To join the field of digital marketing means that words become one of your foundations. This is why a huge chunk of marketers online have embraced a popular strategy—blogging.
Now that businesses have gone virtual, creating engaging content is one way to find your target audience and build a loyal customer base. Think of blogging as a tool used to inform customers of what products and services they can get from a certain company.
However, coming up with new ideas can sometimes be challenging. With lots of content to compete with, how are you supposed to make things exceptional?
This is where guest blogging comes into play. If you’ve been considering using this tactic, here’s a comprehensive guide to getting you started.
What is Guest Blogging?
Also referred to as guest posting, guest blogging is a strategy where a company invites someone outside their organisation to write a blog on their website. Typically, the invited writer is an expert within the field.
This type of blog article includes a byline or the name of the writer. They are often labelled as ‘contributors’ or ‘guest authors’ on the website.
If you become a guest blogger, you will be compensated for your contribution. However, it will still depend upon the organisation. In some cases, non-monetary rewards include a link to your social media profiles or personal blog.
To help you further understand guest blogging, take a look at its advantages below.
Benefits of Guest Blogging
There’s no doubt that guest blogging is both beneficial for the organisation and the guest writer. Let’s dive deeper into how it can help you in the long run.
Improve Brand Awareness
One of the most important benefits of guest blogging is it establishes awareness for your brand. Remember, no one would spend their hard-earned money on something if they don’t know what it can offer.
This is especially helpful if you’re just starting.
The more you participate in guest posting, the more you get your name out there. Since the competition online is getting more cutthroat, it is ideal that your brand is available on different sites.
When you guest blog on various websites, you can take advantage of the daily reach that the website gets. However, you have to choose carefully where you do guest postings.
Make sure that you guest blog for an organisation considered to be an expert in the industry. In this way, you can further improve your credibility and build trust among your target audience.
Improve SEO Performance
When it comes to improving your search engine optimisation (SEO), high-quality guest posts are right up your street. Using organic search engine results, SEO is a content marketing strategy used to increase traffic to your website.
To put it simply, it helps you maintain good website rankings.
Guest blogging is beneficial when you’re aiming to boost your rankings and domain authority. If your website has credible and informative content for your readers, you are ensured that you can attract more visitors in the long run.
So, when you’re creating guest posts, make them as engaging as possible. Keep in mind that Google will recognise your content as relevant if you gain more backlinks and shares!
Drive Referral Traffic
If you’re just starting in guest blogging, remember that you have to collaborate with the right websites. By guest posting for an established domain, you can attract their traffic back to your own website or social media accounts.
Collaborate with websites that are in the same industry and are relevant to your expertise. In that way, you will share the same target audience, helping your website gain organic traffic.
Build Authoritative Backlinks
If you wonder why most people have started guest blogging, it’s because this strategy allows them to create good backlinks.
Since quality backlinks are still important to algorithms in search engines, this positively contributes to SEO.
Meanwhile, you have to consider that backlinks have undergone several changes. You can’t expect that everything will yield good results every time you publish a guest blog.
Today, search engines like Google depend on relevant backlinks. This means that both ends should include similar information. For instance, creating a backlink from a bookstore website is not ideal if you own a restaurant chain.
Get More Leads and Users
Being a guest blogger on other websites gives you the chance to expand your market reach. You can connect with an audience that’s outside of your sphere, helping you earn recognition and more leads.
Not only that, guest blogging also means that you build a community of reliable resources for your customers. This improves the overall customer experience that will make your audience come back for more. When good results are consistently generated, attracting new customers is within reach.
Get Started with Guest Blogging
Getting started on guest blogging may feel overwhelming, but once you get the hang of it, the process becomes a walk in the park. Luckily, we are ready to help you get on a great start in building your SEO process for better guest blogging opportunities.
It takes effort to make sure that whatever you put out there is successful. Take a closer look at these steps:
Find Guest Post Target
Ideal Site for Guest Blogging
For as long as you know what you’re trying to accomplish, finding an ideal site for guest blogging should be easy. The first recommended technique is to try Google search strings.
Here are some examples you can follow:
- Topic keyword phrase + become a contributor
- Topic keyword phrase + guest post by
- Topic keyword phrase + write for us.
For instance, if you want to create a blog about fishing, the keywords may be ‘fishing tips for beginners’ or ‘how to fish’. Make sure that you list down all the relevant sites that show up on your search results, excluding the sponsored ads.
This will make it easier for you to find the most qualified sites for guest blogging.
You can also use Google Reverse Image Search to check where your competitors are guest posting. Start by taking the headshot of a famous guest blogger. Results will show you what sites they have collaborated with, helping you find publications that accept guest blogging.
The Site’s Theme is Relevant to Your Topic
Context matters, especially when it comes to guest blogging. The next thing you have to focus on is ensuring that your guest posts make sense to you and the site owner.
One of the biggest mistakes that first-time guest bloggers make is they choose the wrong topic. They assume that they can just write about anything they’re passionate about.
When you’re guest blogging, keep in mind that it’s not about you—it’s about the blog owner’s readers. Ask yourself: Will this be relatable to the target audience or not?
If you don’t fixate on your own agenda, your post will be more polished and focused.
High Domain Rating/Authority
Finding guest blogging opportunities is just one of the many steps. You have to ensure that the website is worth your time and energy. Since building guest blogging strategies take some time, your prospects should help you reach your goals.
Start by assessing a website’s domain authority using SEO tools like Ahrefs. Shown on a scale from 1 to 100, it informs you if a certain website is well-established and provides good traffic if you become a guest blogger.
Websites with great performance will typically have a domain rating of 40 or higher. The bigger the number, the better.
You can also check a site’s follower and subscriber numbers if they are published. Some websites choose to publish this if they have a huge following. If there’s none, visit their social media pages to check if they actively promote content, including guest posts.
Allow Dofollow Backlink
A dofollow backlink is a link that passes the authority of the origin site to the destination site—a vital aspect for rankings and SEO. If a website allows this type of link, then you are in good hands.
The main advantage of dofollow backlinks is they improve your web page’s PageRank. This means that you have a higher chance of ranking high on search engines.
Write Your Guest Post
Some people mistakenly assume that knocking guest blogging out of the park can be effortless, for as long as they’re on the right platform. But without a set of criteria to follow, success cannot be guaranteed.
So, what are the standards you need when writing guest blogs? Check them out below.
Long Form and Compelling Content
If you’re a first-time guest blogger, you might wonder how long a guest post should be. Usually, posts should be more than 1,000 words in length.
When writing long-form content, make sure that you break your content into sections. Include headings, subheadings and bullet points, among other things. This will help your readers understand the topic better.
Moreover, make your content compelling by writing in a conversational tone. Although you want to build authority, refrain from sounding too stiff. You’re writing a blog, not a manual for car maintenance.
Always embrace your sense of humour and creativity.
Optimised for Onpage SEO
Optimising your blog for SEO makes your posts more visible to people who use search engines. This helps Google find your product or service, making your post more competitive.
One of the first steps you should take is narrowing down your target audience for your blog. For example, you can use buyer personas to find an audience using demographics and consumer behaviours.
Another step is conducting keyword research. If this is your first time, it can be a challenging task. However, you may begin by listing down important topics based on your business or industry. Once you have gathered enough topic buckets on your list, identify the keywords that would work for those buckets.
Don’t forget to include a call to action! When you have a compelling CTA, your readers will have an idea of what to do next through your post.
Since CTAs come in various formats, it allows enough room for creativity. Try to experiment with widgets, hyperlinks and buttons, depending on your purpose. For example, you can provide hyperlinks in the conclusion if you want to direct readers to another blog post.
Contain Internal Link to Your Own Blog Post
Your content needs links if you want it to rank. This is why including internal links to your blog posts will boost your SEO. When a post or a webpage is linked to from somewhere else, Google has better chances of finding it.
Users and search engines use links to explore more content on your website. There are different types of internal links you can use such as footer links and image links.
You should also add contextual links to point readers to related content. With these links, search engines will determine your content’s value.
Submit Your Guest Post
When you’re already done writing and polishing your guest blog, it’s time to hit the submit button.
However, before you submit an article, make sure that you read and follow the guidelines. If you fail to do so, it will affect your credibility which may result in rejection.
Remember that popular websites receive multiple submissions every day. This allows editors to save time by deleting pitches from guest bloggers who don’t follow the rules.
To increase your chances of getting published, mention why you’re qualified to guest post. Provide some links to articles you have written for other sites or on your own blog. That’s why you should produce quality writing to establish a good reputation in your chosen niche.
Follow Up and Monitor the Performance
If everything goes according to plan, the website owner will edit and publish your blog. But this doesn’t mean that it’s already out of your hands.
Ensuring that your guest blog performs well is a part of your job. This includes content promotion, helping more readers find your content and explore your site. The blog owner will also benefit from increased traffic.
Share your guest blog on your social media pages. You can also promote your content to your subscribers via an email marketing newsletter. Some of them may even comment and share your post within their own networks.
To monitor your guest blog’s performance, use Google Analytics to know how much traffic your post is generating. This helps you assess your success rate in terms of conversion and SEO performance.
Best SEO Tools to Help Your Guest Blogging Activity
It’s not surprising that guest blogging has garnered so much traction in the past years. Because it carries the promise to help you grow your audience, people have embraced this practice.
However, it won’t be rewarding if you don’t use the right SEO tools. You need to do it right if you want to establish yourself as an expert and improve your SERP rankings.
Check out some of these reliable SEO tools for guest blogging:
Ahrefs
Known as an all-in-one marketing application, Ahrefs offers data to track your niche, research competitors and boost traffic. This tool is recommended if you want to learn how you can outrank your competitors within the industry.
Its features include content research, backlink research, web monitoring, rank tracker, alerts and site audit.
It also has a content explorer feature where you can find the most trending articles for any given topic. This will allow you to create relevant content for your target readers.
Semrush
Another comprehensive tool to optimise your guest blog for SEO is Semrush. From content analysis to keyword research, this app has more than 20 tools available.
Here are its best features:
- Reports – When creating custom reports, Semrush has pre-made templates you can utilise. This includes Domain Comparisons, Google My Business Insights and Monthly SEO.
- Domain Analytics – This feature allows users to access data for any domain. You’ll learn which keywords rank organically and how much traffic a website gains from paid searches. You can view your competitor’s domain and export the whole report, helping you strategise your content better.
SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is an SEO tool that can help you make business-critical decisions to improve traffic and discover opportunities. You can view key metrics and traffic for every website such as keyword ranking, traffic source and engagement rate.
Offering several features, SimilarWeb lets you view how many visits a certain website receives over time. It displays a visitor’s average duration, the number of monthly visits and the number of pages visited.
Want to target readers from a specific country? You can use its Geography feature to see the top countries driving traffic to a website.
Hubspot CRM
Hubspot CRM provides software for operations, content management, marketing and sales. Aside from helping you improve customer relationships, guest bloggers can use it for content creation.
The platform offers a user-friendly interface, making it the ideal tool for beginners. It is easy to create content using the tool since content creation sections like landing pages and emails are drag and drop.
There are also free tools you can take advantage of. This includes a blog idea generator if you’re having a hard time coming up with new ideas.
Guest Blogging Best Practices
Just like any other marketing practice, excelling in guest blogging will take some time. Your first-ever guest blog may or may not meet your goals or expectations.
However, this should not discourage you from trying again and finding publications to write for. It all boils down to the practices you religiously follow. Here are some habits you can start with:
Set Specific Goals
When you have specific goals in mind, finding the right websites to submit guest blogs to becomes more trouble-free. Most guest bloggers follow common goals, including:
- Getting traffic back to their web pages
- Establishing themselves as an authority within their industry
- Increase your SERP visibility and SEO performance by X%.
Make sure that your goals remain measurable and attainable. When you know what you’re aiming for, you can write your author bio accordingly. Blog owners will then assess if you have delivered what you promised in your pitch.
Choose the Right Topic that will Benefit Your Business
Once you’ve found a website to write for, determine what topics matter to the owner. Know what’s popular on the platform and start from there. You can contribute to the site’s growth by updating outdated content or writing additional information.
Use SEO tools to help you pitch an idea that hasn’t been published before. It also helps you write a related blog post that’s likely relatable and popular to the site’s target audience.
Choose Guest Blogging Sites with High Authority Score
A surefire way of making your guest blog successful is to send submissions to websites with high authority scores. Try to target sites with a domain authority of over 40 to help your website rank higher.
This is especially true if you won’t be compensated for your submission. In that way, you can still benefit from referral traffic and help you raise awareness for your brand.
Final Thoughts
Since the global pandemic has encouraged more businesses to join the virtual space, having the upper hand gets more challenging. How can you establish an authority in your field, especially when it’s already oversaturated?
However, marketing strategies like guest blogging provide benefits to all the parties involved. It makes your content marketing campaigns more unique and educational. If you’re a writer, you get the chance to be noticed by new readers and build future partnerships. Everything is reciprocal.
Strategising your first guest blog may make you feel clueless when you’re just starting. If you need assistance in shaping your content, our agency has your back.
Book your appointment and work closely with us regarding keyword research, converting leads and many more.
FAQ
Is Guest blogging paid?
In most cases, guest bloggers do not get paid. Some of them do guest blogging to get backlinks for their blog, expand subscriber base and build relationships within the industry.
However, there are some sites that will offer compensation, but they require you to write a specific number of posts over a period of time.
How do I create a guest blog?
When creating a guest blog, write down your specific goals and stick to them. Make sure that you read the submission instructions beforehand and read the site’s published content so you know exactly what to write.
When writing the post, offer a different angle by covering personal stories. Make it unique. Prove that you have something new to offer by still replicating the website’s style and guidelines. Don’t forget to check your content’s grammar and spelling as well before clicking the submit button!
How do guest bloggers make money?
Guest bloggers make money by promoting different brands. However, before they can gain compensation from it, they first need to establish a steady following and publish quality content. They practice proper SEO techniques to attract potential clients in the long run.
Another monetising strategy guest bloggers use is sponsored content and pay-per-view ads. PPM ads, for example, won’t reward you with huge money but a small payout is guaranteed. Remember that the amount will depend on the traffic you can generate within a period of time.
What are the benefits of guest blogging?
Guest blogging has several benefits including improving your SEO performance, raising brand awareness, creating good backlinks and driving referral traffic. But most importantly, it helps you smooth out your entire marketing campaign.
Through this strategy, you’ll learn what works best for others and integrate it into your own brand.
About Roots Digital
Roots Digital is an award-winning digital marketing agency headquartered in Singapore, specialising in eCommerce Marketing and lead generation. We are a Google and Meta Business certified partner working to deliver the best-in-class digital marketing campaigns from large enterprises and SMEs to growing start-ups.
Some of our core digital marketing services include SEO services, SEM services, PPC services, Google Analytics Services and more.
PSG Grant For Digital Marketing – Save up to 70% on your digital marketing today!
