Publishing useful content on your website is a great way to engage with your audience. But chances are that content is only helping you connect with your consumers. But when it comes to bringing you new consumers, it’s not much of a help. So, what is there to do to grow your audience and drive more sales through your content? Guest posting. It’s another way of dramatically increasing your website traffic and brand visibility, and today we are going to talk all about it.
In a nutshell, guest blogging is when you post your content on other websites to get more traffic, increase your website ranking on search engines, and ultimately win more leads.
When you feel like posting content on your website is not helping you generate more traffic and leads, you post it on other websites. But here’s the trick part: you can’t just publish your content on any website. It’s great to start by posting your content on a few small websites. But if you want to really take the benefits of guest blogging, you need to get your content published on top websites. It’s not as hard as you might think. You just need to know the right steps and you can easily get that done. Here’s how it all works.
The first thing you need to do is make a list of top websites that have your target audience. For that, you need to find sites that are relevant to your niche or industry. So, there are mainly two things you need to focus on when finding the right websites. One that their content is relevant to your business and two that their audience will be interested in your content.
Now, you can spend hours asking Google or any other search engine to find you such sites or you can type your keyword and then type things like “guest posting opportunities”, “write for us”, “become a contributor”, etc.
For example, if your business is related to photography, you can search for “photography guest post opportunities” and other keywords like that. These searches will lead you to the top websites that post content related to your business and are open to guest posting opportunities.
The next thing, after you find three to four top sites that publish guest posts, is to read the content on those websites. This will help you visualize what these sites are talking about so you can contribute with content that matches their voices.
Once you have taken notes on each website’s content, it’s time for you to pick one site that you want to target. Yes, take one at a time, go through its guest post guidelines, read through some of the guest publications by other people, and start working on your content piece.
Writing your guest post, remember to create high-quality content that adds value to that website’s readers. Don’t just go promoting your business, try to answer their questions, solve their problems, and provide value through your content.
At this point, you have your content piece as well as the website where you want to publish that content. It’s time to sit down and write a powerful pitch. The key to do that is to keep it personalized. Give your short intro and state some accomplishments to build trust and authority. Make sure you reference the website while talking about its content and how your guest post will contribute to it.
Attach the link to your first draft of the guest post and invite them to go through it and suggest any edits and tweaks if they want. In the end, ask questions if you have any, that will show your interest in their website and make a good impression.
While writing your guest post pitch, the last and most important tip is to keep it short and sweet. Do not bore the editor, and leave some things unsaid so they are intrigued to know more about you and your proposition.
If your first email gets your guest post accepted for the site, great. Go celebrate, you have done it on your first try. But if it does not happen right away and you don’t hear back from the editors about your submission, it’s okay. Wait for about a week and then send out a follow-up email.
When you reach out a second time, they know that you're committed to the project and want to see your post published. This will get them to give you feedback to improve your content. You can then work on it, send it back, and hopefully get it published.
If you still don’t get your guest post published, after you have done everything right, don’t be discouraged. Take the same content, work on it according to another website’s guidelines, draft a personalized pitch, and submit it there. Basically, just go back to square one and pitch your guest publication for another top site on your list. Now that you have an experience of getting rejected, you’ll do a better job pitching and communicating with the editors of this one.
Guest posting is certainly not child’s play. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. But if done the right way, it also brings you tons of benefits like more traffic, better ranking, and more leads. With guest publications, you not only get backlinks to your website, but you also build a name for your brand in the industry.
However, finding the right guest posting opportunities, creating the perfect content, pitching your post to the editors, following up, and getting it published is an overwhelming task. There is a solution to every problem. You just need to ask the professional guest bloggers to get an article published on top websites and they will take care of everything. Happy guest posting!