To experience true success of a site or blog , one becomes essential to adopt the strategy of Guest Blogging.
If you are a novice user , you may be wondering what the Guest Blogging: basically it’s about going to write posts for other blogs , much more famous and well-known than yours, which live within your same niche.
The goal is that at the end of each article you share, the blog owner gives you the opportunity to insert your Bio with a “dofollow” link to your site. This will allow you to receive traffic and get a quality link .
I assure you that this strategy is extremely effective. I used the Guest Blogging for this site and this factor has contributed to making us reach 30,000 organic monthly visits .
1) Establish the objectives to be achieved
Before starting in the fifth to research blogs and forums where to do Guest Blogging, you should decide what goal to aim for before starting, such as the following:
- become an authoritative website or blog in your reference sector
- get more traffic
- increase the number of backlinks to your site
Whatever your goal, remember this: the Guest Blogging it allows you to drive more traffic to your site and at the same time get quality links from websites that are more authoritative and popular than yours. It is therefore a really important tool, but to be used with due attention and awareness.
2) Identify blogs or sites for Guest blogging
The first step is to find a relevant site or blog in your niche or industry of interest. Like?
The fundamental criteria you need to evaluate in this research are the following:
- the site must have many visitors
- the users of the site regularly interact and / or share content on social media networks
- the owner of the web space is particularly active on Facebook , Twitter and the like
So if your blog is about travel (or about fashion, or about sport ..) you will need to find blogs or sites that have a target audience that frequently interacts in that sector, looking for and sharing information, comments and news.
However, not all sites or blogs accept guest post. So it is essential to turn to those platforms that are willing and interested in publishing content from other sources. Let’s see how to track them down.
Search on search engines
The technique to identify them is as follows: go to Google or any other search engine and take a keyword related to your category or niche. For example, if your blog talks about ” web marketing “ you will have to search for:
- Web Marketing + “Collaborate”
- Web Marketing + “Collaborate with us”
- Web Marketing + “Write for us”
This way you will find the most prolific blogs in your industry that they accept guest posts and whose visitors interact frequently by leaving comments and sharing.
Competitor backlinks analysis
If through an SEO campaign or through our online partner you have identified the links where our competitors have left their backlinks , you will most likely have identified authoritative sites or blogs .
If, on the other hand, you have not done any of this, the Open Site Explorer tool allows you to identify the backlinks of your competitors.
Research on social media networks
Many bloggers now share their posts on social networks . With the same technique adopted for Google and the combination ” keyword ” + ” guest post ” you will get all the results of the guest posts for a certain category.
3) Analyze the results of our research
Now, with a list of blogs for guest blogging , you also need to pay attention to what you write.
In fact, if you create generic posts or that other visitors consider spam you can have a very negative impact on your reputation, which would have a devastating impact on the site you want to promote.
It therefore becomes essential to analyze the blog , to make sure that your content is homogeneous with its style and its topics.
You will then evaluate:
- the level and technicality of the contents , i.e. whether they are simple, medium or advanced
- to whom it is addressed, whether to individuals, to companies or to certain segments of the public
- the presence and role of other guest bloggers: what they write, if they receive comments or if their posts are shared.
Each of these points is important, don’t forget.
Implement an optimal Guest blogging strategy
After analyzing the blogs , their content , their visitors and guest post already present, it’s time to figure out how to get the most out of your work as a guest blogger .
Carpe Diem
That is, “Seize the day” ! It seems trivial but if for example you are mentioned or mentioned by another blog or on a social network , what better time to enter your post ?
Propose your content immediately, and keep the attention on you and your web space alive .
“Read the instructions”
Some blogs or sites have specific rules regarding guest post. Obviously it is good to follow them to ensure that your post is not deleted.
Contact the site owner
Respect for the landlord is always essential. For this I suggest you to contact him by e-mail perhaps using his name (avoid a generic “hello” or “good morning”) to make you appreciate more.
When contacting him, explain the reasons why he should accept your guest posts .
Talk about your web experience , the content you wrote and shared, and the fact that you chose his site to do Guest Blogging, by virtue of its authority.
Enter posts similar to those on the blog
It is important not to differ from the style of the blog owner and try to respect the required cut as much as possible. If posts are typically around 500 words long with lots of images , your post will need to follow that line as well.
Write posts that are informative and non-advertising or self-referential
There is nothing more irritating than reading self-congratulatory or advertising articles .
The best thing is therefore to create informative posts that add value to the host blog and generate a discussion.
Remember that your goal is to get other readers to share your content and / or click on your link in the author bio.
Writing original articles , which tell a story or give your reader the feeling that they have learned something, is the most effective way to bring visits and authority to your site.
Another useful factor is to insert some links that lead to previous posts or topics covered by the owner. This will in fact entice him to publish more of yours guest post and will allow you to earn his sympathy.
How to set up our signature or “Author Bio”
The signature or the author bio space is the most important part as it allows you to promote your site / blog , and your products or services . You can set it according to your goal:
- if you want to build effective backlinks you need to make sure you enter a link that takes visitors to your site
- If, on the other hand, the goal is to bring traffic to your site, you have to decide whether to lead it to a specific page, product or service . The short bio will therefore have to be adapted according to the landing page.
- If, on the other hand, you want to increase your followers on social networks, just insert the link to your pages on Facebook or other social networks below your bio .
The important thing is to create an engaging bio that entices readers to click on your links.
Guest Blogging plugin
How do you see it done Guest Blogging it takes a lot of work, especially if you decide to start this winning strategy on your site as well. If your blog starts to be successful you will most likely receive proposals from bloggers who want to publish on your pages.
As always, having a plan and investing time in the beginning to create a good process for reviewing and publishing the content can save you a lot of time.
Our beloved WordPress platform as always comes to our aid with much appreciated plugins . Let’s see which tools offer automated solutions for guest blogging .
WP User Frontend Pro
WP User Frontend Pro will allow you to greatly reduce the effort required to manage and control the content that is sent to you for Guest Blogging.
You can create a page that acts as an interface between you and your guests, which can be customized and then used for sending content respecting your requirements.
If your site is very prestigious and you have become an authority in your field, you can also monetize this business through the plugin .
The plugin is free but for those who need more advanced features or have to manage a lot of incoming content , they can consider one of the various paid packages that start at $ 49 per year.
Conclusion
After listing all the key points for a good strategy to Guest Blogging, remember to promote the guest post on your blog as well .
This is not only a good practice but it allows you to show that you are active on other sites as well.
Another important thing is to always respond to comments that are left on your guest blog .
It sounds trivial, but paying attention to readers makes them feel important and will therefore be more willing to follow you.
To check the effectiveness of your Guest Blogging, sites like Google Analytics are valid tools for monitoring traffic from guest blogs.
Have you ever guest blogged ?
What is your experience on this?