How Guest Posting Program Can Help In Website Rank & Traffic

If the On-Page SEO work you’ve done on your Blog Guest Posting Program is garbage, you’ll only get a fraction of the value you could get by doing it right. On that note, if you want to squeeze the full link juice out of a post while being able to pass a manual review, there are several guidelines to follow. Lucky you! In this guide, you’ll learn all the chops you need to do it right.

But, how do you guest post, or rather, how do you write a guest article? Well, you probably have a lot of questions about this topic. Don’t worry! We’ll try to answer them plus many more. There was a time when link building was very much a numbers game. Back then, quantity was king! But, today, the situation is very different in terms of how you build natural backlinks.

Whereby, link building today is about quality, context, and simulating organic growth. Suffice it to say, more than ever before, we often see that most webmasters and SEOs opt for dozens of non-sense links rather than one high-quality contextual link. Simply, because they believe more is better. Now, the point isn’t that PBNs or Web 2.0s are dead – because they’re not!

However, it seems that people value the cheap mega backlink packs over a few incredibly relevant and well-placed backlinks. And to us, that’s a shame! That said, before we teach you how to guest post or blog somewhere else and have them do the same for you, as well as what guest blogging can do for you, we’ll first try to break down what this program is all about…

Guest Posting Program Types: What It Entails For Beginner Content Bloggers

To enumerate, a Guest Posting Program (also known as Guest Blogging, in other words) is a process of publishing blogs and posting articles on someone else’s website. In return, you can also allow those bloggers and content writers to share content on your website for free as well. It’s as simple as that! And, as a result, it offers a win-win service to both parties involved.

If you aren’t satisfied with your blog traffic but aren’t posting on other people’s blogs, you don’t have much to complain about. By all means, some websites with only a dozen backlinks can outrank similar websites with hundreds of backlinks on very competitive search terms. So, why the difference? Obviously, the backlinks for the website ranked #1 were incredibly powerful.

A blog may have guest posts, but the question is: Do guest bloggers do well? Or rather, do guest blog posts on the site get as many comments and social sharing as blog posts by the owner? Some sites might accept guest posts, but if the audience is only tuning in for the blog owner, then you won’t do so well if your goal is to build authority or get traffic back to your website.

In most cases, a majority of bloggers guest blog to get more brand awareness and traffic back to their own website (also known as referral traffic) or even that of their customers. Must be remembered, your first task is to decide what your goal for guest blogging is. Knowing this goal ahead of time is key in determining the right kind of blogs to submit guest posts to.

Typically, there are three main goals for guest blogging:

Positioning yourself as an authority and well-known name in the industry
Getting exposure (traffic) back to your website
Building Editorial Links to your website (though this should never be the main focus, as Google frowns on this)

With the right kind of content on the top blogs, you can do all three of these things. Furthermore, if you are trying to accomplish either #1 or #2, then you will want to find blogs that have a wide and engaged audience. Still, if you are just trying to accomplish #3, you need to pinpoint blogs with strong root domain authority. Using tools like Ubersuggest, you can check this for free.

Knowing your goals in advance will help you in determining which blogs will be the best for you to submit guest posts to. Now that you know what a blog guest posting program usually entails, it’s time to learn why it is so important for beginner bloggers. Well, it means writing and publishing an article on someone else’s website or blog (like jmexclusives).

It’s a great way to connect with new readers and get your name out. For such and other reasons, that’s why we offer this program on our own website (occasionally) and do it quite a bit on other blogs with audiences that we want to speak to. But for the longest time, we overlooked this essential discipline for growing a popular blog. We wish we hadn’t, and hope you won’t.

Why Blog Guest Posting Program Is A Must-Have For All Website Businesses

These days, we (Web Tech Experts) are guest posting like madmen and madwomen — more than even we ever have done business blogging there before. In fact, in over 10 years of steady blogging, this is one of the most sought-after solutions. In addition to the commitment to posting blogs regularly, it’s quite an investment of time. So why should you bother?

On one hand, a Guest Posting Program offers a number of benefits for any business. For instance, by sharing your expertise on other companies’ websites, you can establish yourself as an authority figure within your business market industry. As well as build relationships with other thought leaders in your field and expose your brand to an entirely new audience.

On the other hand, featured guest posts help deliver new perspectives and fresh content to your audience. We’re all guilty of falling victim to a routine and growing tired of the same old stuff, right? So, featuring guest posts is a great way to keep readers engaged — there’s also a promotional boost when guest bloggers share their blogs with their personal networks.

In a nutshell, we believe guest posting is the single most important strategy for growing your website blog readership, increasing organic traffic, helping in higher position ranking, and the like. And now, with that in mind, allow us to explain. Bearing in mind, there are various reasons why it’s such a key strategy for every blogger to build their online influence.

1. Guest posting builds relationships

Bloggers need good content. By being good at guest blogging and adding value to someone else’s blog, you’re going to build relationships with other bloggers too. Bloggers make up a large percentage of conversations happening on the Internet. Especially, when it comes to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. They can be tremendously influential.

Eventually, which makes them good friends to have. By making friends with other bloggers through guest posting, you’re going to grow your influence in the realm of social media. Also, by sharing your expertise on other companies’ websites, you can establish yourself as an authority figure within your market. Or even build relationships with other thought leaders in your field.

Guilty of falling victim to a routine and growing tired of the same old stuff, featuring guest posts is a great way to engage readers. Businesses and brands can also expose their services, solutions, and even products to an entirely new audience. What’s more, featuring guest posts on your own blog will help you deliver new perspectives and fresh content to your audience.

Realistically, some blogging websites like OpenView, often source the majority of their content from other leaders in their industry. In this case, even if you don’t have the resources to stick to a robust blogging cadence, guest bloggers can help you offer new content to your readers without much additional time and effort needed by your team.

2. You’ll get to know and outdo your competitors

In reality, if you (or your online marketing agency) have ever pulled up a backlink analysis of a competitor while working on your SEO campaign, chances are one or more of your competitors have backlinks from guest posts they have done. You can access tools like Open Site Explorer to look at the backlinks of your competitors and spot any of the blog posts they have written.

Whereby, if you don’t find any, you can do a Google search. Try something like this: link:domain.com -domain.com “guest post” (replacing domain.com with your competitor’s domain) which should reveal websites that a competitor has written for. Here is a good example: link:backlink.io -neilpatel.com “guest post” will provide you with resource guest blogs by Neil Patel.

Must also be remembered, that a lot of bloggers and guest posters will share their latest guest posts on social networks. Perse, since the easiest 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 industry. Just follow the links to see which blogs are accepting guest posts to help you start.

3. Guest posting is great for search engines

The one non-negotiable you should have for guest posting is this: The host blogger must include a link to your blog in the post somewhere (usually at the beginning or end). Over time, these backlinks will raise the value of your blog to search engines. Making your content easier to find via Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others. Ultimately, this will also lead to more blog subscribers.

In terms of content SEO audit, it’s a popular tactic because websites that accept guest posts usually allow authors to link back to their own content resources. In particular, as long as it makes sense to the reader. The link is usually placed in the body of the article, or in the author’s bio. Oftentimes, blog editors place a no-follow tag on links from guest authors.

Whereby, in the past, that was seen as a “lower-value” backlink because it didn’t carry any authority. With relatively recent updates, Google has made it public that even “no-follow” backlinks are seen as signals by their ranking algorithm. To have a successful guest blogging program that will bring in more SEO and ranking results, pick topics that serve your ultimate goal.

The way Google sees it is crucial; If other people are linking back to your blog on their own websites, then the content on your blog must be relevant and interesting. When individuals comment, share, like, or link to your blog, it moves up in Google’s PageRank — that means, it’s much more likely to pop up first when someone googles a similar topic.

4. Guest posting introduces you to new opportunities

Perhaps, the best part of guest posting is that it allows you to enter an already-established community, and share your message. It allows you to connect with new people, which can ultimately benefit you if you do it right. If you’re adding value to the discussion, you’re going to see that convert over time to more readers, fans, and followers.

Conversely, if all you’re ever doing is asking or selling, you may end up famous, but with a reputation, you don’t want. That being said, you don’t want to be “that guy” who’s hawking his own agenda. Otherwise, you’d want to add value, help people, and the like. However, you should try to be patient along the process, and over time, you’ll definitely win.

In terms of finding even more opportunities, there is even My Blog Guest which acts as a community of guest bloggers to consider. Mark you, all you’ll need is to sign up for free and search for blogs accepting guest posts. Better yet, post your own information to say that you are looking to write guest posts on a particular topic so blog owners can find you!

5. You’ll mutually benefit from other bloggers

I’m also a fan of allowing other people to guest post on my own site from time to time. You should consider offering guest posting on your blog, too (if you don’t already). If you’re asking for opportunities to guest post on others’ blogs, this just makes sense. It allows the relationship you’ve developed with the host blogger to be mutual.

Some bloggers will even blog about their guest posts and link to them from their own blog (giving you some great link juice). In fact, we are a fan of this practice too. But, there’s always the first rule of being a good guest author. Whereby, when we guest post for someone else, we do certain things. More so, in order to make sure that the end results are mutual.

And that they are also able to bring in the intended results. Any information about your business and related items should be reserved for the author’s bio. Just remember, occasional mentions, stories, or examples are okay to illustrate a point. But, the majority of the post should be focused on something other than your business. Try to focus on key backlinking elements.

Consider the following:

Link to the post from my blog
Promote it on Twitter (several times)
Share it on Facebook
Link it on my LinkedIn profile and page
Thank the person
Stick around and respond to comments on the post

While not everyone does this, it’s not a bad idea. However, this is important! And if you have to choose between getting people to guest post on your site or guest posting elsewhere, do the latter. It’s always better to get your name out into new communities. What’s more, at the end of your amazing guest post, be sure to include a call to action for user-based comments.

Great Blog Guest Posting Program Is A Two-Way Win-Win Plan

Of course, Yes! It’s very important to have a guest posting program that is open and free for all potential creative content writers and bloggers alike. Bear in mind, when it comes to SEO, guest posting on other websites is five times as valuable as creating new content on your own site. So long as you get the backlink. And whether that’s precisely true or not, we don’t care.

The point is that this is an excellent strategy for extending your reach and boosting your reputation online. Plus, if you’re a writer wanting to land more “traditional” publishing opportunities, this is a great forward-thinking step. But, getting to know your competitor’s content is yet another key. For one, you know they have content about the keyword you searched.

More so, while looking for guest post opportunities. Having said that, the most important part of any guest blogging (for you) plan will likely be your guest post bio. Usually, this is the only place you should include self-promotion links back to your website, blog, product, service, book, etc. Show the blog owner that you know their content and that your business is a match.

Precisely, by including a few internal links back to some of their posts. The easiest way to do this is to do a Google search for site:domain.com intitle:keyword. This will get you their top posts on a particular keyword so you can link that post to the keyword in your post. Also, if you mention any specifics, be sure to link to those too (assuming it’s not self-promotional).

Guest Author Bio Creation:

Include a link to your website: If your goal is to get good backlinks, make sure your bio includes a link back to your website with your target anchor text and you are all set.
Create a custom landing page to reflect the audience: If your goal is to get traffic back to your website, then you might want to consider where you want that traffic to go. Depending on the subject of your guest post and the audience of the blog you place it upon, you might want to send traffic to a custom landing page or page about a specific product/service.
Include social profiles: If your goal is to increase followers of your social accounts, do this by adding a line to the end of your bio that says something like, “Follow me on (insert your top social network and link here).”
Create a concise, descriptive bio: include a bit about your background and experience as to why you were qualified to write a guest post. Include your current job or projects that may be of interest to readers.

In addition to guest posting on other websites, don’t forget that guest blogging can be a two-way street. It’s tough to maintain your own blog content while guest posting on a lot of other blogs. Thus, to enjoy the benefits, be sure to open an invitation for the blog you wrote to write a guest post for your website as well. This keeps your content fresh on your own blog.

It also helps gain perspective on your audience, and hopefully get new readers from your guest blogger’s community. It’s a win-win situation! Clearly, guest blogging on reputable websites is a great way to leverage the success of blogs that are already popular in your industry. To get the spot for a guest blog, you need to send engaging pitches that show your worth.

Resource Reference: Content Management System (CMS) | Top 16 Blogging Platforms

But, guest blogging is just one of many strategies to incorporate into your content marketing campaigns. Usually, a successful guest blogging process has to set attainable, measurable goals. These goals might be related to your business performance (like getting more leads or clients) or your website performance (like improving your search visibility or your referral traffic).

When you have a clear goal, it becomes much easier to the pick topics you write about, the blogs where you want to publish, how frequently you write, and so on. Most importantly, a SMART goal will tell you if this tactic is right for your business and how much you should invest in it in the future. But, you’ll also need to know even more about that content at large.

Keep in mind key elements like the…

level of the audience they’re writing for: Are they beginners, intermediate, advanced, and the like?
type of audience they’re writing for: If your business is B2B, then you will want the blog audience for your guest post to be businesses, not general consumers.
general type of content they write: Is it mostly general concepts or specific, detailed tutorials? Do they like lists?

Moving on, without a doubt, without a strategic guest blogging plan, you might be losing a few things that could see your business’s success. For this and other reasons, we’ll try to identify a few things that can help you to create a strategic blog guest posting program. As well as a few tips that both the guest authors and webmasters can utilize in their content planning.

The Best Practices For Webmasters And Beginner Guest Bloggers

Of course, yes! This may bring on a very heated debate in the realms of copywriting and content marketing. Some will say it’s a waste of time. Others will swear by it and treat it like an essential part of their marketing strategy. As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle: yes, it can be a waste of time and resources, but, done right, it can be a powerful fuel for your growth.

Aside from the brand awareness aspect of it, guest blogging can also be an ethical and sustainable way to build high-quality backlinks and improve your SEO performance. As an example, you can start using Keyword Research Tools such as SEMRush and Ahrefs (just to name a couple) in your strategy. Particularly, in order to fuel your bank ideas for future guest posts.

You won’t always have a golden opportunity to pitch a guest post, but there are certain things to take advantage of when they arise. These include when a blog mentions you in one of their posts or on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.). Or rather, when the blog lists you, your business, your service solutions, or even your store products in one of its posts.

As well as when the blog specifically advertises they are looking for guest posts, and when the blog publishes another guest post. That said, there are a few other best practices to integrate into your guest posting program as follows:

1. Become a familiar face in the blogging community

In the first place, if you’re aiming to become a regular contributor to a blog, or simply want the blog owner to brag about what a great guest blogger you are, then be sure to do your best to promote your post to your own audience. The blog owner will love it if you send new readers their way. Also, be sure to reply to comments or questions that people leave on your post as well.

That will go a long way if you are working to build authority in your industry. When the goal is traffic, the results of your guest blogging should definitely be measured. The best way to do this is to create an Advanced Segment in Google Analytics per your needs. Try one segment using the source dimension with multiple statements for each domain that you have guest blogged for.

Learn More: How To Find Out Which Online Marketing Strategy Drives The Best Traffic

The fact is that in order to increase your chances of getting accepted as a guest blogger, you will want to get some recognition from the blog owner first. The best way to do this is to take a week or two and comment on their latest posts. You’ll get bonus points for sharing those posts on Twitter too – just be sure to include the blog owner’s @username on Twitter.

This way, when you pitch your guest post, you won’t be a complete stranger. Equally, to ensure that your guest post gets accepted, you will want to pitch the blog owner topics that will do well with their audience. To get some good ideas of topics that will work with the blog’s audience, there are a few websites to see what posts have been popular on social media.

Consider some of the following:

Oktopus: Oktopus tracks and reports on your social media performance
Digg: This will show you the blog posts that have received the most amount of Digg votes
Buzzer: Buzzer schedules your social media posts and provides data and analytics

In addition, as bloggers who receive daily guest post pitches, nothing turns us off more than an email starting with “Dear Sir or Madam,” “Dear Webmaster,” “To the owner of josephmuciraexclusives.com,” or simply “Hi.” Somewhere on the blog, there should be the name and contact information of the owner of the blog you are targeting for your guest post.

If you are making the request, try to be as professional (but formal) as possible by first; personalizing your email and two; addressing the right person by name. Something like: Dear Joesph… You might have to ferret around for it on the about page or on one of the blog’s social media accounts, but it is more than likely out there. Find it, and use it to start the email.

2. Introduce yourself and the role of guest posting in your request

Oftentimes, a majority of guest authors forget to introduce themselves and what it entails to guest post on their potential website. Instead, they will flood the email with a tabled list of websites that they can guest post (at times including pricing head-on) and their resource references. This’s very wrong! It may either lead your email into the spam or show some bragging.

Equally important, in your pitch, be sure to include why you should be a guest blogger. Add a few links to posts you have published elsewhere, including your own blog. Preferably go with posts that have a good bit of social engagement so the blog owner will see your potential value with their audience. What if the guest post guidelines ask you to submit a topic idea?

Well, based on your research of previously popular posts, you can try to pitch a few different ideas so the blog owner has some to choose from. The first thing to, always remember, is that a great guest post is not all about your business, your products, or your services. Rather, quality guest posts should be valuable sources of information; not advertisements.

Some blog owners are particular about only allowing other bloggers to submit guest posts on their sites. If you noticed that most guest bloggers are bloggers themselves, then you might want to introduce yourself as a blogger at [insert your personal or business blog here]. You can always be a business owner on the side; just focus on your blogging skills first before others.

3. Suggest topics that resonate with a business theme

If you are guest posting, try to choose topics that will benefit the overall business goals. The same case applies if you are also blogging on other websites too. Bear in mind, many times, guest bloggers fail because they focus on the publications instead of the content. That’s a good strategy to make sure you get published, but it serves the publishers’ goals, instead of yours.”

Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or you’re just learning how to start a blog, you should build a successful guest blogging program by picking topics that serve your ultimate goal, whether that’s referral traffic, SEO performance, leads, or clients. Start by making a short list of your top website pages that you want to promote and include in your future guest blogs.

For each page, analyze your current status, like your monthly SEO traffic, and set a goal that you want to achieve in a certain timeframe of guest blogging. You can have an overall website goal as well as page-specific goals. For each target page, pick an overarching topic that is relevant to your expertise and would be useful for readers. Format posts like the ones on the site.

You can take a look at posts on your target blog. Do they use lots of headers, bolded text, images, quotes, or another special formatting? Make sure that your post has similar elements to match other posts on the website.

4. Discover guest blogging opportunities to populate your list

At this point, it’s time to start thinking about how to pitch your guest post ideas. Note that the publications you want to target have a thorough editorial process. So first look for the website’s guest blogging guidelines, then prepare your pitch idea. Our suggestion would be to approach your blogger outreach process very strategically. Starting from your previous keywords.

After all, be sure to focus on your target publication. Check if your target website already ranks for the topic you chose. That being said, before pitching an idea to any website, it’s fundamental that you do your research first. Go through their posts and see if there’s a topic that hasn’t been covered or an angle you could take to complement their existing posts.

Then again, craft your pitch with their blog guest publishing guidelines in mind. Moreover, doing the groundwork first will show editors that you are willing to put in the work to produce good content for them. And that, unlike other creative content writers and bloggers, you’d want to contribute value to their website — something most editors will find irresistible.

Once your pitch is ready, it’s time to find your contact person and reach out to them. Notably, lots and lots of creative content marketers still use Google Sheets or Excel to track their contacts and responses. It’s not bad, but it means you’re missing out on tracking a lot of valuable information.

5. Submit your guest posting request to your industry business

One of the common questions about guest blogging is whether you should be using your best content for your own blog or for your guest posting. It really depends on the quality of the blog you are submitting your content to. If the blog has nothing but 900+ word posts with lots of screenshots, then your post should be similar. What if the blog has posts with just 500 words?

Or rather, what if the blog has less than 500 words with only one image? In such cases then, your suggested posts (again) should be similar or relate to the theme of the website. Start by making a short list of your topmost website pages that you want to promote and include in your future guest blogs. And also, for each page, try to analyze your current status.

Now that you have your content ideas mapped out, it’s time to find relevant publications and guest posting sites to include in your bucket. And as per HubSpot, start by putting together a list of target websites, as in the example below:

Forthwith, track and analyze things like your monthly SEO traffic. Then, thereafter, set a goal that you want to achieve in a certain timeframe of guest blogging. You can have an overall website goal as well as page-specific goals. For each target page, pick an overarching topic that is relevant to your expertise and would be useful for that specific website reader and audience.

Then you can start using keyword research tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs (just to name a couple) to fuel your bank ideas for future guest posts. On a similar note, try to use a powerful free CRM tool to help you track all of the relevant information you need. Whether it’s emails, meeting notes, projects, and the like. Plus you can go back and refresh your memory at any time.

Summary Thoughts:

Overall, the key to writing a high-quality guest blog is to think of it as a value-add for your audience — not as an advertisement! As with any type of inbound content, your guest blogs should be intended to educate your reader, not promote your own product or service. If the topic is relevant to your product or service, then of course there’s no harm in featuring it in your blog.

But there’s a big difference between selling yourself and offering helpful, actionable information to your readers. Instead, write guest blogs with the purpose of establishing yourself as an authority figure in your industry and the field you are best at. Whilst, introducing your name to a new audience and building genuine relationships with other bloggers or businesses.

Be that as it may, by following the best tips you’ll avoid writing or accepting spammy content and, in turn, reap the true benefits of guest blogging. To increase your SEO rankings, boost the credibility of your brand, and reach new audiences in your industry, follow our recommended steps and only associate your business blog and posts with well-respected marketers.

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