This is the second post of the post series on guest blogging I started a few days ago.
One of the biggest and probably the only reason for going with guest blogging is to get quality backlinks. This is because when it comes to Off-Page SEO, guest blogging is one of the few things that gets the best and the finest backlinks in the minimum time frame.
Along with this also comes the opportunity of getting some fresh stream of traffic to your website. The traffic of people who are impressed enough from your guest post that they are willing to visit your website and opt-in for what you have to offer.
In addition to this your guest posts also help you to establish credibility in your niche and the list of benefits of guest blogging goes on and on.
Write Epic Guest Post
Now, to reap all these benefits you need to make sure that the content you deliver in your guest post fulfills all the needs and requirements of and for being called epic guest post, as it is the only way that can get your hands over good rankings and quality traffic.
So, what’s an epic guest post?
An epic guest post is a long, informative and in-depth guest post covering a specific topic that has the potential to go viral!
Now, you may already be writing guest posts for building links and driving fresh traffic to your site, but are you getting the results that you always expected? Or are you getting the great results that your friends and competitors are already getting?
Writing an epic piece of content is a sure way of getting better results from guest blogging, better than what your friends and competitors and getting and better than everyone else.
But the story doesn’t end here. Most of the people are already writing great content in their guest posts and are still not get better results. You may be one of them.
So, Why people are not getting great results even after writing high quality content?
There may be a lot of reasons for this. I ended up figuring out the top 6 of them and in the content below I’ve written 6 tips to rectify these reasons to guest blog in a way that will help you in getting higher search engine rankings, more traffic and higher credibility.
How To Guest Blog Better – Top 6 Tips
1. Choose The Right Blog To Guest Blog
When it comes to guest blogging the very first thing that you need to take care of is to carefully select a blog for guesting posting. If you choose a wrong blog to guest post on you may end up wasting a lot of your time in creating the content and may not get the results you may be expecting.
There are a couple of things that you should take care of when choosing a blog to send your guest post:
- Choose a blog that’s in your own niche or related to your niche. (Quite obvious!)
- Choose a blog that already has an audience that can be directed to your website.
- Choose a blog whose subscribers are active and love sharing its content – can be figured out by social sharing buttons and the number of comments on each post.
- Choose a blog that allow dofollow backlinks for the flow of link juice.
- Choose a blog that has a higher PageRank than your blog/website.
2. Place Your Links Inteligently
The most important reason you guest blog is to build effective backlinks which would help you in getting higher rankings in SERPs and also help driving some traffic to your website.
But if you don’t place your links inteligently you may lose a great amount of traffic, the traffic that could have ended up visiting your website and ultimately being your subscriber.
The best place you can put your link is in the first paragraph of the content, as this ensures the maximum exposure and link juice flowing to your website/blog. Most webmasters won’t allow you that high but you can always try to persuade them in putting your link at the top.
If the webmaster does not allow you to post your link at the top you can get your links placed at the bottom of the post or in the author bio section. One thing that I’d recommend you do is keep your bio related to the topic of your guest post and in a sync with it. This will help you to smoothly end the post and help you to pitch the readers to follow the link to your blog.
Always try to keep your link related to the content so that there’s a greater chance that it’ll be clicked. At last, no matter where you place your link just make sure it is clearly visible and has a clear call to action around it.
3. Avoid Direct Advertisement Of Your Website
Although your link should have a clear call to action around it but don’t take it any further from that. Don’t sound like a needy jerk who just want more traffic from the link.
Always remember that the other blogger is doing something good for you by giving you an opportunity to write on his blog and you have the responsibility to respect that.
No webmaster will allow you to do direct promotion of your blog anyway but even if they do, don’t promote your own blog excessively.
People read a blog post to solve a particular problem of theirs. If you can solve their problems satisfactorily and blend your links in between, people will respect you for that and do what you ask them to do. But if you don’t do that and make your guest post self centric, people will not respond as you’d wish them to.
So in any case avoid direct advertisement of your website.
4. Know The Audience
Before you start writing for the other blog make sure you know the audience of that blog. Knowing the audience is very important when guest blogging.
The audience of the different guest blogs may vary in a lot of different ways even after being in a particular niche. Keep the following points in mind to figure out which type of audience you are writing content for:
- The audience of the guest blogs may vary from high level professionals to nerds, so you must take this into mind when writing your content so that you don’t look alien to them.
- The audience may also vary according to the level of their knowledge in your niche. Find out if they are at beginner, intermediate or advanced level.
- The audience can be business owners in case of B2B blogs or general users for general niche blogs.
- You should also know which type of content on the blog gets received well by its subscribers. Do they like general concepts or specific, detailed tutorials? Or if they like lists.
5. Have A Personal Touch
If you think that guest blogging is just for getting quality backlinks than you may be missing a very big piece of the pie. Guest blogging is not just for building links but also for building relationships. It gives you a great opportunity to show your expertise and gain fans for your blog quickly.
Try to give your guest posts a personal touch. Don’t be monotonous and extremely to the point. Try to entertain the new audience along with providing useful information to them.
Add a new voice to the blog where you are guest blogging and always remember this “What Stands Out Gets Remembered, What Blends In Gets Ignored”.
6. Follow The Guest Blog’s Guidelines
After you have chosen the right blog to guest blog on, the next important thing that you need to do is to overview all of its guest posting guidelines, so that you can write blog posts accordingly and also so that your post don’t get rejected by the site.
The fact is, webmasters don’t have the time to review your guest posts again and again and ask you to modify the content each time to meet their guidelines. So why waste their time reviewing your post again and again and why waste your own time correcting it.
Every blog is different and each one of them has its own persona. Posts from one blog may taste entirely different from the other. So it’s important to follow the guest posting guidelines so that your guest post can match that persona.
And if possible try to copy that taste of the blog (added to your own) as the subscribers are already accustomed to it and will feel more at home when they read your post.
So, apply these tips to your guest posts and see if they work for you to help you guest blog better.
Other posts of this series:
- Guest Blogging – What, Why, How And Where
- How To Guest Blog Better – 6 Tips For Getting Better At Guest Blogging
- How To Write Epic Guest Posts – For Better Rankings, More Traffic And Higher Credibility
- 20 Qualities Of A Pro Guest Blogger
- 4 Simple Ways To Find Authority Guest Blogging Sites In Your Niche