Guest posting, or guest blogging, is a strategy that allows digital marketers to build relationships and gain exposure, backlinks, and authority through another person’s blog.
While it can boost traffic to your website and increase your visibility, it can also be harmful or detrimental to website growth, depending on how you use it.
You might wonder, “What is guest posting in search engine optimization (SEO), and how can it affect my rankings in the search results?”
We’re here to discuss all that and more so you can make the most out of guest posting for SEO.
Understanding Guest Posting
This content marketing tactic may seem like it’s only about writing an article and sending it to another site for publishing.
However, there’s more to guest blogging than meets the eye.
It takes a lot of research and understanding of how SEO works to make the most of this marketing tactic.
Here’s everything you need to understand and maximize guest blogging.
Defining Guest Posting
Understanding the concept of guest posting doesn’t have to be difficult, especially with how common and simple it is.
The easiest way to define guest blogging efforts is the writing and publishing of one or more articles on other blogs or websites.
Its main objective is to boost your own blog by lending your expertise to another website while writing guest articles to help the readers in their niche.
You may have to follow the website’s guest post guidelines to fit in with the rest of the website’s content. However, providing a great article can lead to an invite for future guest posts.
The Process of Guest Posting
Guest blogging requires you to find websites that are currently accepting guest posts. You can do this through guest blogging outreach and building relationships with other website owners in your niche.
The website owner will typically include your information and label you as a “guest author” or a “contributor” through their site.
This will often link to your blog, promoting your brand while you lend your expertise to theirs.
However, this process can be tricky. You can choose to hire and learn about our guest post services to make the process easier.
When done right, you’ll notice an increase in referral traffic and your website’s SEO ratings over time from these posts.
The Role of Guest Posting in Blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to expose your website to a new audience through another site’s existing following. This helps drive referral traffic as the people click on the embedded link to your website, increasing your visibility.
It also helps establish your brand as a thought leader and builds potentially SEO-boosting backlinks for your website. You can also build relationships with other blog owners and guest bloggers to increase your guest post ideas and opportunities.
The Importance of Guest Posting in SEO
Guest blogging is crucial in SEO, especially with the rise of social media and technology.
You can recognize the relevance and effectiveness of guest posting if you truly understand the inner workings of a good guest blogging strategy and its impact on your website’s SEO value.
This will help you write guest posts that can help you as a website or blog owner.
Listed below are some reasons behind the importance of guest blogging SEO.
Benefits of Guest Posting for SEO
Guest blogging is a highly effective tool digital marketers use to build a brand. By understanding the SEO impact of guest posting, you can maximize its benefits.
The following are the benefits of guest blogging:
- Boost search engine rankings
- Build high-quality backlinks
- Grow an audience
- Drive referral traffic
- Establish brand authority
- Build a profile as an industry expert or thought leader in your niche
- Improve SEO performance
- Keyword-rich links
- Increase website traffic
- Generate qualified leads
- Grow your personal brand
- Provide networking opportunities with other websites
Limitations and Challenges of Guest Posting
Despite all the advantages of guest blogging, many people might find it difficult due to the limitations and challenges that come with it.
When forming your strategy, you may have to consider these common disadvantages of guest blogging:
- Very time-consuming
- Posting needs to be regular for results
- Posting excessively can damage rankings
- Sketchy websites
- Hyper-competitive
- Challenging to get featured on other sites
- Can lose sight of your own site and blog
How to Successfully Implement Guest Posting for SEO
You need to understand various factors to implement a successful guest blogging strategy.
You’ll have to watch out for these factors, from finding your guest posting opportunities and sites that accept guest posts to the actual writing and publishing of your guest article.
This is how you can successfully implement your guest blogging strategy for SEO and become a successful guest blogger.
Identifying Opportunities for Guest Posting
It’s essential to have your guest blog posts on high-authority websites to get the best results.
While it’s easy to search for guest blogging opportunities on Google, there are many things to consider when having your guest blogs contribute to your own website.
You would want to find websites that accept guest posts by looking into the following factors.
- They are authoritative. It’s best to guest blog only on authoritative sites known for high-quality content. They tend to have high editorial standards, especially with their existing following that leaves comments on social media. They should only publish relevant articles. The higher the website’s domain authority score is out of 100, the better guest posting opportunity they provide. Make sure not to publish on spammy sites that can harm your guest blogging SEO.
- You have overlapping niches. The goal of writing a guest post is to have you, as the expert, explain a concept to a host site’s readers. Your experiences and expertise will only apply to them if your niche overlaps or is directly related to yours. Check the type of content and the audience of your prospect sites to ensure that they match what you know.
- Check if they’ve published any guest posts before. You can see if a site has published guest posts or is open to receiving them. You can look at the author bios on the articles or see if they have a “Write for us” page. Note that some sites may have a “no guest blogging” policy.
You can use Google search operators or special characters and phrases to have more targeted queries. Add “guest post” or “guest author” with your keyword to see the different possible sites. These advanced search operators make finding a blog that fits your niche easier.
You can also look into influencers and their social media profiles. You can run a Google reverse image search for their headshot to check its backlinks and authenticity.
While there are many ways to find potential guest post opportunities, these are the top three factors you need to look into whenever you choose what site to write guest posts for.
Developing Content for Guest Posting
Think of an exciting and unique guest post idea for every prospect you have. Reach out to as many sites as possible to increase the chance of blog owners accepting your proposals.
This will also help decrease the chances of publishing near-duplicate or spammy guest posts.
You need to offer something unique to the site so they can allow you to contribute to it. Offer ideas, insights, and experiences you have a personal stake in that their readers might find relatable.
You’ll need to pitch a topic with a good hook with the following properties:
- They haven’t been covered on the site before.
- It’s relevant (but not necessarily about) your brand.
- You can write an interesting guest article for the site’s target audience.
You need to read the other published guest posts on the site before you can submit guest posts yourself. This will help you learn their tone and how they speak to their audience.
You can also do keyword research to help you know the terms people like to search for on Google. It helps prove that there’s a demand for what you want to write about.
Promoting Your Guest Post
Once you have your guest post idea, it’s time to contact site owners and ask them to collaborate with you.
You can usually submit it on their “Write for Us” or “Contact Us” page. They will typically have a dedicated email address for this. However, contacting the decision-maker is better to grab their attention and build rapport early on.
You can also look for their email address through social media profiles or services like Prowly.
Once you’ve found the right site, it’s time to write your email pitch. You would need to cover the following to persuade the website owner:
- Use an attention-grabbing subject line, especially since these people get hundreds of emails daily. This will help them get the gist and want to read more without wasting time on unnecessary details.
- Give them your guest post ideas. It has to be 100% unique compared to the other guest posts on their website.
- Give your hook and why the website’s audience would want to read your proposed content.
- Provide your credentials to prove why you should be the one to create content for them.
Once you get the signal from the site, you can start writing an article for your guest post.
Do’s and Don’ts of Guest Posting
Once you have your guest posting opportunities, you’d have to get on with writing your actual guest blog post.
However, you might wonder what the search engines would find helpful and worth putting on top of the search engine results pages. This would require hundreds of referring domains to show how reliable you are as a source.
Before you start guest blogging, it’s important to know the best way to address what the search engine and website’s audience are looking for.
Below are the common dos and don’ts of guest posting to help you write better.
Ethical Practices in Guest Posting
These are the standard ethical practices you can try to get a better result for your Google rankings.
- Follow people or companies who actively post guest blogs. This is a great way to look for guest posting opportunities while learning from a more experienced blog owner who might share your niche.
- Focus on quality, not quantity. You’d want to submit high-quality guest posts to ensure your content isn’t flagged and penalized. It will also help you get invited back as a guest blogger or have other websites know how your guest content can help others. It’s also essential to give 100% original and proofread content. One excellent quality guest post is worth more than many posts that don’t do anything but spam the internet.
- Keep an eye on Google Analytics. This will help you learn how to improve your content and verify if there are any changes in your website traffic after the post.
- Choose topics that will benefit your business blog and goals. It will help make writing easier and more relevant for the publication and your site.
- Build links. As a guest blogger, good link-building is the best way to get the brand awareness you’re looking for. Build links as you write, and ensure you have a suitable anchor text for each one. It’s also best to have a natural link instead of forcing your guest post links just to have them.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Despite how easy guest blogging can seem, there are many mistakes people tend to make when writing them, which can lead to more harm to your site.
You must avoid these most common mistakes when writing your guest post.
- Failure to disclose important information on your post. The host site must be transparent with its readers, including if you pay them for a placement. All sponsored posts should be clearly labeled to follow Google’s guidelines.
- You have low-quality content and are posting excessively. While it’s crucial to have constant posts, putting out too much for the sake of having content out can harm the site. It can result in lower-quality content, which can penalize your site.
- You are using dropped domains and private blog networks. Dropped domains are expired domains used for the sake of selling more links. On the other hand, PBNs are sites built privately to serve as a source of backlinks. They both have damaged domain authority and history, which can be dangerous for your site. They are unethical ways to build your guest post links, especially if you have multiple links throughout your content.
Google’s Stance on Guest Posting
Guest blogging remains one of the most common strategies for link-building and getting better rankings in search engines. In fact, we think it will continue to see heavy use in the coming years.
However, how does Google look into them? Does Google accept guest blogging, or does it see them as spamming?
It depends on your blog post and whether it can help people using the web.
This is Google’s stance on guest blogging and how to make the most of their guidelines.
Understanding Google’s Guidelines
Google is strict regarding its guidelines for content, especially concerning guest blogging. They would want to only show content that’s relevant to the user and will not harm them.
It likes to crack down on black hat SEO strategies that can harm users and spam the internet.
Google also encourages publishing original and authentic content written for the readers.
It’s also important to keep an eye on domain authority, especially when doing an advanced search of your keywords. The domain’s history can increase or decrease based on the content posted and how well it’s maintained.
Overall, Google ensures that users only get the best results when searching for something. Following their guidelines gives you a better chance of having a good guest post.
Effect of Guest Posting on Site’s Ranking
You must stay on Google’s good side to get better results and be seen in higher keyword rankings.
This means avoiding any content that can be seen as spam or will not contribute to a user’s browsing experience.
You’re more likely to rank higher if you do your keyword research correctly and have the correct anchor text to help readers.
If you use unethical practices and put out low-quality content, you will be penalized and ranked low. The worst case scenario is not appearing in the search results and damaging your authority.
Since having articles guest-posted is a popular SEO tactic, it’s best to follow the guidelines and use them to guide you in your content creation.
Case Studies: Successful Guest Posting for SEO
Before you start working on your following guest post opportunities, you might want to look into what a successful guest post is like and how you can use their methods for your content.
Here are a few case studies to study when writing your guest posts.
Case Study 1
This guest post from Berry Insurance is a great way to educate readers on the cost of a service that can be difficult to explain.
It explains all the factors in simple terms, making it more accessible to others interested in applying for business insurance.
Case Study 2
This article on River Pools & Spas gave its readers a comprehensive guide on fiberglass pools and their corresponding costs.
Everything in its content is written to help the reader learn more about the material instead of just promoting a product.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s discuss the common questions about guest blogging as an effective SEO strategy.
What Is Guest Posting in SEO?
Also known as guest blogging, this marketing strategy involves writing guest posts or articles for other websites.
It involves sharing your expertise with your audience to help you with the following:
- Raise your brand awareness
- Drive organic traffic to your website
- Build your personal profile online
Is Guest Posting a Good Strategy for SEO?
It CAN be a good strategy, especially in the long run. It can help inform readers while bringing awareness to your cause or company.
However, unethical link-building strategies, which can be added to these guest posts, are why guest blogging can fail for some sites.
Does Google Penalize for Guest Posting?
Google can penalize a site for guest blogging IF it contains manipulative linking and other unethical practices.
It can result in a lower site ranking or omission in search rankings.
How Can I Ensure My Guest Posts Are Effective for SEO?
There are many ways to make your guest post effective for SEO and reach more readers.
Ensure that you make reader-friendly content that’s written to help your readers know what they have to do or learn about the topic.
Use internal and external links to make your content more authoritative. This can help increase your visibility and establish expertise in your respective niche.
Relevant keywords can also help boost your post and site’s SEO. Ensure they’re correctly used and distributed throughout your post to avoid sounding spammy.
Can Guest Posting Backfire and Harm My Site’s SEO?
Guest posting can backfire and harm your SEO if you don’t use it properly.
Some practices can be seen as spammy or make your guest post seem unreliable, like forcing an anchor text or using spammy sites.
If Google sees that your post can’t be much help to the readers or can even harm them, your post and the overall site can get penalized and receive lower SERP rankings.
The worst-case scenario is that it won’t appear in search results whatsoever.
Conclusion
Making and publishing a guest post can be tricky at first, especially when you don’t fully understand the ins and outs of the digital marketing strategy. Try to apply these tips and create 100% original content to help others start investing in the most cost-effective way of growing your brand
