When you post a blog or article on someone’s website as a guest, you are guest posting for them. Guest posting your blog on another website gives you an opportunity to build a relationship with the website owner. You also appear to be an authority of the niche you’re posting for. You also get a backlink to your website from the guest post and exposure to a broader audience of the guest website. In order for you to guest post on a website, the website owner must first allow you to post your article. Usually, webmasters mutually exchange blogs on each other’s sites to create backlinks and traffic for their websites.
Guest posting benefits both the blogger and the webmaster. When you’re dealing in a specific niche, and blogging about it over time, many times you’d find yourself get monotonous with your blog ideas. This can affect the engagement and viewership on your blog negatively, as your audience might get bored of the same content repeatedly. When guest bloggers post a blog on your blog once in a while, it gives a fresh perspective and new information to your visitors. This keeps their interest piqued.
Guest Posting and SEO
As we discussed earlier, guest posting works best for building relationships, gaining authority over your niche and also gaining strong backlinks and wide exposure. While some of these objectives are qualitative, some of them are quantifiable. They could actually help make your website more accessible and available to the public eye.
1. Backlinks
Backlinks are one of the crucial ranking factors for search engine optimization. Each search engine has different parameters or guidelines to judge the strength of a backlink and its relevance. The most popular search engine is Google, and it has its set of instructions as well. The domain and page where the link is situated, location of the link inside the page, and also the anchor text are few variables that help Google judge the relevance and importance of a backlink.
2. Anchor Text
Anchor text is the keyphrase where the backlink is hyperlinked. Generally, you’d want your anchor text to be a phrase that doesn’t break the flow of the content or sounds too odd. It should genuinely add value to the reader’s insight by providing them with services that they’re looking for or expecting when reading your guest post. There are several ways to add an anchor text. To discuss a few:
The keyword that you’re attempting to optimize your content for itself can be used as a relevant keyphrase to use as anchor text. Many times using the entire keyword in the same hierarchy might sound odd or forced. Hence if your keyword is the best SEO company, you could use “best SEO services” as an anchor text.
Probably the most direct and obvious way of putting an anchor text is using the link itself in place of indirectly hyperlinking the link to a phrase. You can do this when you know you can be direct about letting the audience know you are redirecting them to a service without having to mask it. One option is to ask your guest writer to mention your URL as a stand-alone link in the body of the content. Also, you could either use a short URL or the full URL.
You can be as direct as mentioning your brand name as the best alternative or solution for the services the audience are looking for. Further, you can use it as anchor text for redirecting them to your website. This probably works best for sponsored or openly declared collaborative blog articles. As you can ask the other blogger to use your brand’s name as anchor text for the content.
Keywords that you optimize the page for aren’t always necessarily a single word. They are, in most instances, phrases as they help you get more specific. Some focus keyphrases are challenging to use in sentences as they wouldn’t make sense without stop words. Hence, using a particular portion of a single word of the focus keyphrase is often better than using the entire keyphrase if its more relevant to the content. Such anchor texts help keep the flow of the content intact.
White noise is similar to what whitespace is in design. They are the bridge and connectors between two crucial words. They help keep the flow of conversation and act as transition words. You can use these as anchor text when you don’t see any other subtle way of including your backlink in the content. Some examples of white noise are “click here”, “that”, “link”, “this” and “more”. These are more direct in nature as they have a call to action appeal.
3. Link Placement
Just placing the link in the article isn’t enough. Where you put it has a significant impact on the chances that your readers might click on them. Ideally, you should place the link in the body of the article. It should be around the content that is most relevant to it. If the article has a biography column, you could very well link your blog there itself. However, if you can, you should always ask the author of the blog to include the link in the body of the blog, especially if it adds value to the blog.
Considerations of Guest Posting
Now that you have an idea about guest posting and how it can help your blog or business. Let’s look at what factors you should keep in mind while guest posting.
You are going to be a guest at someone’s blog, or you’re going to invite someone as a guest on your blog. Each blog has its set of ethos and a set of guidelines. Hence when you’re getting involved with either of the activity, there are some essential considerations you need to keep in mind.
If you’re planning on using another blogger’s site to attract their audience, you need to provide the same value in return. It is a two-way street; hence, you need to be able to provide similar value. Same goes for when you’re hosting a guest on your website, make sure they can give you the equal value in return.
The entire purpose of guest posting or blogging is to draw more like-minded people who genuinely would be interested in reading what you write. If you’re into providing medical facilities, having a guest post by a medical expert makes sense. They would have authority about the knowledge that is insightful and relevant to your niche. However, if you invite a guest blogger that specializes in cars, it won’t add any value for your audience. Rather, they might stray away from your website because they feel you’re straying away from the core of your blog.
Guest blogging is an excellent way of getting a new pool of potential readers and customers. Still, it also is a unique way of forming better relations with the bloggers you’re working with. This could lead to future prospects of taking up more guest blogging activities, and continue to help each other grow beyond the first transaction. Follow these practices to be a good guest writer.
- Link the post from your blog.
- Promote it over social media to get more traffic and engagement.
- Thank the people who allowed you to write a guest blog.
- Stay active after you’ve written the blog and engage with the comments on it.
One common mistake many guest bloggers make is that they don’t analyze the success or engagement of the website they are planning to collaborate with. Since you’re planning on getting more traffic to your website, you need to know that when you write a Guest Post, it is reaching to genuine people who are going to read it. Hence you need to check that the website you are collaborating with has –
- A reasonable number of views on their regular blogs.
- Good engagement- Number of comments and conversations.
- A decent follow count.
Now that you have a good understanding of the process of guest posting and its benefits, you can start reaching out to other websites and bloggers and start posting.
