Guest posting; Guide to doing a guest post well and multiplying your visibility!

The guest post, or the publication of a blog article as a guest author, is a fabulous strategy that brings many benefits to online companies and blogs looking to gain authority and improve their presence on the Internet. Do you know what it is about? Here I show you what it is about and how to get the most out of collaborations between blogs.

Do you know what a guest post is? Have you written a guest post on a blog? A guest post or article as a guest is a great strategy for content marketing and SEO Off Page that helps elevate the authority of your brand and enhance your reputation; It is about publishing an article of yours, written as a guest author, on a third-party blog. Also, in the same way, it is about asking other authors for collaboration to publish on your blog.

There are many benefits that writing or receiving guest posts brings you and, therefore, today I am going to tell you how to improve your Web positioning through this fantastic, and still quite unknown, online marketing technique. Because although you already imagine how to make a guest post, you have to know very well some tips and tricks to apply it in the correct way and get all the possible performance for your interests.

Because it is clear that a good guest posting strategy is not about wanting to publish your articles left and right on other Web pages, nor about publishing irrelevant third-party content on your blog, but that collaborations based on guest posts should :

#be well analyzed beforehand,

#responding to a clear business strategy,

#useful content and 

#fruit of a quality collaboration.

If you do not know how to start making guest posts, or you have already tried to take advantage of this strategy without achieving the expected results, it may be useful for you to contact us and have our internet advertising services and SEO Off-page, to achieve the collaborations of most suitable guest posting.

Do you want to know how we design guest posting strategies for our clients? In this step-by-step guide, I show you how to make and squeeze guest posts, manage to increase your visibility on the internet, attract more visits to your website and raise the authority and reputation of your brand. Let's go there!

What is a guest post ?

A guest post is the publication of an article (post) of yours in a blog of a third party as a guest author (guest) of this. Or vice versa: publication on your blog of an article written by another author who you have invited to collaborate.

A guest post, also known as guest posting or guest blogging, is one of the most effective and powerful content marketing techniques available today; powerful to enhance the authority of a brand.

Guest posting is a collaboration between blogs, a win-win, win-win strategy or, which means it works and both parties (blog and guest author) benefit, and that's what you like!

Is it worth writing and publishing a guest post?

At this point, I continue to hear from many people who are not convinced to write and publish their articles in another Blog, "that would be like giving quality content for the benefit of another company", much less publishing articles by other authors/companies in their blog, “that would be like advertising them!”. But trust me, it has many more advantages than any inconvenience you can imagine!

If you dare to give it a try and manage to publish a guest post on a quality blog from an outsider, you will see how SEO Off-Page benefits your website and you will start to reap the benefits of a winning content marketing strategy.

Here are some reasons to start a guest post strategy today.

Gives you authority

Whether publishing one of your articles as a guest author on another blog or posting on your blog an article by an author who invited you, the guest you bring authority.

If someone important in your niche publishes a post on your website, this makes you gain the trust of your target audience, because no serious influencer will want to collaborate with you if you are not really a good professional.

In the same way, if you collaborate as a guest author and publish an article of yours on another blog, that means that you are respected and recommended by that author and that your brand is a benchmark of weight, that is, you also achieve authority!

Expand your client portfolio

One of the greatest benefits of blogging collaborations, such as this guest post- based strategy, is that it is a great opportunity to grow your company's client base.

Through guest posting, your quality content can reach more people than if they never “left” your blog. And not only that, but you get to the right people: this type of collaboration means that many users and potential clients, who until then did not know you, suddenly do so on the recommendation of someone they follow (the blog's author at where are you publishing your guest post ), what better way to be introduced to all that new target audience niche! The dream of any commercial of your company!

You attract readers for your blog

Getting a solid and loyal audience that closely follows your blog is not something that is achieved overnight but is the result of a lot of effort and time.

If your posts seem to be getting ignored and are not getting the expected traffic, guest post collaborations with other blogs can put you in the eye of the Google hurricane to start getting new readers to your blog, right where everyone wants to be!

You get external links (backlinks)

Achieving external links to your website (backlinks) of quality is one of the aspects that search engines value the most to classify a page. That is, to position yourself more and better in Google.

This is one of the most efficient off-page SEO techniques available to achieve the much-desired rise in search engine rankings, so you can't miss it.

Opens doors to offer content to other brands

If you are looking for a new business opportunity, such as offering your content or writing services to third parties, collaborations with other blogs are a great platform to make yourself known as an expert.

Also, it allows you to offer your experience so that others can use it and hire your services.

Step-by-step guide before making a guest post

Define your goals before making the guest post

As I said at the beginning of this post, making a guest post is not just publishing content “like crazy”. It's about posting the right content and on the right blog. To achieve this, you first have to define what your goals are for this digital marketing strategy and, recommended, use the Design Thinking methodology.

What do you hope to achieve by writing a guest post? Basically, everyone who goes to this strategy hopes to achieve three things - or at least one !:

#get external links (backlinks),

#gain more traffic to your website, and

#improve the authority and visibility of your company.

The ultimate goal is to sell, right? But depending on the short-term goals you want to achieve with guest posts, you can determine what to write about, who to collaborate with, and where to post.

Find where to publish your guest post

Once you have your goals clear, it is time to find the candidate blogs to publish the guest posts that bring you closer to them. I say "candidates" because you need to evaluate whether the place where you would initially want to publish your article as a guest has the necessary requirements for your publication to be truly effective and commercially profitable for your company. What are these requirements?

#The blog must be directly related to your niche.

Have an audience that is really interested in your content.

#Have a good number of readers and followers.

#Be managed by someone who squeezes social networks to promote their content.

Let's see where you can search and find those good candidates to publish your guest posts.

Start your Google search

One way to test the waters and start creating a list of potential candidates to publish our guest posts is to search Google using keywords or keyword strings.

Go to the Google bar and type the main keyword of your niche, for example, "web design", followed by "send a guest post", "guest post rules", "publish guest article" as well as words and phrases similar, that indicate to the search engine that you want to find places that accept this type of collaboration. You will be impressed by all the sites that Google will show you.

Gossip on Twitter

Although Twitter does not seem like an ideal place to find blogs or websites to publish your guest posts, it is a real treasure!

I assure you that on this social platform you can find very good candidates for your guest articles, and the best thing is that most of these are not on Google, so you can take advantage of your main competitors even if they are already doing guest posting strategies.

The method is similar to the previous case in Google: in the search bar of Twitter, write the main keyword of your niche together with "guest post", "guest post", "guest author", "guest post" or similar.

Use this trick with Google Reverse Image

With this trick that I am going to explain to you with Google Reverse Image, you will find many blogs that allow collaborations and that are related to your niche. Without a doubt, it is one of the most fabulous ways to find good candidates to start publishing, wonderful!

#Find out who are the most influential people in your niche who usually do collaborations and guest posts .

#Search the names of these people on Google.

#Within the list of results, choose the option "Images" and download the photograph of this person.

#Upload that photo to Google Reverse Image and search.

#All the web pages that show this image will appear, of which a large percentage will be from blogs in which a guest post has been published.

Research the most respected bloggers in your niche

The most popular and highest-traffic blogs, in a certain niche, are usually those were the most recognized authors (bloggers) publish frequently. Why not post to those same sites?

I recommend that you investigate who are those most respected bloggers. Once we have some names, Google "guest article" or similar, along with the author's name. In this way, the blogs where these respected authors publish their guest posts will appear, easy and efficient!

Track your competitors' backlinks

Good candidate blogs to publish your guest post would be those where your main competitors are already collaborating with their guest articles.

There are several tools with which you can find out which sites link to your competition's websites, software such as Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs, for example, or free tools such as SEO Review Tools. So keep track of these backlinks just by typing in the URL of the web page you want to research.

Don't ignore the comments on your posts

If you want to get candidate blogs for your guest post, then you should be aware of the comments you receive on your blog because, if the articles you publish on your blog are of quality, surely some comments will come from other authors who have blogs in your niche, so you could be gaining an opportunity to do such a collaboration.

Go through social networks

I already told you that one of the most viable social platforms to get good candidate blogs where to publish your guest post is Twitter, but that does not mean that you cannot get opportunities in other networks, so walk through them and find out which pages or blogs they accept these types of collaborations in your niche.

Prepare the theme of your guest post

If you want to get another blog to accept your collaboration proposal and publish your guest post, you must be smart to choose the topic you are going to publish and prepare it.

If you can get a blogger to accept your collaboration, it will not be enough to write well, applying Copywriting techniques and writing about 2,000 thousand words with quality content. The article must be of interest to the audience and must be at the forefront of what people are looking for and expecting to read.

Start preparing in advance; don't improvise! This is key to hitting the mark and starting to gain authority within your niche.

How to propose to an editor to collaborate on your blog by writing a guest article?

Plan your guest post object

Again, you need to plan your guest post, which means you have to spend time planning it and its goals.

If you have followed my advice to find good candidate blogs where to publish your guest posts, at this point I suggest you create a document (it can be in Excel) where you include a list of those possible blogs where you would like to collaborate.

Remember, the idea of ​​the guest post is that both parties, you and the external blog, get benefits, and in your case, you will not be able to earn much if the blog where you collaborate does not have high domain authority, little traffic, is not in your niche or does not reach your target audience.

In this document that I have recommended you create, you can place:

#the web address of the blog,

#the publisher's name,

#an email address to contact you, and

#the domain authority, which you can review from free tools like SEO Review Tools. You should discard those blogs with a web domain authority of less than 30.

Do this task by taking the necessary time, and you are ready for the next step.

Know the approach of the blog with which you want to collaborate

By making a guest post you are not only looking to get external links to your website (backlinks) but this collaboration strategy should bring benefits to the blog where you are going to publish your article as a guest. To achieve this, you must know the type of content that this blog publishes, the type of audience to which it writes and the level of knowledge of its readers.

You will be able to obtain this information you must review the blog in detail and invest time in it; This is very important for your guest post to be successful and attractive to the audience, as well as to win new invitations to participate in other blogs.

If the blog is based on tutorials, it will not do you much good to write a post of 3,000 thousand fabulous words, because your frequent audience will not feel identified. If the blog is aimed at companies and suppliers, then you don't gain anything by talking about products you want to sell.

Knowing this type of data in detail is essential for good collaboration in any blog, whatever your niche or your company profile.

Evaluate other guest posts on that blog

Before having your guest post ready, it doesn't hurt to take a look at the other guest posts already in it.

This way you will have a clear idea of how this type of collaboration is received by the audience and if there is a positive effect on them. In addition, this will help you to know the style that the other invited authors use and to get closer to it.

Get to know the profile of the other previous guest bloggers

Remember that we are talking about how to prepare a successful guest post and sell it to the editor, blogger or owner of a blog with which you want to collaborate.

So before contacting him, it is important that you know the profile of the collaborators (guest authors) who have already published with him. This way you will know what type of guests they prefer to collaborate with and you can persuade them to accept your invitation.

Collaborations are not an obligation, and sometimes you will find that your guest post proposal is not supported. It is not the end of the world, but if you prepare well the chances of rejection will be greatly reduced.

Check out the most popular blog posts

The topic you are going to write about in your guest post is a key factor in getting your collaboration proposal with the blog to be accepted.

So I suggest you review in detail which blog posts, with which you want to collaborate, have been the most successful and best received by their audience. Pick a topic for your article that lives up to it.

Contact the blog, but not through a form

If you already know the style of the blog you want to collaborate on, have planned the topic and have a possible guest post that could be interesting for the audience of that blog, you are ready to contact its editor!

But do not do it through the contact form. The most effective way is to do it directly, so get an email address or a means where you can greet them directly and present your proposal. In this sense, social networks could help you to get this information.

Be close to the blog editor

When contacting the editor of the blog where you want to collaborate, you must show yourself close and be pleasant; create a personal bond with him .

An ethical and practical way to achieve this is by letting him know from the beginning that you know his blog well and that you would like to participate in it because it is important in your niche; It is not about flattering, but it is about being considerate and being close and sincere.

Be easily identifiable and traceable

Just as you have investigated the blog you are contacting and wish to collaborate with, the editor of this blog will want to do the same before giving you an answer; You're not going to admit the first stranger to contact you, are you?

This editor will want to know who you are, what your reputation is, what weight you have in their niche and what your presence is like on social networks.

One way to make that job easier for them is that before sending them your proposal, leave useful comments on their latest posts so that they will already have an idea of ​​who you are when you contact them.

It is also very positive that you introduce yourself, leave data such as the number of followers your blog has (without bragging too much about your achievements), your style of publications or that you cite those places where you have already collaborated. This way you won't be a complete stranger to the editor and you reduce the risk of being discarded on the first try.

Show the editor what you offer and what is its value

In addition to introducing yourself and telling the editor a bit about yourself and your blog, it is important that you be clear about what you can offer them and do not hesitate to highlight how this would add value to their blog.

For example, you could tell him that you were looking at the latest topics he published and that you want to create a guest post, on a topic that is trending, which could reinforce that information that his blog has already been offering.

How to write the perfect guest post?

There's a lot I could say to help you create a fabulous guest author article, and this clearly includes a ton of SEO Copywriting strategies. But I'm going to focus only on the most important:

A guest post does not revolve around you

While many show-offs love to write articles on other blogs as guest authors to show off their business, promote their brand, and get free publicity, this is unethical!

The purpose of a guest post is to create quality and useful content for the audience of that blog, and that they can take advantage of it to respond to their concerns. Don't make the mistake of turning a collaboration into a poem to your ego!

Respect the style and approach of the blog to which it will be published

Remember, you are a guest; the guests respect the style of the place where they arrive, they are not there to make changes.

Check the style of the other posts, their length, the type of images they use, if they include videos and other audiovisual resources, the tone, etc., and try to adapt to this, even if you use a different style on your blog.

Create a deep and really useful article

The purpose of a guest post is to serve as a reference in your niche to give answers, propose solutions, help the audience and clarify doubts. This way you gain authority, expand your brand name and, the blog that gave you the opportunity, gains the trust of its target audience, by offering them useful content.

Develop a topic in-depth, but without making it long, heavy and not very understandable to readers. You will see how you receive comments and they will want to keep reading your posts.

Give air to your content, do not bore!

Nobody wants to read a 5,000 thousand word post that seems like a boring testament or a history essay, crammed with data and information that never seems to end.

If you want to collaborate effectively, you have to be smart to organize your information , and one way to do this is by airing up your paragraphs. How? Making lists! Lists are easier to read, more attractive, and interesting at a glance.

Take advantage of this and other strategies, to facilitate the reading of your article, and you will see how you get more acceptance as a collaborator.

Pick a winning title and on something highly sought after

I always say that to create a winning article, you have to start with a winning title.

If you want your publication to generate a lot of traffic, it is important that you research ideas and topics for the posts, so you can be astute when choosing a title.

The title is like the cover letter and has the power to attract or alienate your readers.

Don't forget to create internal links

Although it is not your blog, it is good that you include quality internal links within your guest post, as this is positive for the SEO of the blog in which you collaborate and the editor will be happy to see that you are interested in its Web positioning.

Trust me, doing this will earn you the publisher's trust and call you for future collaborations.

Invite readers to interact with their comments

Blog comments are powerful because they generate traffic, help to get more subscribers and it is the beginning to improve the user experience, because there people comment if they are happy with the publication, leave suggestions for new topics, ask questions, etc.

Make a call to action (CTA) on your guest post and persuade readers to leave comments on it.

Also, respond to these comments so that you establish a link with the audience, as it is useless to collaborate, publish and leave the readers forgotten. Interacting in the comments is beneficial for your conversion rate.

Take advantage of your guest author bio

While I've made it clear that posting a guest post isn't about you, it does give you the opportunity to create a short guest author biography.

Take advantage of it to add a link that leads to your website, to direct to a specific product, invite to read a publication or to invite them to follow you. Depending on the objective of your collaboration, you can do one or the other, but in a natural way.

Follow up on your post as a guest

You cannot leave your guest post as a half pregnancy. It's not just about publishing and you're done, but you have to follow up:

#respond to comments,

#share and publicize your post on your social networks,

#try to get a new collaboration, and even

#send a thank you note to the editor of the blog where you posted.

It's part of the work that collaborations entail. Do not publish and disappear forgetting your "baby", there is still a lot to do!

 Measure the results of your guest post

As I said, collaborating with a guest post does not end when you manage to publish on a third-party blog. After achieving this, you have to measure the results to verify or not that the article as a guest met your objectives.

One way to obtain data is through Google Analytics and its inbound link tracking system.

Latest tips for the guest post strategy

Larger web pages do not ensure more traffic

Let's be clear: one of the purposes of the guest post is to generate traffic and improve the position of your website in Google results.

However, if you want to gain traffic by making a collaboration, do not decide on the largest sites: that these receive more visits does not mean that you will increase your organic traffic.

One way to measure success and ensure traffic to your website is by the amount of comments that the blog receives where you are going to publish your guest post. I know of many small blogs that get up to 50 comments for each post, and that, dear reader, is a good traffic indicator for any collaboration!

Squeeze external links

The inbound links to your website (backlinks) are very important for the positioning of your website and should never be ignored, even when making a collaboration.

Of course, I remind you that you must be clever to include it naturally throughout the text and whenever it leads to content related to the topic you develop, and to help the reader.

If you don't do it right, your bounce rate will reveal your bad practice to the search engine, and to the editor of the blog you are collaborating with!

Lean on infographics

Pictures speak louder than words, many times. Today, social networks are full of photographs and infographics, so I recommend making use of them.

What I like the most about infographics is that they adapt to your style, are easy to create, and give you the opportunity to be very creative.

In addition, there are numerous online tools with which you can create fabulous infographics that can mark a before and after in your organic traffic. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a thoughtful, useful, and engaging infographic can easily put you on Google's radar.

Sell ​​yourself with a memorable bio

A boring bio is the common denominator among many bloggers. But those who have understood that creating a great bio is important for traffic, today have conquered the search engines.

If you sell your bio with cunning, honesty and some humor, believe me, that in a short time your contributions will improve your online presence and your brand will be respected.

Tell who you are, what you do, what you offer and why it is worth visiting your website, in a close and cheerful way, and you will see how the audience follows you. My tips for writing a perfect 'about us' section could help you create an amazing bio.

Conclusion: guest post is useful to expand your brand and conquer Google

Although many website owners still do not know how to make a guest post to improve their visibility and positioning in Google, this strategy has been tested by many large brands, especially at the level of content marketing and  Inbound Marketing.

Guest article collaborations are a perfect opportunity to reach your target audience and engage with a new audience, as well as bond with important people in your niche. That is why it is one of the main techniques of SEO Growth Hacking.

The SEO of your website will thank you and you will be getting many assets. I assure you that it is a safe bet if you plan a guest post strategy as soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow is late! Maybe tomorrow your competition is already collaborating with the most important blogs in your niche!

Did you find this article helpful? As I am sure it is, hehe, I invite you to share it with your friends on social networks so that they also learn how to make a guest post correctly.