Since the rise of Google Panda, guest blogging has become a key link building strategy for SEO, and is being used by numerous digital marketers all around the world. SEOMoz CEO, Rand Fishkin, stated the following in regards to guest blogging:
“It is a fantastic strategy to build your brand, get in front of new people, earn some links back to your site, and earn the recognition from other communities that can lead to all sorts of good marketing opportunities in the future.”
While Rand is most certainly correct, there are some things that you need to keep in mind before offering your content to blog owners. As with anything, you want to make sure you get the most out of your time and effort to ensure maximum productivity.
Do your research:
Before you start creating content for a guest post, it’s essential to do some basic research. Make sure that you choose sites relevant to your niche. If you’re creating content about kitchen remodeling, then you probably don’t want your content on a site that revolves around dentistry and oral hygiene. That’s not going to do you any good, and chances are the blog/site owner will decline your guest post.
Finding blogs to guest post on is not too difficult. Don’t make it harder than it already is. There are some great tools out there that can help you find relevant, quality blogs to publish your content. Do yourself a favor and check out sites like My Blog Guest and Guest Blog It.
My Blog Guest Members Forum
Reach out and build relationships:
Creating relationships is half the battle when it comes to guest blogging. Reach out to blog owners and give them reasons they should be publishing your content on their site/blog. Let them get to know you first, and be completely honest about your intentions. People put a lot of time and effort into their websites, and thus they’re not just going to let some stranger come on in and publish content without digging a little deeper.
It’s also good to interact and leave well-thought comments on blogs that you’re wishing to guest post on. This shows that you’re not just there to get content published and move on. It shows you have a real interest in what’s being discussed.
Optimize your content:
Make sure you check the site’s guest post requirements. Some might require author bios, pictures, minimum/maximum word usage, etc. Once you’ve attained the guest post requirements, you’ll want to optimize your content for search engines. Make sure to use target keywords/phrases in the title of your content. As most SEO’s know, the title is one of the most important aspects of on-page optimization.
You’ll also want to make sure you use your keywords sparingly throughout your content. DO NOT stuff keywords in your content, as Google has reiterated numerous times that you’ll get penalized for doing so.
Be careful when choosing anchor text for your backlinks. It used to be very beneficial to apply target keywords in anchor text to acquire higher rankings for those specific keywords, and that’s still true to an extent, but don’t overdue it. Be sure to mix in some “naked” or branded anchor text in your backlinks too. This will help diversify your in-bound link profile, which Google Penguin loves.
Connect through social media:
Not only should you be sharing your blog posts throughout social media channels, but you should also be connecting with other bloggers on your social networks to build guest blogging relationships.
Find bloggers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ etc. Follow them, like them, and add them to your circles. Most bloggers have links to their social networks right on their blogs and blog posts. They are there for a reason, and that is to connect. Use them to build guest blogging relationships.
Thanks for reading and happy blogging!