What is Guest Blogging? And Why it’s Important for Your Blog

If You Just Started a blog this year, As a marketer or a blogger, you must know how difficult it is to bring traffic to your website and convey your message to the right audience. As SEO algorithms change frequently, it is difficult for you to understand the correct marketing strategy for your website. 

Blogging plays a vital marketing tool for attracting the right visitors to your website. And writing a guest post is one of the best ways to generate a lot of traffic to your site.

Writing several blogs on different websites will bring a lot of interested readers to your site. Guest Blogging will help you understand your engaged audience and help you sell your product more efficiently.

Guest Posting/Blogging is also a great way to get a high-quality backlink to help you with your SEO ranking.

If you are doing blogging for quite a long time, then the idea of doing guest blogging had crossed your mind. If you are still confused with the concept, then we are here to tell you about everything related to Guest Blogging. 

If you still need to start a blog, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.95/month (63% off).

What is Guest Blogging?

Generally, Guest Blogging is known as Guest Posting, which is the practice of posting content on other sites. Bloggers typically write in their industry or say niche to attract traffic back to their website by those who also have similar interests and to build relationships with peers in the industry.

It will also help you increase your brand credibility and awareness among people with the same interests.

Guest blogging is like a two-way street- it will benefit you, and the website hosting the guest content. In this marketing strategy, you need to find the right site for you to contribute an article as a guest author.

Now let’s see what benefits does guest blogging will bring to you and your site.

Benefits of Guest Blogging

Some of the perks that guest blogging brings to your site and helps in SEO optimization are as follows:

1. Improves your authority in the industry

Domain Authority (DA) is one of the essential elements of a marketing strategy. The more true content you will put out, the more people will trust you. If you present content with facts that strengthens your readership.

2. Build your backlinks

One of the biggest reasons people opt for guest blogging is that it creates quality backlinks, which also helps in SEO. Know the Top 15 Best SEO Tools Online.

But, now the google algorithm has changed, and google optimizes only “relevant” backlinks. It means that both ends should provide the same information. For example, your backlink is not relevant if you are offering it on the fishery website, whereas you are an estate business.

So it would be best if you did guest blogging for a similar niche or industry.

3. Increases Organic Traffic

Your Webpages will only perform better if there will be more backlinks. So, it helps in SEO ranking as well on search engines.

Clickthroughs bring high-quality traffic to your site as through guest posts, you’re already reaching a target audience interested in your material.

4. Makes people aware of your brand

Guest Blogging helps to people know about your brand. As there is a lot of competition on the Internet, it is essential for your site that people know about your brand, then only they will trust you. It means you need to put in the effort to write a relevant guest blog as often as possible to make the most significant impact.

5. Offers Network Expansion

In today’s times, the Network plays a vital role in building your site. Guest blogging helps you to build relations with site owners and readers alike. Often functional networks lead you to collaborate with other brands and also have a significant impact on your website and your connections.

6. Expands a portfolio of work

One of the benefits of guest posting is building a portfolio. The more valuable information you share through guest posts, the more the brand shines online. It helps you to get experience and expertise in your industry. It also helps you to engage with that audience, which you don’t have.

Disclaimer: Please note, this article includes affiliate links which may provide me a commission at no cost to you. These are merely the best online jobs and the tools to use to be successful. You can read my affiliate disclosure in my privacy policy.

Things you need to consider before starting guest blogging

The significant factor that you should consider before starting a guest blogging is the purpose of guest blogging. Now, your goals must be pre-defined. If you have pre-defined your goals, then your life will become more comfortable for you and for the person also who is doing guest posting on your behalf of you.

Here are some reasons to start guest blogging:

1. To build links to your website
2. To build an authority
3. To drive traffic to a specific landing page on your website
4. To grow the email list

Criteria for picking a website for guest posting

Now, you have decided you will start a guest posting.

But, You should not pick any random niche for your blog. The mistake that most of the newbies do is select any random niche and start writing, but here they waste their time, money, and effort.

Here, you will be learning about all the actionable and practical steps you should follow.

The first thing you should do to make your guest blogging effective is to handpick guest blog websites and make an excel sheet carefully by creating a list of websites/ blogs you are considering. Now, analyze your selected sites based on the following metrics:

1. Similar niche/ topic Relevance

The first thing you should keep in mind before writing for guest blogs is that you should pick those sites that come under your niche else it would not be useful from the SEO or traffic generation perspective.

2. Traffic

It would be best if you analyzed that the website you are targeting should be healthy and growing. In this way, it will also help you to generate traffic for your blog post.

3. Author Bio

If your purpose of doing guest blogging is to create authority and a name for yourself, then you should check whether the targeting websites offer an author bio or not. Without this, you will only earn backlinks, not the authority that you are looking for in your brand.

How to write a successful guest blog post bio

Your guest blogging bio should be relatively brief, but should accomplish these four goals:

•  First, Include your full name (or your blogging pseudonym)
• Be reasonably short, around 100 words are common, but you should check the guest blogging guidelines, as some blogs have strict word limits on the bios.
• Be written in the third person like “Sadhana Pal is…” not “I am…” 
•  You can also include one link back to your blog or website (most commonly your homepage)

Now many times, you must be confused; what right links should you provide in your Bios?

Instead of providing a link to your homepage, where people will stop after clicking on the link, you can add a link to that particular content for which you are building relationships and this will audience a more reliable call to action.

The above checklist will help you stay focused on high-quality sites that will help you to generate more traffic.

Many of you must be thinking about how you will get to know whether the site accepts guest articles or not.

For this, you have to check your targeted site, whether they have a blog or not. But in this also, you have to check if the site has published guest blogging guidelines, which is the indicator that they accept guest postings. 

If you can’t find any instructions, you have to look for article bylines, if any, written by someone who is not affiliated with it.

And if you are not able to find any of them, you have to change the site or the leader who is responsible for the blog.

How to find guest blogging opportunities?

Now, it is time to find out the websites and blogs where you can do guest blogging. Here are a few tips through which you can find the ideal site for yourself.

To find a suitable site, you can use google search operators like keywords. Such as:

                     i) Keyword “submit a guest post.”

                     ii) Keyword “accepting guest post.”

                     iii) Keyword “want to write for.”

Such keywords will help you to find the sites that allow guest posting. And once you have identified the right place for yourself and your niche, its time to get started.

Step 1: Write the Guest Post

So after you have identified your website, you need to start writing for it. Before, start writing and check the owner’s writing style as it increases your chance to get accepted for a guest blog. Check the topics which have already been covered earlier and make sure your content should be unique and new.

If your content gets rejected, don’t get afraid to try other websites or publish it in your blog. And make sure you ask for feedback as it will help you reach to improve. 

Make sure you optimize your content by using one keyword as it will help your content gets the highest ranking and more traffic to your blog.

Step 2: Contact the blog owner

If you know the owner of the site, then call and ask for your guest post.

If you don’t know the blog owner, then you should write an opening email which you will find on the website with your guest post attached to it.

Put the following in your signature:

• Your name
• Email address
• Blog address
• Twitter ID
• Facebook ID

The owner likes to see if your content can provide value to their blog or readers or not.

Step 3: Capture traffic after your guest post

Now it’s time to celebrate the immediate blog exposure that you will get through subscribers. It will depend on the quality of your content.

After this, you can post a fresh new blog on your site so that this new audience can see your post. It will keep your new visitors for a while.

Step 4: Promote your guest post

As soon as the guest post is published, promote it on your social media handles like Facebook and Twitter. This is an excellent strategy to build authority and tell other people to like you.

Step 5: Reply To Comments

Engage with the customers who are commenting on your guest post as it will help you build relations and give you more opportunities for guest posting. It will also help you to create the authority of your brand.

Remember, If you still need to start a blog, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.95/month (63% off).

How can you track the results?

If your purpose of guest blogging is traffic, then you should measure the growth. The best way to measure the increase is to create an Advanced Segment in Google Analytics. Using this tool, you can view all your Google Analytics data based on the referrals from your guest post. This tool will help you determine you’re marketing strategy and blogging traffic through comments and shares.

4 Common Problems that you will face during Guest Blogging

In the journey of guest blogging, you will face many hurdles and challenges, but that’s okay; we all are here to make mistakes and learn and grow.

At some point during the journey, you are going to face the following hurdles:

1. What if you don’t get any response to your pitch

Sometimes, after sending a pitch and don’t hear anything after a week or so, it can happen, that’s normal.

If it gets two weeks or more, then you should check whether your pitch was safely received or not. For this, you can use various tools that automatically handle follow-up reminders.

Else, you can send an email like this:

 Hi (First Name),

Just checking to know if you got any guest post pitch a couple of weeks ago. Here it is again, only in the case it might go to spam or get deleted.

Let me know if you think it would be a good fit.

(Your name)

You can also try to send messages to bloggers on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn.

Don’t do it frequently as it can look pushy or pressuring. 

2. What if you don’t hear back after sending your draft

Sometimes, you got a positive response for your pitch, but bloggers went silent for the draft. Such things happen when they’re on the fence about whether or not to take it or check and decide on the changes.

Don’t be too quick to follow up, but don’t wait for several weeks if it will slip from their mind.

If you have not heard anything after a week or so then you can send a follow-up email like this:

Hey ( full name),

I wondered if you’d had a chance to look at the draft of my guest post? ( no worries if you have not- I know you are very busy!) If you need any changes or anything added, then let me know.

Thanks!

(Your name)

After sending a follow-up email, if you don’t get any response in a week or so, it would be better if you take your guest post pitch somewhere else that would be the right fit for you.

3. What if the host blogger wants lots of changes in your draft

Sometimes it happens that a host bloggers want to publish your guest post but with tons of changes. If the amendments are minor, you should agree with doing the changes as you have already invested in the guest blog, and if you make the small changes, then it is ready to get published.

Usually, site owners asked you to change a paragraph or two, request you to add more details, add sources, and so on.

But if there are a lot of changes in the draft, then it got rejected by the host.

If the host wants lots of modifications that will change your idea or perception of the blog so you can withdraw it.

4. What if the host blogger removes your link

If the host blogger removes most of the links, you have gone a bit of overboard in linking to your content. So, only one or two links will remain place, and still going with the guest post is the best option for you.

Most bloggers expect you to write a guest blog in return for the bio link without guaranteeing another link within a post.

Now it’s your turn.

If you still need to start a blog, you can get started with Bluehost for $2.95/month (63% off).

Guest Blogging FAQ.

Does Guest blogging work?

Yes, Guest blogging is still a vital tool for the digital marketing of your site or blog. It is a great way to build relationships with the people in the industry of your niche, helps to know other bloggers, gets new audiences, Build’s blog authority and reputation, and also helps you to improve your SEO.

Do Guest Bloggers get paid?

In general, most guest bloggers do not get paid to write guest posts as they are providing backlinks and building relationships for their blog. Sometimes, some sites may charge you to write a guest post for them in the form of sponsored posts.

Should I accept guest posts on my blog?

Everything has its cons and pros. If you allow guest posts in your blog then you get content to publish in free. This will increase the number of articles on your blog and will also increase the traffic.

On the other side, the downside is that you have to make strict editorial guidelines and make sure that the content is high-quality and doesn’t any external links and should be free from low-quality.

Is guest blogging Good For SEO?

Yes, guest blogging is good for SEO as through backlinks it provides more referral traffic on your blog posts. You should use correct keywords, you can mix-match keywords with [hrase-match anchors], branded anchors, and some other anchors without your targeted keyword.  

Enjoy the benefits of Guest Blogging

Now many of you must be thinking how many times should we do guest posting? There is no limit to the number of guest posts you can do. It depends on the exposure you get and how much time you want to spend on guest blogging.

Identify the best strategy that helps you bring more traffic and work on that strategy to grow your traffic, number of subscribers, and authority.

If your purpose is to build links, I suggest you do guest posting for different sites/blogs rather than doing it for one website only.

Now it is time for you to use Guest Blogging as your marketing strategy and let us know whether it helped you. We will love to see if you have any other strategy for guest blogging in our comment section.

Continued Reading on Legitworkjobs.com: If you want to take your blogging further, check out my ultimate guide to starting a blog, ways to make money blogging, and the best web hosting companies to get started.