Guest blogging has long been one of the favorite marketing methods for relationship building, traffic generation, and link building for SEO purposes for many online marketers.
However, despite this strategy being so popular, there are very few online marketers who are able to do it well, especially for SEO. For most of the others, the very idea of reaching out to strangers with a backlink request is daunting.
But there’s no denying that guest blogging for SEO works. And, it has helped hundreds of businesses increase their rankings in SERPs, boost organic traffic and even grow their revenues.
If you’re also trying to increase your search engine presence by building quality backlinks, this detailed guest blogging for SEO guide is for you.
So, let’s dive in…
What is Guest Blogging for SEO?
Guest blogging for SEO is the process of writing guest posts on other websites with the goal of improving your website’s search engine rankings. And it is quite effective.
It even goes beyond SEO and builds relationships with fellow bloggers and website owners. That results in traffic to your website and helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Is Guest Blogging Good for SEO?
Guest blogging can be an extremely effective way to improve your SEO if you do it effectively. However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
- Your posts must contain high quality content. They should be well-written, informative, and relevant to your website’s niche.
- In addition, the websites you guest blog for must be reputable and have high web traffic because if you publish content on spammy websites, it can actually do more harm than good.
- You should always include a link back to your website in your content.
When you take care of the above stuff, it helps you improve SEO in the below ways —
Link Building: The number one benefit of guest blogging is that it helps you build links back to your website. When you guest blog for a high-traffic website, you receive a mention from them.
Google then looks at the number and quality of links pointing to your website as a sign of authority. In short, the more high-quality links you have, the higher your website will rank in SERPs.
Link Placement: Guest blogging gives you the opportunity to control the anchor text and link placement of the links pointing back to your website. When you place your link on a specific text or phrase, Google believes that your website is credible for that keyword. But unfortunately, most SEO experts ignore link placement and more important using the right anchor text in their SEO practices.
Before we dig deeper into guest blogging for SEO, let’s try and understand what Google says about it.
What Does Google Say About Guest Blogging?
Google takes backlinks and content very seriously. And it is determined to ensure that they reward only those websites that have authenticity, valuable content, and relevance. It even launched several algorithmic updates to its search engine ranking factors that rewarded and penalized websites based on their link building and content generation practices.
Let’s have a quick look at some of these Google updates…
The Panda Update
Google’s Panda Update was designed to penalize websites with low-quality content. This had a major impact on guest blogging, as many guest bloggers were writing low-quality posts simply to exchange backlinks.
In response to the Panda Update, Google’s Matt Cutts publicly said that guest blogging for SEO link-building purposes “isn’t a good idea.”
He also advised webmasters to be careful about who they guest blog for, as it can lead to your website being associated with spammy, low-end sites.
Guest blogging is fine as long as you’re insightful content with adequate industry know-how. And it also helps in boosting your Domain Authority (DA).
BERT and Intent
Google’s BERT update was designed to better understand the intent behind the searches. Meaning, it is now necessary your content is informative and relevant to the user’s intent behind the search query.
If you focus on writing high-quality guest posts that match with the Google searcher’s objective and are relevant to your website’s niche, you’ll be in good shape.
E-A-T and YMYL
Google’s E-A-T update was designed to improve the quality of websites that offer advice or information about health, money, and legal issues. If your website belongs to any of these categories then you need to guest blog in a way that provides valuable, informative content to your target market.
If the users do not find your suggestions/advice valuable, then Google would not rank you well either. Simple!
Okay, now you understand how vital it is to have relevant and authentic content, focus on building genuine relationships with fellow bloggers.
Once you have sorted the content generation part, you need to figure out how to do effective guest blogging outreach for success.
But before that…
Ask Yourself These Below Questions
- Is guest blogging right for your website?
Not all websites benefit from guest blogging. If your website is brand new or doesn’t have much content, you may need to prioritize publishing content on it. Other bloggers tend to approve posts from individuals with good websites.
And remember, high DA blogs always respond to guest blogging requests faster if they are approached by websites with some traction.
- Do you have the time to guest blog?
Guest blogging can be time-consuming, especially when writing for high-traffic websites. From outreach to blog post topic selection to writing content and even submission, it is a process that requires patience and dedication.
If you’re short of time, you are likely to fail at guest blogging marketing strategy.
- Are you prepared to write high-quality guest posts?
Remember, guest blogging for SEO is all about writing quality content. If you’re not prepared to write articles that blog owners and their readers find value in, then guest blogging is not for you.
- Are the websites you guest blog for reputable?
Guest blogging for spammy websites can actually hurt your website’s SEO. Make sure that the websites you guest blog for are reputable and have high web traffic. Any website with over 50 Domain Authority or 50 Domain Rating is good enough to guest blog on.
If your answer to these questions is a ‘yes,’ then you are ready to explore guest blogging for SEO purposes.
How To Identify Guest Blogging Opportunities
The best way to identify guest blogging opportunities is to use a tool like Ahrefs or Moz. These tools allow you to see the websites that are linking to your competitors.
Once you’ve identified a few high-quality websites that are linking to your competitors, reach out to them and pitch your guest post idea.
However, avoid guest blogging scams.
While researching for guest posting opportunities, avoid spam and scam websites. A common guest blogging scam is guest blogging for a “dropped domain.”
These are domains that were once popular but have since expired.
The scammers then create a new website on the domain and start guest blogging for SEO purposes.
The problem is that these websites are often filled with low-quality content and spammy links. And posting on any of these websites can actually hurt your website’s SEO.
Another common guest blogging scam is publishing content as a guest on a “private blog network” (PBN).
A PBN is a network of websites that are used to artificially boost the SEO of a website with link exchange. This is a bad idea for two reasons.
- First, Google can easily detect PBNs and penalize your website if it finds links from a PBN.
- Second, guest blogging for a PBN gets you blacklisted by other bloggers. As a result, it gets hard to find guest blogging opportunities in the future.
How to Spot Low-Quality Websites?
There are a few telltale signs that a website is of low quality. It has:
- No valuable content
- A lot of spammy links
- No social media presence
- Low Domain Authority
- Low Domain History
- Less or No Traffic
How to Come Up with Guest Blogging Ideas
Now that you know how to identify high-quality guest blogging opportunities, it’s time to come up with an idea for a guest blogging post.
Write on Fresh Topics
One way to come up with great guest post ideas is to look at the website’s content and see what topics they’ve covered and what they haven’t covered. And then pitch them a topic that they have not written about yet.
Review Other Guest Posts
Look at some of the other guest posts that have gotten the most traffic and shares. That’ll give you an idea of the topics that are doing well on that blog. You can then try and come up with similar blog post topics.
You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to find popular guest posts on a website.
Do Appropriate Keyword Research
Once you have a few guest post ideas, it’s time to research a few keywords that have a high search volume and low difficulty rate. This will help you come up with guest post ideas around keywords that are likely to rank high in Google SERP.
You can again use a tool like Ahrefs Keyword Explorer to find such keywords.
Write on Fresh Keywords
Once you have a list of keywords, it’s important to ensure that the website you’re guest blogging for hasn’t already written a guest post on that topic or used that keyword. Because if you write an already-covered keyword, then it would lead to keyword cannibalism, affecting the website’s overall SEO performance.
A simple Google search can help you determine if a particular keyword has been covered already or not — site:targetsite.com “keyword.”
Find Related Posts for Internal Linking
Internal still links play a pivotal role in SEO. Once you have shortlisted a guest post topic, it’s time to find related posts on the blog to link to in your article to make it search engine friendly.
Writing content that can serve the readers
Writing good content that is helpful, informative, and keyword-rich is the key to successful guest blogging for SEO. You want to make sure that your blog post adds value to the website you are writing for.
Include Images And Data Graphics
Including images and data graphics will help make your blog post more engaging. It is also good for Google Image Search.
Plan for SERP Features
When guest blogging for SEO, you want to think about how you can do on-page optimization for SERP features.
A few “must-have” on-page SEO steps include:
- Keyword density is at 0.5 – 2%
- Each LSI keyword mentioned 1 – 2 times
- When possible, LSI keyword used as part of sub-heading
- 2 – 5+ outbound links
- 5 – 15+ relevant internal links (as many as needed)
- Keyword mentioned in the meta description
- Keyword mentioned in the title
- Keyword mentioned in the H2 heading
- Page title between 35 to 65 characters
- URL slug is brief and contains the keyword
Write Structured Data
When guest blogging for SEO, you want to make sure to include structured data. Structured data is a code that you can add to your guest post that helps Google understand the content of your guest post.
It also helps your guest post show up in rich snippets, which can help increase the click-through rate.
Include a Call to Action for Comments
At the end of each blog post, you want to include a call to action for comments. Adding a CTA at the end of the post increases the reader engagement.
Top 5 Best Practices for Guest Blogging
When guest blogging, it’s important to think about the best practices that there are:
#1. Include a link to your product or service
Mention your company name/product/service in the blog post. This is a guest blogging no-no. You don’t want to pitch a guest post that is nothing but a sales pitch for your company or product.
Bragging about your company or a tool/service you offer — Again, this is a guest blogging no-no. You want to come across as an expert in your field, not as a salesperson.
Include a link to your website/company in the author bio — Most guest blogging opportunities will allow you to include a link to your website or company in the author bio.
Adding links to your site that are not relevant to the article will only hurt your guest blogging efforts.
#2. Craft a Great Guest Bio
When guest blogging, you want to make sure to craft a great guest bio.
Your guest bio should be short and to the point. You want to include your name, website, and a brief description of who you are and what you do.
You can also include social profiles in your guest bio to get more traffic to your website or blog.
#3. Promote Your Guest Posts
After your content is published, you want to make sure to promote it. You can promote it by sharing it on social media and emailing it to your list.
Once you promote it, track the post’s performance to see how it is doing.
#4. Write Multiple Guest Posts on the Same Blog
Yes, you can write multiple guest posts on the same blog. However, you want to make sure that each blog post is high quality and valuable and not just about your product or company.
This will allow you to have multiple backlinks from a single high-quality domain. And it is much better than having backlinks from multiple low-quality domains.
#5. Use the Right Tools
To get the most out of your guest blogging for an SEO campaign, you need to have the right tools at your disposal, especially for blogger outreach.
To reach out to tens and hundreds of webmasters from one single interface, you can try Rangeflow. It’s a simple yet powerful Google Sheet extension that allows you to run effective guest posting outreach campaigns from right within your Gmail.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to do guest blogging for SEO, learn the art of guest post outreach you can start writing content on high-quality websites to increase your website’s traffic and search engine ranking. Just remember to follow the above guest blogging tips and you’ll start experiencing genuine progress on your website.
