“Link building is useless today.”
“Guest blogging is dead in 2021.”
How many times have you heard these statements? Almost every day, right!
Well, digital marketers, no matter what so-called industry experts say, link building and guest blogging always were and will be effective marketing strategies. In fact, 58.1% of respondents said that link building significantly impacts search engine ranking. On top of it, 70% of editors intend to publish 1-10 guest blogs per week.
So, guest blogging and link building are pretty much in action today. It is just that the right methods to generate natural links through guest blogging have turned quite more technical due to extreme competition in the last few years.
Today, getting your guest blog published on the high domain authority site isn’t less challenging than walking on nails. But it’s not impossible either. If you follow the right pathway to approach and create guest blogs, you can effortlessly generate high DA natural links.
So, without any ado, let’s check out what is the right way to use guest blogging for link building.
How to Use Guest Blogging to Generate Natural Links
Whether it’s SEO optimization or search engine ranking, building high-quality links through guest blogging can help your website grow and generate more revenue. However, you just simply need to follow the right way to target guest blogging for link building, such as:
1. Pre-planning phase
Before actually approaching a guest blogging site or creating a blog post, you have to plan. The pre-planning phase is very important for your overall link-building strategy. But, unfortunately, not many marketers spend enough time on the planning phase as they directly move to the execution phase. So, don’t make this mistake and start planning with the following things:
- Focus on brand and reputation building, not just link building. If you build a high authority brand, you have to struggle less to publish your guest blogs.
- Create your portfolio before approaching editors, like first publish blogs on your site or on other sites.
- Build a brand on social media to lure guest blogging sites to publish your content, etc.
2. Find the right blogging method
There are roughly 500 million blogs active online. And, out of them, finding a suitable blog site for your niche and market is very important. That’s because people, guest blogging is only useful if you are targeting the right partner. Otherwise, it’s just a wastage of your time.
So, to find the right guest blogging, you can use these methods:
Google scrapping: Many guest blogging sites have dedicated pages for guest bloggers. So, simply enter your “keyword + write for us” on Google, and you’ll find various relevant guest blogging opportunities in your niche.
Influencer method: This is a bit of a stalkerish method, but very useful. Suppose you wish to approach guest blogging sites targeted by Neil Patel or any other influencer popular in your industry. So, search “guest blog + Neil Patel”, and all the sites where Neil Patel has published guest blogs will appear on your screen to select.
Competitors backlinks: This is the easiest option. You can use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to analyze your competitors’ backlinks and target the same platforms to publish your guest blogs.
3. Sort your guest blogging opportunities
Once you have gathered relevant guest blogging sites information, the next step is to shortlist the best opportunities based on:
- Domain authority
- Quality and relevancy of the content
- Check authors who have already published content on the site
- Analyze likes, shares, and comments received by other posts, etc.
4. Approach the guest blogging sites
Mostly, on the website of a guest blogging platform, you’ll find all the relevant information regarding how to post guest blogs. Every website has its own guest blogging terms and conditions, so read them all carefully before approaching the website.
However, this way, you might have to wait for months, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get any reply back, especially on the high DA sites.
So, here you have to follow another approach. You have to build relationships with popular editors and then make your pitch to them. This way, you have a higher chance of getting your guest blog published.
5. Writing guest blog
This is the main part, people. If your guest blog isn’t written according to the targeted site’s rules, you can’t get your content published there. So, before writing, read all the specific content writing rules defined by the site. If there are no specific rules, read out other blogs published on the website to understand its writing style and voice.
Next, select the catchy and relevant blog topic that can attract readers and redirect them to your site. Importantly, before submitting the guest blog, edit and proofread it properly because 71% of editors claimed that the majority of their time is spent on editing the content. So, thoroughly edit your content before editing and if your budget allows, hire a professional editor to increase your chances of getting published.
6. Add relevant images and statistics
To make your blog more attractive and SEO-friendly, you should add relevant images, examples, case studies, and statistics to your content. That’s because the primary reason for publishing is guest blogs to share information, new ideas, and industry experts’ knowledge with the users.
Therefore, if you make your blog post highly unique and informative, there’s no reason for guest blogging sites to deny your posts.
Over to you
There you go, marketers! Within just six steps, you can create a dynamic guest blog to generate natural backlinks for your site. You just need to follow all the steps carefully because there’s a huge competition going on in the industry. So, to increase your chances of generating high DA links — be unique and follow all the guest blogging sites.
Now, go and start guest blogging now, people, but before that, don’t forget to like and share this post.
About the Author:
Samawat Shakil is the Content Manager at SEO Troupe, a marketing blog dedicated to providing the most up-to-date SEO and marketing facts and insights to the marketer community. She is addicted to SEO, reading, and french fries.
