How Can Guest Posts Help Grow Your Online Audience?

With the right guest posting opportunities, outreach template, and a high-quality piece of content – guest posts can have your business growing from strength to strength. In this article, i’ll not only be covering exactly how guest posts help grow your audience, but i’ll also be detailing my recipe for guest post success.

{Article first written for The Hoth}

In 2022, the average blogger is writing 1 to 5 guest posts per month.

While some marketers swear by guest blogging to boost their SEO efforts and take their brand authority to a whole new level, others simply find guest posting a waste of time and resources.

But as the above statistic shows, it continues to be a popular tool to drive organic traffic and conversion.

The truth is, guest blog posts are only a waste of time and resources when not executed properly.

With the right guest posting opportunities, outreach template, and a high-quality piece of content – guest posts will have your business growing from strength to strength.

In this article, I’ll not only be covering exactly how guest posts help grow your audience, but i’ll also be detailing my recipe for guest post success.

Let’s get started!

What are Guest Posts?

A basic definition of guest posting is:

Writing an article that is to be published on another website.

Typically, the owner or editor of the website will label the article as a “guest post”, and the guest author will have an author bio that explains who they are, who they usually write for, and a link back to their own site.

Some guest posting sites do offer a small payment in exchange for contributor posts, while others simply offer to link back to your website and socials.

This is because guest posts offer benefits for both the contributors and the blog owners. The blog owners are receiving a high-quality article to add to their site’s authority and content portfolio.

What Are The Benefits Of Guest Blogging?

Any content writer knows that quality content takes time and effort to make, and you may feel reluctant about posting articles anywhere other than your own site.

However, not only do 62.96% of readers consider blogs with multiple authors to be more credible. A survey by Ahrefs found that websites received an average of 50 referral clicks per guest post.

Guest posting has the potential to generate some serious brand authority and traffic, and there are plenty more benefits to motivate you to do it…

Backlinks to boost your SEO

Strategically landing your guest article on high authority sites in your industry can play a valuable part in your search engine optimisation efforts – you just have to include a “natural” link back to your own blog.

In the past, guest blogging was a key part of a link-building strategy. With bloggers and marketers scrambling to get as many guest posts from across the web linking back to their site. However, as search engine algorithms became ever more complicated and it became increasingly hard to rank – guest posts are only worth it if you are dedicated to creating quality content.

We’ll be going into detail later on how to write a successful guest post, but there are now a number of guidelines that will make your guest post backlinks Google-friendly.

Nevertheless, guest blogging is an especially effective SEO strategy for those who are just starting out on their search ranking journey, as it provides relevant backlinks that lead back to your own site.

It also provides you with a voice in your industry, establishing yourself as a company that future customers or clients can trust to solve their problems. The more domain authority you establish (through backlinks or not) the higher you will begin appearing in rankings.

Particularly when you strive for quality over quantity, these high-quality backlinks will provide you with domain authority that will help you rise through the search engine ranks.

Organic traffic

Of course, increasing your link-building portfolio with high-quality backlinks may improve your Google ranking and thus increase your organic traffic. However, more and more people are noting that Google is frowning upon inter-blog links. It’s still a good idea to include guest posts in your SEO strategy, but you should be striving for more SEO benefits than backlinks alone.

A good piece of content is the internet’s version of solid gold! And of course, you first want some of that gold for your own website, but there are even more organic traffic perks when you have a great piece of content on a good guest posting site too.

If you follow all the rules for a successful piece of content and provide browsers with genuinely helpful and timeless information, there’s no end to how well the post will perform in search engines over time – especially if you do the right keyword research.

But what are the benefits of having this content on someone else’s site?

Other websites get other audiences, and they may have other sources of traffic. Having a trending article on their site will open up an added channel of organic traffic for you, particularly if they continue to share your piece on social media.

Grow audience/subscribers

Getting featured on another website, especially one that is visited by your target audience, means that you are getting seen and heard by whole new audiences.

A great benefit of this is the potential to grow your own blog audience and even increase your subscriber count.

Yet, this only really works if you pick your guest blogging sites wisely (we’ll show you how to do this later!). For instance, it’s easy to assume that if a blog has a large audience it will result in a good return on investment. However, it’s the quality of a blog’s audience that matters most.

You will want to write your guest posts for high authority sites that have a loyal and trusting community in your niche. This gives you an in-built authority to piggyback from, with readers that will already value what you have to say. In this way, you can think of a guest post as a star of approval.

The content of your guest posts also matters here, as you will want to ensure you are adding value to a topic or discussion. As with any kind of content marketing, quality content works by offering browsers valuable information for free, while placing your brand in front of them in ways that don’t feel forced.

If your articles sound spammy or salesy, you’re not going to see any long-lasting traffic growth.

The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging

1. Set your goals

What sets a content marketer apart from a normal writer? Measurable goals and results.

Of course, you might find it easy to sit down at your desk and write 1000 words about a topic you care about. But the reality is, this isn’t the most tactful way to achieve tangible and worthwhile results for your business.

Therefore, before even deciding what it is you want to write about and who you want to write it for, you’ll first want to decide on some attainable and measurable goals.

These goals can be business related, such as wanting to receive more leads and conversions. Or they could be more website related, such as wanting more search engine visibility, domain authority, or referral traffic.

The most measurable goals to choose from are:

X% improvement in search visibility.
X amount of backlinks.
X% increase in referral traffic.
X number of leads.

Out of these, the easiest goals to measure will be organic traffic, backlinks, and referral visits to your homepage.

2. Decide on topic and keywords

When it comes to the topic of your guest post, the best idea is to strike a balance between the goals of the publisher, your own business goals, and your own area of expertise.

In step 1 we helped you identify your guest posting business goals. If you’re merely hoping to generate backlinks this won’t really affect your topic. However, if you are looking to grow your authority and referral visits – make sure you are choosing a relevant topic that you can write about confidently and insightfully.

This topic can even be inspired by blogs and pages you currently have on your own site. If you have blog posts that are already generating a lot of traffic to your site, this could be a useful model for your guest post.

If you need a helping hand finding relevant article topics, use a keyword research tool to create a shortlist.

A search for one relevant keyword will pull up a whole host of relevant high-volume terms and phrases that can shape your article.

Next, consider what style of content do these keywords best suit? It might be a how-to guide, beginners tutorials, a thought leadership article displaying your authority and expertise, or a case study reporting your methodology and results.

All of these styles of content go down well as a guest post submission, especially when backed up with keywords that will benefit both you and the publisher.

3. Locating guest blogging opportunities

Before you can solidify your article and start putting pen to paper, you will next need to find the right guest blogging opportunities.

The end goal of this step is to have compiled a sizable list of guest blogging sites that may be happy to accommodate your content.

There are several steps to this:

Know what you’re looking for

A good fit for your guest post will be a site that is already posting content in your niche, a site that has an active and engaged audience, a site with an active social media presence, and evidence that its readers are interested in your topic.

You will also want to check a site’s domain authority. A site’s domain authority dictates how well it will rank in search engine results pages, as you will want to choose a site that already has strong search engine performance.

To do this, you can enter the URLs for potential guest posting websites into a free domain authority checker. This will calculate the domain authority for each site, and let you know which one is strongest.

Finding all relevant guest posting opportunities

There are several channels that you can go down to see the opportunities available to you, and we’d recommend exhausting them all for your list of sites.

The first channel is a good old Google search. Use your target keyword followed by “guest post”, “guest post guidelines”, “accepting guest posts”, and “submit a guest post” to reveal which sites are available to you.
Do you already know of frequent guest bloggers in your industry? Every industry has its savvy guest posters that have done the rounds on all the best sites. You can simply reverse engineer their guest blogging strategy by Googling “guest post by {their name}” to reveal the sites that have published them before.
Another reverse engineering strategy is to run an analysis of your competitor’s backlinks. You can use a free tool to reveal the backlinks leading back to your competitors’ websites. It is likely that some of these backlinks come from guest posting. See where your competitors have had their articles published and add these sites to your list.
Guest blogging databases like Guestblogs.co and Linkio.com are filled with hundreds of websites that are currently accepting guest posts, ranging from top names like Hubspot and Moz, to lesser-known names in your niche. However, you’ll want to check that these sites are high quality and high authority, which is where Alexa comes in. Alexa is a toolbar that ranks websites based on their traffic data, so you know who is worth your while.
Or if you have a website in mind, visit the contact page and reach out to the owner. Politely ask them if they are accepting guest posts and how you can go about submitting a pitch.

4. Writing guest post pitches that work

When you write a guest post pitch you want to make sure it 1) gets read, and 2) you secure a positive response.

Here’s our tried-and-tested 6 step plan for a flawless pitch:

Do your research

First, analyse your target’s existing content. Who are they writing for – beginners, professionals, or industry experts? Is the tone B2B or B2C? Do they mostly post listicles or another style of article? Bear all of this in mind before pitching your article. Also, look at the author bios on other guest posts. Are accepted guest bloggers business owners, freelancers, or consultants? The more people like you that you see, the more chance you have of getting posted.

Read the guest post guidelines

Every publication has its own guest post guidelines. Some may prefer that you pitch an idea for a post, while others may prefer you to submit an article that’s already been written. They may also specify the format they want it in, or for you to enter the article directly into their WordPress account. Make sure you’re totally comfortable with these guidelines before reaching out.

Know who you’re writing to

Blog owners are more likely to pay attention to your email if you address it to them personally. Look for the right contact details on the website or LinkedIn and make sure you know who you are reaching out to.

Cater to their preferences

Remember when we told you to check who the majority of guest posters were on each site? If you noticed that certain sites prefer guest posts from “bloggers” then make sure that you refer to yourself as a “blogger” in your email pitch. Likewise for if they prefer business owners.

Topic options

Some blogs ask that you submit some topic ideas in your pitch. Simply list a few of the ideas you came up with based on your keyword research from step 2.

Add value to your pitch

If you have written other content or had guest posts published before, be sure to include the links in your email. These will all add value to your pitch, showing the blog owner why you’d be an asset to their site.

With all of these factors in order, you should be well on your way to getting a guest post secured. Now all you’ve got to do is write it…

5. How to write a good guest post

The good news is that we’ve broken down how to write a good quality guest post into 5 key factors.

First, you’ll want to know how long your post needs to be. Take another look at the guest posting site to see the average length of their posts. Some blogs will only post articles over 1000 words, with in-depth guides that include a plethora of screenshots. Meanwhile, other blogs are looking for short and snappy posts of around 500 words or less.

Secondly, you’ll need to set the tone for your post. The tone of a guest post can be very different from a post on your own website. First of all, you’ll need to be sure to prioritise information, instead of your own products and services. You should try and limit anything about your own business to your author bio instead.

Next, look at how other posts on the website are formatted. See how they use their H2, H3, H4 tags, and how long their paragraphs tend to be. Write your own post accordingly.

Guest blogging sites will also appreciate it if you naturally include some internal links to other pages on their site. Take a look at other posts they have published that target relevant keywords and link them where relevant.

Lastly, make sure you end your post with a CTA that encourages comments and shares – as this will benefit both of you!

6. Crafting a good author bio

It might sound strange to say, but the most important part of the guest post for you will be the author bio! That’s because this is your opportunity for self promotion, authority-building, and referral traffic.

Every effective author bio should include:

A quick and clear bio

You should have a sentence about you that backs up your industry experience and expertise. You may also want to include any projects that you are currently working on.

A link to your homepage

This is where your quality backlinks are going to come from. Make sure it’s linked properly with your anchor text and you’ll be good to go.

End with a link to socials

It’s a good idea to end your bio with a little call to action to follow you on your chosen social media.

7. Tracking your metrics

We started this process by defining the measurable goals that you want to achieve with your guest post. Now that you have your post ready to publish, you’ll want to consider how you’re going to track the results.

Google Analytics offers an easy method for measuring your guest post’s metrics, particularly referred traffic. Simply set up an Advanced Segment, which will allow you to view the referrals from your guest post. You’ll be able to measure how much traffic you are receiving from multiple guest post efforts and the conversion rate for each one.

When it comes to measuring conversions, you can even enter your specific goals into Google Analytics to make your results easier to interpret.

It can take time to see the results of your guest posts materialise, but the more posts you build up in your portfolio the more traceable organic traffic you’ll be able to see.

Takeaways

Whether you’re a beginner with a brand new site, or an oldtimer wondering if guest posting will be worth your time and energy – guest posts are a strategic fast track to authority, trust, and traffic. However, it only works when it’s done right.

If you need help increasing organic traffic to your website, or want to strengthen your SEO efforts with a sturdy link profile – why not try out some of our free SEO tools, or give me a call to find out what I can do to help.

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I'M ELEANOR,

a freelance copywriter and SEO specialist that turns strangers into someone that knows, likes, and trusts your brand. Whether you need blog, website, or social content, choose an expert that combines experience, style, & results focus.

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