The guest post, or the publication of a blog article as a guest author, is a fabulous strategy that leaves many benefits for online companies. And blogs that seek to gain authority and improve their presence on the Internet. Do you know what it is about?. Here I show you what it is about and how to get the most out of collaborations between blogs.
Do you know what a Guest Post is?
Have you written a Guest Post on any Blog?
A guest post, or guest article, is a great content marketing and SEO Off Page strategy. That helps elevate your brand authority and enhance your reputation; It is about publishing an article of yours, written as a guest author, on a third-party blog. Also, in the same way, it is about asking for collaboration from other authors to publish on your blog.
There are many benefits of writing or receiving guest posts and, therefore, today I am going to tell you how to improve your Web positioning through this fantastic, and still quite unknown, online marketing technique. Because although you already imagine how to make a guest post, you have to know very well some tips and tricks to apply it in the correct way and get all the possible performance for your interests.
Because it is clear that a good guest posting strategy is not about wanting to publish your articles left and right on other Web pages. Nor is it about publishing irrelevant third-party content on your blog.
But that collaboration based on Guest Posts should :
- be well analyzed previously
- responding to a clear business strategy
- useful content and
- fruit of a quality collaboration.
If you do not know how to start making guest posts, or you have already tried to get the most out of this strategy without achieving the expected results, you may want to contact us and have our internet advertising services and SEO Off-page, to achieve the collaborations of most suitable Free guest posting.
Do you want to know how we design guest posting strategies for our clients? In this step-by-step guide, I teach you how to make and squeeze guest posts. Managing to increase your visibility on the internet, capturing more visits on your website, raising the authority and reputation of your brand. Let’s go there!
What is a Guest Post?
A guest post is the publication of an article (post) of yours in a blog of a third party. As a guest author (guest) of this. Or vice versa: publication on your blog of an article written by another author whom you have invited to collaborate.
A guest post, also known as guest posting or guest blogging. Is one of the most effective and powerful content marketing techniques available today; powerful to enhance brand authority. The guest posting is a collaboration between blogs, a win-win, win-win strategy, or, which means it works, and both parties (blog and guest author) benefit, and that’s what you like!
Is it worth writing and publishing a Guest Post?
At this point, I continue to listen to many people who are not convinced to write and publish their articles in another blog, “that would be like giving quality content for the benefit of another company”, much less publishing articles from other authors/companies in their blog, “That would be like advertising them!” But believe me, it has many more advantages than any inconvenience you can imagine!
If you dare to give it a try and manage to post a guest post on a quality blog from an outsider. You will see how the SEO Off Page of your website benefits. And you begin to reap the benefits of a winning content marketing strategy.
Here are some reasons to start a guest post strategy today.
Gives you Authority
Whether publishing one of your articles as a guest author on another blog. Or posting on your blog an article by an author who invited you. the posts guest you bring authority. If someone important in your niche publishes a post on your website. This will earn you the trust of your target audience. As no serious influencer will want to collaborate with you if you are not really a good professional.
In the same way, if you collaborate as a guest author and publish an article of yours on another blog. That means that you are respected and recommended by that author. And that your brand is a benchmark, that is, you also achieve authority!
Expand your client Portfolio
One of the biggest benefits of collaborations between blogs. Such as this strategy based on the guest post. Is that it is a great opportunity to grow your company’s client portfolio.
Through guest posting, your quality content can reach more people than if they never “left” your blog. And not only that, but you get to the right people: this type of collaboration achieves that many users and potential customers. Who until then did not know you, suddenly do so on the recommendation of someone who follows (the author of the blog to where are you posting your guest post ). What better way to be introduced to all that new target audience niche!. The dream of any commercial in your company!
You get readers for your blog
Getting a strong and loyal audience to closely follow your blog is not something that is achieved overnight, but is the result of a lot of effort and time. If your posts seem to be ignored and are not achieving the expected traffic, guest post collaborations with other blogs can put you in the eye of the Google hurricane to start getting new readers of your blog, right where everyone wants to be!
You get external links (backlinks)
Achieving quality external links to your web page (backlinks) is one of the aspects that search engines value most when ranking a page. That is, to position yourself more and better in Google. This is one of the most efficient off-page SEO techniques to achieve the long-awaited rise in the rankings of web search results, so you can not miss it.
Open doors to offer content to other brands
If you are looking for a new business opportunity, such as offering your content or writing services to third parties, collaborations with other blogs are a great platform to make yourself known as an expert. Also, it allows you to offer your experience so that others can take advantage of it and hire your services.
Step by step guide before making a guest post
Define your goals before doing the guest post
As I said at the beginning of this post, making a guest post is not just publishing content “crazy”. It’s about posting the right content and on the right blog. To achieve this, you first have to define what your goals are for this digital marketing strategy and, recommended, use the Design Thinking methodology.
What do you hope to achieve by writing a guest post? Basically, anyone who uses this strategy hopes to achieve three things, or at least one !:
- get external links (backlinks)
- gain more traffic to your website, and
- improve the authority and visibility of your company.
The ultimate goal is to sell, right? But depending on what your short-term goals you want to achieve with guest posts, you can determine what to write about, who to collaborate with, and where to publish.
Find where to publish your guest post
Once you have your goals clear, it’s time to find the candidate blogs to publish the guest posts that bring you closer to them. I say “candidates” because you need to assess whether the place where you initially want to publish your article as a guest has the necessary requirements to make your publication really effective and commercially profitable for your company. What are these requirements?
- The blog must be directly related to your niche.
- Have an audience that is really interested in your content.
- Having a good number of readers and followers.
- Being managed by someone who squeezes social networks to promote their content.
So let’s see where you can search and find those good candidates to publish your guest posts.
Start Google Search
One way to probe the ground and start creating a list of possible candidates, to publish our guest posts, is to do Google searches using keywords or keyword strings. Go to the Google bar and type in the main keyword of your niche, for example, “web design”, followed by “submit a guest post”, “guest post rules”, “post uninvited article” as well as words and phrases similar, that indicate to the search engine that you want to find places that accept this type of collaboration. You will be impressed by all the sites that Google will show you.
Gossip on Twitter
Although Twitter does not seem like an ideal place to find blogs or websites to publish your guest posts, it is a real treasure!
I assure you that on this social platform you can find very good candidates for your guest articles, and the best thing is that most of these are not in Google, so you can take advantage of your main competitors even if they are already doing guest posting strategies.
The method is similar to the previous case in Google: in the Twitter search bar, type the main keyword of your niche along with “guest post”, ‘Guest Blogging Site’, “guest article”, “guest author”, “free guest post sites”, “guest post” or similar.
Use this trick with Google Reverse Image
With this trick that I am going to explain to you with Google Reverse Image. You will find many blogs that allow collaborations and that are related to your niche. Without a doubt, it is one of the most fabulous ways to find good candidates to start publishing, wonderful!
- Find out who are the most influential people in your niche who often make collaborations and guest posts.
- Search the names of these people in Google.
- Within the list of results, choose the option “Images” and download the photograph of this person.
- Upload that photo to Google Reverse Image and search.
- You will see all the web pages where they show this image, a large percentage of which will be from blogs in which they have published a guest post,
Research the most respected bloggers in your niche
The most popular and trafficked blogs in a certain niche are usually those where the most recognized authors (bloggers) publish frequently. Why not post on those same sites?
I recommend that you investigate who those most respected bloggers are. Once we have some names, search Google for “guest article”, or similar, along with the author’s name. In this way, the blogs where these respected authors publish their guest posts will appear, easy and effective!
Keep track of your competitors’ backlinks
Good candidate blogs to publish your guest post would be those where your main competitors are already collaborating with their guest articles. There are several tools with which you can find out which sites link to your competitor’s Websites, software such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs, for example, or free tools such as SEO Review Tools. So keep track of these backlinks just by typing the URL of the Web page you want to investigate.
Don’t ignore the comments on your posts
If you want to get candidate blogs for your guest post, then you should be aware of the comments you receive on your blog because, if the articles you publish on your blog are of quality, surely some comments will come from other authors who have blogs on your niche, so you could be gaining an opportunity to make a collaboration of this type.
Stroll through social networks
I already told you that one of the most viable social platforms to get good candidate blogs where to publish your guest post is Twitter, but that does not mean that you cannot get opportunities on other networks, so walk through them and find out which pages or blogs they accept these kinds of collaborations in your niche.
Prepare the theme of your guest post
If you want to get another blog to accept your collaboration proposal and publish your guest post, you must be smart to choose the topic you are going to publish and prepare it. If you can get a blogger to accept your collaboration, it won’t be enough to write well, applying Copywriting techniques and write 2,000,000 words with quality content. The article should be of interest to the audience and should be at the forefront of what people are looking for and expect to read.
Start preparing in advance; don’t improvise! This is key to hitting the mark and starting to gain authority within your niche.
How to propose to an editor to collaborate on his blog writing an article as a guest?
Plan your guest post object
Again, you must plan your guest post, which means you have to spend time planning this and your goals. If you have followed my advice to find good candidate blogs where to publish your guest posts, at this point I suggest you create a document (it can be in Excel) where you include a list of those possible blogs where you would like to collaborate.
Remember, the idea of the guest post is that both parties, you and the external blog, get benefits, and in your case, you will not be able to earn much if the blog where you collaborate does not have high domain authority, low traffic, is not in your niche or It does not reach your target audience.
In this document that I have recommended you create, you can put:
- the web address of the blog
- the name of the publisher
- an email address to contact you, and
- the domain authority, which you can review from free tools like SEO Review Tools. You should discard those blogs that have a web domain authority of less than 30.
Do this task taking the necessary time, and you are ready for the next step.
Know the approach of the blog with which you want to collaborate
When making a guest post, you are not only looking to get external links to your website (backlinks), but this collaboration strategy must bring benefits to the blog where you are going to publish your article as a guest. To achieve this, you must know the type of content that this blog publishes, the type of audience it writes to, and the level of knowledge of its readers.
You will be able to obtain this information you must review the blog in detail and invest time in it; This is very important for your guest post to be successful and attractive to the audience, as well as to win new invitations to participate in other blogs.
If the blog is based on tutorials, it will not do you much good to write a post of 3,000 thousand fabulous words, because your frequent audience will not feel identified. If the blog is aimed at companies and suppliers, then you gain nothing by talking about products you want to sell. Knowing in detail this type of data is essential to make a good collaboration on any blog, whatever your niche or your company profile.
Evaluate other guest posts on that blog
Before you have your guest post ready, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at the other guest posts that are already in it. This way you will have a clear idea of how this type of collaboration is received by the audience and if there is a positive effect on them. In addition, this will help you get to know the style used by other invited authors and get closer to it.
Get to know the profile of other previous guest bloggers
Remember that we are talking about how to prepare a successful guest post and sell it to the editor, blogger, or owner of a blog with whom you want to collaborate.
So before contacting him, it is important that you know the profile of the collaborators (guest authors) who have already published with him. This way you will know what type of guests he prefers to collaborate with and you can persuade him to accept your invitation.
Collaborations are not an obligation, and sometimes you will find that your guest post proposal is not accepted. It is not the end of the world, but if you prepare yourself well the chances of rejection will be greatly reduced.
Check out the most popular blog posts
The topic you are going to write about in your guest post is a key factor when it comes to getting your proposal for collaboration with the blog accepted. So I suggest you review in detail which blog posts you want to collaborate with have been most successful and best received by their audience. Choose a topic for your article that lives up to it.
Contact the blog, but not through a form
If you already know the style of the blog in which you want to collaborate, you have planned the topic and you have a possible guest post that could be interesting for the audience of that blog, you are ready to contact its editor!
But don’t do it using the contact form. The most effective way is to do it directly, so get an email address or a means where you can greet him directly and present your proposal. In this sense, social networks could help you to get this information.
Be close to the blog editor
When contacting the editor of the blog where you want to collaborate, you must be close and pleasant; create a personal bond with him. An ethical and practical way to achieve this is by letting him know from the start that you know his blog well and that you would like to participate in it because it is important in your niche; It is not about flattery, but about being considerate and being close and sincere.
Be easily identifiable and traceable
Just as you have researched the blog you are contacting and you want to collaborate, the editor of this blog will want to do the same before giving you an answer; You’re not going to admit the first stranger to contact you, are you?
This editor will want to know who you are, what your reputation is, what weight you have in your niche, and what your presence on social networks is like. One way to make that job easier for you is to leave useful comments in your latest posts before you send your proposal because it will give you an idea of who you are when you contact them.
It is also very positive that you introduce yourself, leave him data such as the number of followers your blog has (without boasting too much about your achievements), your style of publications, or that you cite those places where you have already made collaborations. So it will not be a complete stranger to the editor and you reduce the risk of being discarded on the first try.
Show the editor what you offer him and what is his value
In addition to introducing yourself and telling the editor a little about yourself and your blog, it is important that you are clear about what you can offer and do not hesitate to highlight how this would add value to your blog.
Wait for the best time to suggest collaboration
Collaborations have a time and a goal, so you won’t always be able to find the perfect opportunity to be accepted. Some high traffic blogs often announce when they are looking for collaborations, so keeping an eye on this information will help you get the perfect time to present your proposal. If the blog you have in mind for your guest post mentions or links you, do not hesitate to contact him to thank him, first, and then to suggest publishing an article as a guest on his blog.
Write a fantastic collaboration invitation, they can’t refuse!
The first impression is what counts, right?
If this were not true, email marketing campaigns could be done in 5 minutes by anyone, but they require effort, creativity, and a lot of cunning. The same goes for this invitation you want to send.
When you send your guest post proposal to the blog editor, they will have a few seconds to decide whether to read your proposal or delete it.
If you have followed my guidelines, you will know that you must create a personalized email, which does not start with the typical phrases that smell like spam, such as ‘ Dear, dear sir, etc.’, but you must be close and strategic to get their attention.
In addition, you must consider what guidelines are specified in the blog in which you want to publish, to send your proposal according to the format and style it requires, as well as remember that it is necessary to define who you are and what benefits the blog would gain if it accepts your proposal.
Everything should be clearly explained in your email, in a subtle and natural way. A good example would be:
Good morning {publisher name}!
My name is {your name} and I have been a faithful reader of your blog for some time. Maybe you remember me for some of my comments like the one I made in your article {URL or article title}, an article that I loved by the way! Good job!
After reading to you for a while, I dare to write to you because I would love to contribute in {blog title} with a publication as a guest author.
Before sending you this email, I have been brainstorming some topics that I think your readers are very interested in and would be very useful:
– {idea of the guest post}
If it seemed good to you, I would work very hard to make sure that the article I sent you was completely original, creative, and with information that cannot be found in any other blog, with the great quality of your articles!
Of course, there is no obligation and only by reviewing the article that I would prepare and send you, you could decide whether or not to accept that article on your blog.
To give you an idea of the quality of the article that I propose, I send you a link to a guest post that I recently published in {name of the web}: {URL of another guest post made by you}
If you want to know a little more about me, you can find me at {web address and social networks}
I would love for you to take a minute to answer me, thank you!
Until then, I send you a hug and see you on your blog,
{your name}
How to write the perfect guest post?
There’s a lot I could say to help you create a terrific guest author article, and this clearly includes a ton of SEO Copywriting strategies. But I will focus only on the most important:
A guest post does not revolve around you
Although many boastful love writing blog posts as guest authors to show off their business, promote their brand, and get free publicity, this is unethical!
The purpose of a guest post is to create quality and useful content for the audience of that blog, and that it can take advantage of it to respond to their concerns. Don’t make the mistake of turning collaboration into a poem to your ego!
Respect the style and focus of the blog where it will be published
Remember, you are a guest; the guests respect the style of the place where they arrive, they are not there to make changes.
Check the style of the other publications, their length, the type of images they use, if they include videos and other audiovisual resources, the tone, etc., and try to adapt to this, even when you manage a different style on your blog.
Create a deep and really useful article
The purpose of a guest post is to serve as a reference in your niche to provide answers, propose solutions, help the audience, and clarify doubts. This way you gain authority, expand the name of your brand and, the blog that gave you the opportunity, gains the trust of your target audience, by offering them useful content.
It develops a theme in depth, but without it being extensive, heavy, and not understandable to readers. You will see how you receive comments and they will want to continue reading your publications.
Give your content air, don’t get bored!
No one wants to read a 5,000-thousand-word post that looks like a boring will or history essay, crammed with data and information that never seems to end.
If you want to make an effective collaboration, you must be smart to organize the information, and one way to achieve this is by giving air to the paragraphs. How? Making lists! The lists are easier to read, more attractive, and attractive to the naked eye.
Take advantage of this and other strategies, to facilitate the reading of your article, and you will see how you get more acceptance as a collaborator.
Choose a winning title and something highly sought after
I always say that to create a winning article, you have to start with a winning title. If you want your publication to generate a lot of traffic, it is important that you research ideas and topics for the posts, so that you can be smart when choosing a title. The title is like the cover letter and has the power to attract or drive away your readers.
Don’t forget to create internal links
Although it is not your blog, it is good that you include quality internal links within your guest post, as this is positive for the SEO of the blog in which you collaborate and the editor will be happy to see that you are interested in its Web positioning. Trust me, doing this will earn you the publisher’s trust and call you for future collaborations.
Invite readers to interact with your comments
Blog comments are powerful because they generate traffic, help to get more subscribers and it is the beginning to improve the user experience because their people comment if they are happy with the publication, leave suggestions for new topics, ask questions, etc. Make a call to action (CTA) in your guest post and persuade readers to leave comments on it. Also, respond to these comments so that you establish a link with the audience since it is useless to collaborate, publish, and leave readers forgotten. Interacting in the comments is beneficial for your conversion rate.
Take advantage of your guest author biography
Although I have made it clear that publishing a guest post is not to talk about you, it does give you the opportunity to create a short biography as a guest author. Take advantage of it to add a link that leads to your website, to direct you to a specific product, invite you to read a publication, or invite them to follow you. Depending on the objective of your collaboration, you can do one or the other, but in a natural way.
Track your post as a guest
You cannot leave your guest post as a half pregnancy. It’s not just about posting and voila, you need to keep track:
- respond to comments,
- share and advertise your post on your social networks,
- try to get a new collaboration, and even
- send a thank you note to the editor of the blog where you published.
It is part of the work involving collaborations. Do not post and disappear forgetting your “baby”, there is still much to do!
Measure the results of your guest post
As I said, collaborating with a guest post does not end when you manage to publish on the blog of a third party. After achieving this, you have to measure the results to verify or not that the article as a guest met your objectives. One way to obtain data is through Google Analytics and its inbound link tracking system.
Last tips for guest post strategy
Larger Web Pages Don’t Assure More Traffic
Let’s be clear: one of the purposes of the guest post is to generate traffic and improve the position of your website in Google results. However, if you want to gain traffic by making a collaboration, don’t decide on the bigger sites: that these receive more visits does not mean that you are going to be able to increase your organic traffic.
One way to measure success and ensure traffic to your website is by the number of comments the blog receives where you are going to publish your guest post. I know of many small blogs that get up to 50 comments for each post, and that, dear reader, is a good traffic indicator for any collaboration!
Squeeze external links
Inbound links to your website (backlinks) are very important for the positioning of your website and should never be ignored, even when you collaborate. Of course, I remind you that you must be astute to include it naturally throughout the text and whenever it leads to content related to the topic you develop, and to help the reader. If you don’t do it right, your bounce rate will reveal you’re bad practice to the search engine, and to the blog editor with whom you are collaborating!
Lean on infographics
The images say more than the words, many times. Today, social networks are full of photographs and infographics, so I recommend using them. What I like most about infographics is that they adapt to your style, are easy to create and give you the opportunity to be very creative.
In addition, there are numerous online tools with which you can create fabulous infographics that can mark a before and after in your organic traffic. I am not exaggerating when I say that a well-thought-out, useful, and attractive infographic can easily put you on Google’s radar.
Sell yourself with a memorable biography
A boring biography is a common denominator among many bloggers. But those who have understood that creating a great biography is important for traffic, today have conquered search engines. If you sell your biography with cunning, honesty, and some humor, trust me that in a short time your collaborations will make you improve your online presence and your brand will be respected.
Tell who you are, what you do, what you offer, and why it is worth visiting your website, closely and jovially, and you will see how the audience follows you. My tips for writing a perfect ‘about us’ section could help you create an amazing biography.
Conclusion: making a guest post is useful to expand your brand and conquer Google
Although many web page owners still do not know how to make a guest post to improve their visibility and positioning in Google, this strategy has been tested by many big brands, especially at the level of content marketing and Inbound Marketing. Guest article collaborations are a perfect opportunity to reach your target audience and interact with new audiences, as well as strengthen ties with important people in your niche. That is why it is one of the main techniques of SEO Growth Hacking.
The SEO of your website will thank you and you will be getting many assets. I assure you that it is a safe bet if you plan a guest post strategy as soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow is late !, Maybe tomorrow your competition is already collaborating with the most important blogs in your niche! Did you find this article helpful? As I am sure it is so, hehe, I invite you to share it with your friends on social networks, so that they also learn how to make a guest post correctly.
