There’s a reason I’m writing this blog post right now. There’s a reason any site has blog posts, and that is Authority. By submitting blog posts to your website, you contribute to its authority, as well as the relevance of its content. So we know that blogging works. But what about guest blogging? Does it convey the same authority that your own blog posts do? In this post we’ll look, and we’ll understand the guest blogging ‘phenomenon’.
Foremost, identify why specifically you would want to have guest bloggers to begin with. In the same way that you should make an outline before an essay, plan out what your blogging goals are. There are three main reasons for guest blogging:
Commanding authority while building a name for yourself
Exposure (which translates to traffic)
Building backlinks that lead to your website
To accomplish the first two goals, you’ll want to host blogs that already have developed and engaged audiences. For the third one, you’ll be looking for blogs with strong root domain authority.
For starters, let’s talk about how you’re even supposed to find opportunities for guest blogging. You’ll want to start off by looking for sites relevant to your business field. The blog entries should be:
- Both active and prominent on social media.
- An engaged audience that shares and comments on the posts.
- Obviously, the audience should be interested in your field.
- Finally, the content should be focused only on your specific business.
A great resource for finding relevant blogs is, you guessed it, Google! Use relevant keywords related to your business and the aspect of guest blogging that you’re searching for. For example, if you’re looking for a blog that writes about car repair, and will contribute guest posts, you may choose to search for “Car repair, guest post, blog”. Of course, the actual search query will depend on you, and will dictate the quality of blogs that you’re likely to find. Searches like this can lead you to guidelines or submission pages for guest posts by or on other blogs.
Another effective way to find guest bloggers is to target popular bloggers in the industry. Going along with the example of car repair, a well-known blogger is Charles Sanville. A quick look through of his site quickly leads you to the contact section, which gives you an easy way to get in touch and inquire about his guest blogging regulations.
These guest bloggers can easily get you in touch with other bloggers in the industry, making your job much easier.
Sometimes, your competitors can be your friends. Using something like Open Site Explorer, you can easily find your competitors’ backlinks. This is just one of many such online tools. You can also perform this search manually, like so
Social media is an effective and relevant way to find guest bloggers, or to find guest blogging opportunities for yourself. Don’t shy away from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and other social sites, as they have blossomed into a platform for finding relevant business content. Also, here are some sites that can guide you on the path of finding/becoming a guest blogger!
http://www.buzzblogger.com/500-places-to-syndicate-your-content/
Now let’s talk about how to evaluate guest blogs. To do this, there are a few things you’ll want to look at. For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to list these for you, and checkmark them as you go along!
- Assess the knowledge level of the audience (Are they beginners or professionals? Will you be using technical or starter terms?) As well, is the audience engaged in your field, or are they general consumers?
- What kind of content does the blog or blogger post? What style of writing is it? Are the blogs in tutorial form, or are they story-like?
- How well does the blog/blogger do? Are the posts receiving many comments and shares on social media? Are guest posts given as much attention as owner posts?
- Who are the guest bloggers? Are they well known in the field?
But how are you supposed to know which posts will do best? Well, if Jerry Springer has taught us anything, it’s by surveying the audience! Here’s an extremely helpful tool to see just how much the audience is engaged. There’s lots of sites like these floating around the web, each one designed to search a different social platform.
Of course, you’ll want to have a social presence, otherwise it’ll be hard to find a guest post opportunity. Engagement with bloggers on social media is key, as is mentioning those bloggers online, and carefully searching for mentions of guest posts.
In considering guest posts, be sure to look for these crucial factors:
- The post should comprise valuable information in your field, and not just ads!
- It should be formatted just like the ones already on your site.
- Links should be strategically placed throughout the post, leading back to source content and your own content.
- It should be worded to spur comments and responses!
And don’t forget to track your results, because without results, you can’t measure your success. Be sure to check out Google’s own advice for tracking results with Google Analytics.
To wrap up, guest blogging helps you build new relationships, broaden your search results, and boost your online reputation. To be even more concise, we could diminish the benefit of guest blogging to the three Bs:
Build, Broaden, and Boost
