrome extension that allows you to check your spelling as you write anywhere in the browser.

How to hire a guest blogger for your site?

You can always search for guest posting services in marketing posts or send out openings to guest posting tools platforms. You could also let your readers know on your site that there are openings for guest posting.

Before the applications start trickling in, there are some things that should be put in place.

There should be a Guest Blogger Application Process. This enables you to get all the information you’ll need about your applicants, including their bio data, audience, and payment method. This information will come in handy subsequently.

There should also be a submission manual. The applicants need to confirm beforehand that there are no disagreements with the steps stated. These steps could include how to submit topics and articles, SEO specifications and more.

You can also get a lawyer draft a contract for an independent contractor. The applicant should be okay with the terms of the contract before taking up the job.

Guest posting tips

If you want to become great at guest blogging, the following guidelines or tips should not be overlooked. They are necessary for a successful career in guest posting.

Always target the right audience. Talking to someone who is not interested is talking to yourself.
Always follow the guidelines of the host sites.
Be patient and persistent. You may get rejected or your emails might have just been missed.
Always ensure that you are providing value to the host site. It should be a two-way thing. Don’t focus on only creating traffic and popularity for yourself.
Always write intriguing and compelling headlines or titles. This is the first step in catching a reader’s attention.
Unique content is key. Try to write on subjects that other bloggers don’t have.
Use creative imagery where necessary.

There are so much more tips out there but this should do for now.

Conclusion

At this point, I trust that you have a clear picture of what guest posting entails, understand the importance and how exactly to go about it.

Guest posting should add value to a site where it’s posted and this will, in turn, be beneficial to the guest author in terms of exposure, greater audience backlinks and much more. A win-win for all parties involved.

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