You know when you discover a new singer because they were featured on a song by one of your favorite artists? That was intentional. Musicians don’t collaborate on songs just for fun—there’s actually a lot of marketing strategy behind it.
Guest posts are the SEO equivalent of being featured on a song by a famous artist. You add your expertise and value to a popular website in the form of a blog post, and in return, you get a link or two that points back to your website, drawing in new customers and giving you an SEO boost.
This article is all about guest posts and how to actually go about implementing them in your link-building strategy. For more information, check out our detailed article on the mechanics of how link building itself actually boosts your SEO.
Let’s get specific.
A guest post is a blog post or article that you write for the purpose of being posted on the blog of a collaborating company. Assuming you add value for that company and its readers, there’s no real reason why they should say no.
Within the article, you subtly—key word subtly—sell your brand to that company’s audience, and make it easy for them to find you by including some links back to your website or product pages.
The effect is twofold: you get additional traffic from that company’s readers, and Google’s ranking algorithm puts you that much higher because you now have more backlinks.
Guest posts are not to be confused with:
Niche edits, where you try to insert backlinks into pieces of content that have already been written and published;
Broken link building, where you find links that are inactive and replace them with your own backlinks;
HARO link building, where you lend your expertise to journalists looking for credible sources;
Buying backlinks, where you pay a company to—ethically or unethically—build backlinks on your behalf.
A guest post is a full-on collaborative effort with another brand, and not a one-and-done link-building scheme. It takes time and effort to go about doing them the right way, but the hard work pays off in spades down the line.
There’s a right time and wrong time to use guest posting as a link-building strategy.
Here are the right times.
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One of the biggest perks of writing guest posts is that they allow you to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Even if you don’t remember it, you yourself have probably been convinced of a new brand’s credibility by means of a guest post. The simple fact that a familiar, authoritative website would choose to endorse a similar brand or product with a full-on blog post feature, instantly builds trust in the eyes of readers.
Again, it’s like the music analogy: If a famous artist chooses to feature a lesser-known singer on one of their songs, they must really be something special.
In a slightly different vein, guest posts allow you to tap into other audiences that would otherwise have never even heard of your brand.
As an example, let’s say you have an animal cruelty-free skincare brand. You could reach out to an animal rights blog and write a guest post for them. Since not all animal rights champions are avid skincare fanatics, you’ll be reaching an entirely new segment of people who actually might be really interested in your products—and they probably would never have heard about your brand without that guest post.
Like we mentioned above, guest posts are not get-rich-quick schemes for link building. If you want to get rich quick… sorry.
On the upside, guest posts provide a deeper type of value that quick, cheap strategies never could: real, fruitful relationships with other brands.
You’ve probably heard it said, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Hearing that phrase one more time may make you want to bang your head on your desk, but that makes it no less true. There is simply no telling where genuine collaborative relationships with other brands could lead you down the line. Why not try to build as many of them as possible?
Guest posts are a great place to start. That is, if you do them the right way.
Broadly speaking, writing a good guest post could not be simpler. There’s only one thing you have to do, and if you can do this one thing, you’ll have more guest posting opportunities than you can count.
What is this one magical thing? It’s actually providing value to the brand you’re collaborating with and their readers.
Okay, maybe it’s not “simple,” technically speaking. Here’s how to do it.
Provide relevant content. If you’re an SaaS company, don’t reach out to an auto mechanic to write a guest post for them—you won’t be able to speak to their audience. Your post should contain information that’s useful to the readers of the blog that will be featuring you.
Provide unique content. That said, don’t be too relevant. If the information you’re providing can be found anywhere else on the internet—or on the featuring brand’s website itself—companies won’t really be interested in working with you. Your post should provide new information that is still applicable to the readers.
Write professionally. We hope this one is obvious, but make sure you have no spelling or grammar issues in your post, the overall narrative flows easily, and it’s written with the air of someone who really knows what they’re talking about.
Insert your links in strategic spots. Don’t bury your backlink in some obscure paragraph near the end of the article. Insert it in a few key passages, with one right near the beginning for those readers with challenged attention spans. Quality anchor text also really helps with getting lots of clicks on your links.
Add value. We just couldn’t help listing this one again. If your post doesn’t actually provide value to the brand you’re collaborating with or their readers, even the most professionally written content will get you nowhere.
Don’t write overly promotional content. Few things will steer readers—and potential collaborators—away faster than content that clearly has no other objective but self-promotion. Provide value to your partner brand and their readers first, and then subtly promote your own brand in a way that doesn’t feel scammy.
Don’t copy and paste the same post for different brands. It can be extremely tempting to mass-produce your guest posts and send to 100 different brands in the same day, but this is usually counter-productive. Most popular brands can see right through these types of schemes. Take the time to write quality articles tailored to specific audiences, and you’ll be thanking yourself down the line.
Don’t include links to obscure pages of your site. The best guest post in the entire Milky Way would be all for naught if the readers click your links and lose interest when they see an obscure page that doesn’t speak to their needs. Make sure each link leads to a specific landing page or product page that will hook the readers and encourage them to take action.
It’s worth mentioning that not everyone has the time or the skill set to constantly draft up compelling, customized guest posts. If that’s you, you may be better off working with an actual link building agency that can make use of cutting-edge technology to get you the best results possible.
Now let’s get into what is arguably the most difficult part of the guest posting process: actually getting brands to say yes and agree to collaborate with you.
To be as efficient as possible, you want to make sure you’re only reaching out to companies that are likely to want to work with you, and that are authoritative enough to actually give you a traffic and SEO boost if it indeed works out.
Prioritize companies that have audiences that would be interested in your business’s offerings. Don’t get this confused with only reaching out to similar brands. You could reach out to similar brands, like in our skincare and animal rights example—this is a great strategy. But you could also reach out to totally different types of brands, as long as their audiences are interested in what you have to offer.
A really common example of this is the collaboration you often see between technology companies who offer health-tracking wearables and exercise gyms. Technology and weightlifting are obviously completely different, but because there’s a crossover in terms of customer interest, collaboration works beautifully.
Finally, you’ll need to find a good balance between ultra-popular prospects and totally unknown prospects. The unknown ones are much more likely to say yes, but they’re also the least likely to actually help you out. Aim for companies that are definitely ahead of you in terms of popularity and brand awareness, but not by too much.
Now, the most important tip we can give you for the actual outreach process is to eliminate as many hidden costs as possible for your potential collaborators. What do we mean by hidden costs?
Imagine for a moment that you’re the company who’s in demand for guest posting features, and someone reaches out to you with a proposal for a guest post on your website. Which would you be more likely to accept?
Proposal 1: “Hello, I really like your company. I have a similar brand, and I’d love to collaborate with you and write a guest post for your blog. Are you interested?”
Proposal 2: “Hello, my name is John and I started [X Company]. We create animal cruelty-free skincare products. Since your blog is dedicated to fighting animal cruelty, I’d love the opportunity to write a guest post for you. We have a considerable following, and I know your readers would appreciate our contribution to your blog. I’ve attached a draft of the post below for you to review.”
Reach out to authoritative websites, influencers, and industry leaders in your niche;
In Proposal 2, so much of the communication and legwork has been eliminated. Right from the get-go, you know what the inquiring company does, you know how they’d contribute to your blog, and you can even read the potential guest post as soon as you receive the email. Proposal 1 is… a different story.
This is what we mean by eliminating hidden costs, and it applies regardless of which outreach method you choose. If you have time, definitely read our full guide on the entire link-building outreach process.
It is our sincere hope that this article has taught you everything you need to know about guest posting, short of actually tutoring you on how to be a good writer.
To summarize some of the most important points:
Only use guest posting as a strategy when it makes sense and aligns with your objectives;
Provide real value to your collaborating brand and their readers, or else they won’t have any reason to work with you;
Write some really dang good guest posts;
Eliminate hidden costs during the outreach process.
If you’re too busy to worry about doing this all yourself, consider working with a team of experts who quite literally get paid to earn you backlinks through guest posting and other methods.
In other words, consider working with us at Profit Engine (notice that subtle self-promotion—that’s how it’s done), where strategy meetings are 100% free.
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