For those who are spending their precious time to increase their website traffic, they need to stop and rethink. There are several ways to increase traffic. But one of the most disputed topics is; guest blogging. Yes, many experts say that guest blogging may be a waste of time.
But, honestly, many believe otherwise. Let’s not fret over negatives, look at the positive for now. Read ahead, to know what exactly guest blogging is and how it can be beneficial. Also, learn some tips that will help a new guest blogger ace the game.
About guest blogging
Guest posting, as the name suggests, is the process of posting something on someone else’s blog. The one who is creating the post and providing content is the guest blogger or contributor.
This is regarded as one of the ways to increase traffic to one’s blog or site. When a guest blogger contributes a blog or content to another site, they compensate by providing a backlink to the blogger’s site. This will help in bringing the audience to one’s website when they visit the host’s site.
The general rule is to; provide content to a site that has the same niche as the guest blogger. The content must be useful and educational for the audience and should relevant to the host site’s content.
There are several types of content that one can offer for guest posting, like:
- Infographics
- Blogs and white papers
- Case studies
- Listicles
- How to guide etc.
A good guest post should be created while keeping in mind the guidelines provided and should grammatically correct. The topic should be relevant, fresh, and should be based on personal experiences with relevance.
Process of guest blogging
The process of guest blogging is a bit long, and for the beginners, it can be a bit tenacious as well. But, one got to start somewhere, so here it goes:
- Researching and generating ideas.
- Finding a guest blog.
- Contacting and pitching the ideas to the guest blog editor.
- Write the blog (if accepted)
- Send the blog.
- Wait for the blog to get published.
- Send a thank-you note.
- Share the post on social media handles.
Tips for guest blogging
If one is a beginner and has only started to think of guest blogging, they need to be careful and need to do their due diligence. It can take some time to be a successful guest blogger and will have a learning curve as well.
Some of the tips and tricks that all the potential guest bloggers should keep in mind are:
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Find a perfect guest blog
The very first thing that any guest blogger, need to concentrate on is the place where they will guest blog. Now, the idea is to bring in more audience. Simply, writing a blog on a shoe selling website, while the guest blogger is a natural medicine site, is not useful.
Choose a guest blogging site that is relevant and from the same industry. Also, look at the kind of traffic the site will provide. The target audience should stick. Therefore, always research before committing.
Therefore many ways, one can find a guest post target, like:
- Google search: Using Google search strings (keyword + guest post or keyword + write for use etc.)
- Reverse image search: Use good image reverse search. Find someone who is a famous blogger of the same niche; copy their image URL, paste in reverse image search. And, one will get the sites where they have posted.
- Reverse backlink search: Use backlink reversing by finding someone whose site has a lot of traffic in the same niche. Take URL from their site, and use a tool to trace where the URL is used as a backlink.
- Twitter search: one can use keyword + guest blog as a search on twitter, to come across several websites which accept blog posts actively.
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Choose a useful idea
Before choosing an idea to write on; first decide what the goal is. Is it to increase SEO, to bring in more traffic, get a referral audience or links etc. this will help in finding the idea which will help in reaching the goal.
The topic should be useful for the readers and for the site where one will post it. Look for fresh ideas and new trends that are making rounds in the industry. Research well and find out what others are talking about.
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Make content unique
The content should not be plagiarized. High-quality guest blogs will reject any duplicated and plagiarized content immediately. They care about what they post on their site because that reflects on their reputation as well.
So, if one wants their post to get accepted, it is crucial to make the blog post unique, added with facts and information which will be useful to the readers.
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Submit a well-written post
Now, comes the most crucial part of guest blogging; writing the post. Bloggers know how to write, but when guest blogging one needs to specifically careful with the quality. One should take care of the grammar, punctuations, the tone, the style, word limit etc.
The post should be readable and should be mistake-free. Also, make sure to follow the guidelines of the guest blog site to minimize the chances of rejected posts.
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Go low on backlinks
Backlinking is crucial, but going all overboard on the number of backlinks in the guest post can lead to rejection right away.
Adding one or two backlinks to one’s site is normal and acceptable. But, adding backlinks in almost every paragraph is tacky and against the rules of search engines.
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Create a landing page
Another, tip for the new guest bloggers is to create a landing page specifically for those who will come from the guest post. They should feel like they are welcomed there. Usually acquired traffic from guest post tends to have a low attention span. So, making them find something on their own can cause then to leave.
Instead, spend some time building a page that will be specifically for the referred traffic, which will have everything that they might want to know and see.
Guest blogging benefits
Why guest blogging is highly impactful if done correctly?
- One can be regarded as an industry expert with a good grasp on the niche. Hence, more popularity as a blogger.
- Grow referral traffic to blog or site.
- Get more audience as followers, subscribers etc.
- One can grow their own brand in the niche.
- Grow the search engine ranks and get more authoritative backlinks.
- One can increase their SEO performance.
- Increase the number of leads and increase brand awareness significantly.
Regardless of what others have to say about guest blogging, the fact will remain the same that it is highly beneficial if done right. From finding the right guest blog to writing the perfect post; is a process that should be done right, to get the results.
