Is it just me, or has the true concept of
guest blog posting
become convoluted? Is the real purpose behind writing a post for someone else’s
blog to get links, or is it to help build your brand?
I think SEOs need to take a step back from the whole “link
building” game, and refocus their attention on real, holistic marketing.
Gone are the days where you build exact-match links to
targeted pages through mass-produced articles. Today’s effective guest blogging
strategy revolves around building relationships, building your brand and
earning relevant, conversion-worthy traffic for your website.
In the broad sense of the concept, as a guest blogger, you
are a guest, and you should be
abiding by your host’s rules! To paraphrase the rest of this post before we
dive in to the nitty-gritty, guest posting is based on these criteria:
- Work
- Determination
- Savvy-ness
It takes work and effort to create a piece of content that’s
worthy of being posted on someone else’s blog. It takes determination to keep
that effort going, and when a post is rejected, even more determination to work
at that relationship and produce exceptional content for them again perhaps. It
also takes a bit of savvy-ness (to coin a term) to make sure your content is
exceptional.
Let’s break down the 5 tenets of this so-called exceptional guest posting
strategy:
Find good opportunities
There are a lot of great opportunities out there, but the
trick is finding those opportunities that are going to be worthwhile. If you’re
going to be spending your time writing a blog post for someone else’s website,
make sure that website is of a quality that meets your standards. Use tools in
your discovery phase, such as Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO to find KPIs
that will help you weed out the good from the bad. You can also use Google
Reader’s search box to find blogs based on topic, and search for those blogs
with higher subscription rates. This metric will reveal the community behind
the blog, and give you an idea of how far-reaching a particular piece of
content will travel from that site.
Advanced search queries are also great for discovering guest
posting opportunities. Use searches like [“home improvement” inurl:”write for
us”] or [“guest author” inurl:blog] or other variations.
Research the target blog’s demographic
This is an important step, but one that’s frequently overlooked.
Setting and executing a strategy is fast-paced, and many times the research
phase of guest blogging is rushed, leaving the critical component of writing
for the target blog’s audience in the rearview mirror.
If you’ve selected a blog about home décor as your target
blog, take some time to research their audience’s other interests. If they
enjoy reading posts about interior design, maybe they are also interested in
family activities, parenting or food? Remember, your post should stay on topic,
and also speak to the target blog’s primary focus, but weaving secondary and
tertiary topics into the post opens the door up to longtail keywords and
additional traffic, therefore increasing the value of your post in the blog
owner’s eyes.
Read through some of the comments left by readers on posts
throughout the site, and write down some common questions that pop up. The more
you know about the site’s readers, the better equipped you will be for writing
a highly relevant, clickable, sharable and linkable post.
Build relationships
The best guest posting opportunities don’t come with an
off-handed, random email pitch. They come as the fruit of a relationship, built
by an extended period of selfless interaction. So, if you have a list of
potential targets, start following them on social media. Retweet their posts,
participate in conversations on their Facebook page, leave comments on their
blog posts, and even link to their content from your own site. If a conference
or seminar comes in to town, you can even take it a step further and ask to
meet them in person. They will see the pingbacks, your comments and your name
on their social media channels, and they will get to know you over time. Then,
when the time is right, after you have helped them, ask them for a chance to
guest post on their site.
Write content for their audience
The third thing to do is write your content for the audience
that is going to be reading it. Ask yourself what the readers want to see, and
refer back to your research into the target blog’s demographic. Is the blog
emotionally based, or is it more technical? Make sure to answer the readers’
questions in your blog post, and you’ll likely have a higher engagement
socially and in the comments section, as well as opportunities for future guest
posts on that site.
Optimize your post
Finally, and this really is the capstone to an overall
better guest posting strategy, you should optimize your guest post. Of course
you’ll want to sprinkle relevant keywords into the content, but when I say
“optimize” I’m talking more about more than just text.
Think about the type of blog posts that you enjoy reading. What
keeps you reading? What entices you to scroll through the article, and keeps
your attention span until the very end?
There are a few ways to “dress” up your content, including:
Also utilize other resources to help get your point across
and keep the level of reader engagement up. You can embed Tweets, Quora
threads, Spotify playlists- if it’s embeddable and fits the theme, tone and
personality of your post, consider it!
is the founder of GuestBlogPoster.com. He has a wealth of SEO knowledge and experience, and is adept at key content marketing strategies including guest blogging.
