How to Use Guest Blogging for SEO

Guest blogging is a method used by bloggers to increase blog traffic where bloggers write posts to be published on other bloggers' blogs. Guest blogging can work in one of two ways:

• You write a post to appear on another person's blog.
• Another person writes a post to appear on your blog.

It's an opportunity to take your expertise and share it with others, as well as an opportunity to increase traffic to both parties’ blogs. Guest blogging is also a great way to establish yourself as an authority figure within your market and build relationships with other bloggers and experts within your field.

Benefits of Guest Blogging

• Positioning yourself as an authority and well-known name in the industry.
• Getting exposure (traffic) back to your website.
• Building backlinks to your website.

With the right kind of content on the top blogs, you can do all three of these things. If you are trying to accomplish either #1 or #2, then you will want to find blogs that have a good sized and engaged audience. If you are just trying to accomplish #3, then you need to pinpoint blogs with strong root domain authority. 

Step 1: Find Guest Post Sites

#1: Google Search Strings

Search strings you can use to find guest blogging opportunities with ease:

Keyword “guest post”Your Keyword “write for us”Your Keyword “guest article”
Keyword “guest post opportunities”
Keyword “this is a guest post by”
Keyword “contributing writer”
Keyword “want to write for”
Keyword “submit blog post”

#2: “My Guest Posts” Pages

Some bloggers love to share the places that they’ve been published.
Here’s how to find them:

Keyword  “my posts on other blogs”
Keyword: “guest post”
Keyword  “my guest posts”
Keyword “my guest blogs”

#3: Google Reverse Image Search

Find a competitor website that tends to guest post on a lot of high-quality blogs in your niche. Grab the URL of their headshot and pop it into Google reverse image search:

And you’ll get a list of places they’ve guest posted.

#4: Twitter and Google +

Move on to Twitter search and enter your search string like this: “Keyword” + guest post
Go through the results and find out potential guest posting targets. You can follow a similar process over at Google+ as well.

#5: AllTop.com

Enter your keyword and you’ll get a list of the niche’s best sites. From this top list you can find those who accept guest posts.

#6: From Blog Comment

Ask users who comment on your blog whether they’d accept a post on their site. They’ll usually say yes after all they liked your content enough to comment on it.

#7: Pre-Made Lists

Search Google to find out guest posting opportunities which other bloggers have already found and listed online.

Step #2: Research Your Targets

Always Prefer Quality

High quality guest post writing is a resource intensive process. Don’t waste your precious time on low quality blogs.

• In general you want sites 
• Have an authoritative link profile
• Are related to your site
• Only post high quality content
• Have a real following
• Can bring you targeted traffic
• Won’t bury your link in an author bio area far below your content
• Have a significant amount of Twitter followers and Facebook fans

Find the Perfect Guest Post Topic

You need a topic that fits their site, if you can write content that speaks to their audience you’ll have no problem whatsoever getting your post accepted.

Here’s how to find the perfect topic:

• Audience Knowledge Level: If you’re about to write a guest post about SEO, you need to know who you’re writing for before you set pen to paper.
• Outdated Information: Check for popular articles on the site that are a bit out of date. Write a similar piece with updated content.
• Read Published Guest Posts: What have other people posted already? This will give you an idea of what the site owner looks for.
• Recent Stuff: Avoid writing similar contents multiple times. Keep it fresh as much as you can.

Guest Post Guidelines

Some bloggers have really, really specific guidelines which is very important in case of rejecting a post. Some are there to standardize their posts and others are there to make sure people actually read them. Either way, it’s important that you read them. Because there’s nothing worse than writing up a 1200-word article, only to have it rejected because of a 1000-word limit.

Step#3: The Approach

Most of the guest posting is done through emails. So you need to keep a standard while send these emails. Follow below approach while sending emails:

• Starts off with something specific about THEIR SITE
• Short and sweet (aim for 150 words or less)
• Gives them specific topics to choose from (less work for them)
• Touches on your experience and published work

After getting the reply, send a complete article of the selected topic.

Step #4: The Post

Add the link appropriately after reading the guidelines. Always remember to write good or better content than what you post on your own site. The authority sites which we found out are authorities because they only post quality stuff.

Some of the tips to create a website friendly post are: 

• A valuable source of information: The first thing to remember about a great guest post is that it is not about your business, your products, or your services. Guest posts should be valuable sources of information – not advertisements!
• Format posts like the ones on the site: Make sure that your post has similar elements to match other posts on the site.
• Include internal and source links: Include appropriate links to the keywords added in the post.
• Include a call to action for comments: At the end of your amazing guest post, be sure to Include a call to action for comments. The more discussion your post generates, the better!

Step #5: Follow Up

You need to do something to get the most from every guest post, some are:

• Actively Respond to Comments
• Promote Using Your Social Media Channels
• Send a Thank You Note

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.