One of the classic recipes to quickly gain notoriety on the web is guest posting, that is, writing in third-party media (other blogs, websites, social networks, etc.), in already established media that have a name and whose audience is at least related. to yours.
Websites that accept guest posts
In other words, we want to be identified with those who are already well positioned in the hope that by rubbing shoulders with these people something will “stick” to us.
In summary, by publishing on prominent sites for your niche, you shorten the hard path that you necessarily have to travel to make your blog known. This tactic is known in English as “ guest posting ” or “guest blogging” or also “guest author”.
Because let me tell you something, if you are inclined to do everything by yourself from scratch like the heroine of a novel and you enter into competition with everyone, it will be very hard for you because the blogs that are very well located have been in the industry for more than 15 years. struggle (MoU, for example, started in April 2000) or, if they are relatively new, have an SEO team behind them or make excellent use of networking, helping each other instead of competing fiercely.
What do you gain with guest posting?
Basically, you gain visibility and diffusion.
Your goal: Impress the readers of the other blog with your article to gain an audience.
Let’s see now in detail.
New visits to your blog
If your article is interesting, adds value, and is well written, surely many people will look at your bio to get the URL of your blog. In short, if you are going to get more traffic to your blog, then of course you will have to offer them reasons (other valuable articles) to keep visiting your blog.
New followers on your social networks
In general, the author’s bio includes the profiles of your social networks, so if your post made a good impression, they will want to keep in touch with you also on FB, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, etc.
new subscribers
Subscribers are the soul of your blog, they are your audience. If your article is considered valuable, in addition to visiting your blog, they will most likely also subscribe to your newsletter. Don’t you have a newsletter?…
You improve your online reputation
– Advertisement –
Not all posts you send will be accepted. You can reduce the bounce rate by first looking at the posting standards of each blog you plan to submit your content, as well as the style of the blog.
But if your post is accepted on a blog that is already established and reputable, you become part of a reputable “author clan”.
It’s like when you have a product and a well-known supermarket chain decides to put it on the shelf along with a star product. ! You’re going up, I tell you!
Get links to your blog and improve your positioning (SEO)
If you want your articles to rank well on Google ( see the advantages here ) you need links from other media that point to those articles.
The link is the currency of payment on the web. It is what drives the positioning of Google.
In general, blogs that accept guest authors allow you to link to articles on your blog yourself (although it is generally limited to 2 articles), so you can choose which articles to link to and with which keywords (which have to be related to the theme of the article).
Those external links, used cleverly, will give you a high for the keyword you link to and therefore improve your overall rankings. In other words, they improve your SEO.
Branding
Your name and your blog are YOUR brands. And the more times they are exposed to your target audience, the better. And the brand is recorded in people’s heads based on repetition, say those who know that it takes at least 7 or 8 times to remember it.
If you are convinced of the benefits that you can obtain by writing articles to be published in other media, now let’s explore how to find where to publish.
Networking
– Advertisement –
This is one of the best opportunities to network, to develop ties with important people in your sector. Do not waste it.
How to find blogs that accept guest authors
Your goal: Locate a certain number of blogs that accept guest posting.
But not any type of blog but those that are related to your niche, in other words, that are relevant to your audience.
They can be relevant directly or indirectly, for example, if you are interested in the target of entrepreneurs, in addition to entrepreneurship blogs, you could broaden your search to productivity, personal development, personal finance blogs, etc.
Google search
If you don’t have candidates in mind or you want to analyze the panorama to see if you discover some gem out there, it is best to turn to Google and do a search.
Some possible search criteria:
- “send guest post”
- “aceptar guest posts”
- “send a post”
- “guest post”
- “send a post as a guest”
- “guest post guide”
- “guest author”
- “write for us”
You have to locate a keyword related to your niche, in this way you are doing the search and filtering the results to get the blogs of your same theme.
And you do that by using the operators “OR” and “~”, we use these 2 operators (to see more about boolean operators ) because it is very difficult to describe the topic of our blog with a single keyword.
Let’s see an example: MoE is about entrepreneurship, marketing, blogging, etc.
So, if I want to search for blogs of those 3 themes that accept indicated authors, I can write the following in the Google search window:
“submit article” ~marketing OR blogging OR entrepreneurship
This restricts the search and forces Google to present results that contain only:
- send article marketing,
- submit article blogging,
- send entrepreneurship article.
Search the blogs you read
Often in the same blogs that you read, you will find mentions of other bloggers, either in a note or in the blog roll (that list that usually appears at the bottom of the page or on the side and is entitled “blogs that I read” or “blogs I like” or “the ones I follow”, etc).
Search BuzzSumo using keywords from your industry
This is excellent advice from Neil Patel.
In BuzzSumo find the most shared content on social networks in a given period. And this way you can find the best-performing guest posts, which will give you an idea of what to write about.
Here is the top-performing content for the keyword “make money blogging”.
You can then use BuzzSumo to filter guest posts. For that, in the left sidebar, deselect all the options EXCEPT “guest posts”. And ready!
Detect the main blogs in your sector with Alltop
Another tip from Neil Patel.
Alltop a platform that serves to find a list of the main blogs in your sector.
Enter the keyword of your niche and press the Search button. You will get search results with relevant directories, from there you have to visit them and see which ones accept guest posts. It is very easy to use.
On the other hand, it is not very useful in Spanish, since most of the directories have blogs in English.
Google Search Blogs, Blogs
I leave you a video of Javier Barros that explains it in luxury.
A clarification: the third option eBuzzing no longer works, so you can skip the video to the fourth option.
Search guest blogging lists
I do this for you very, very easily. Directly write the following in the Google search box: “blogs that accept guest posts” or similar. And voila!
Contact other bloggers
If you already know the medium well and have a list of blogs in mind (it is best to create a list in Excel to always keep them in mind and write down the observations), what you have to do is visit those blogs to look for signs that they accept articles. from third parties.
You have to look at the secondary menu, the one where you have the contact links, institutional data, advertising, etc., and see if there is a link like “write for us”, “guest authors”, “collaborations”, “publish in this blog”, “upload your article”, “upload your post”.
These links not only tell you that they accept articles, but also list the publication conditions. Careful reading saves both the person who wants to publish in that medium and the medium a great loss of time.
How to select which blogs to publish on
Your goal: Narrow the list down to 10-15 suitable blogs.
Once we have a broad list of blogs in our niche that accept third-party posts, it is vital to analyze the list and make a selection.
Obviously, those blogs that you read and where you sometimes comment should top the list of possible candidates, always of course that they respond to the market segment you want to target.
But what about those blogs you just discovered? Well, you need to apply other criteria to discover if they are worth it.
Some criteria to select a blog
They have good traffic and authority
Once you have your list of possible blogs it is important to select the ones that have more traffic and authority than yours.
For that we add them one per line in an excel table or in a Google Drive spreadsheet, then we add columns to complete the following information:
- Alexa ranking (the lower the number the better),
- DM ( Domain Authority, is a mozRank parameter that the higher the better)
- Fans a Facebook,
- Followers on Twitter,
- Subscribers to the Feed,
- Country (it can be an important piece of information if you want to position yourself in a particular country), the networks that you consider important for your project (LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc.), and
- Also if they publish a newsletter and how many subscribers they have.
Many of these data are obtained by installing an extension in the browser, there are several, and one of the most complete is SeoQuake, which, although it is for analysis of the competition, is the same data that we need to analyze the strength of a blog.
Once we have all this data (or as much as possible), we can compare it with ours and from there it immediately becomes clear which ones are better positioned than our blog, which makes them a good candidate to publish.
Of course, if the difference is huge, the other blog will not be interested in including your publication (after all, if the roles were reversed, neither would you…), but that should not discourage you, on the contrary, it should encourage you to improve and Get accepted by the main blogs in the niche.
So this list can help you plan your growth.
Have a participatory audience
In other words, the articles arouse the interest of the public so they leave comments at the bottom. And that the community be active and participate in the conversation.
Another clue is to check the number of times they share on social networks.
That they have a convenient publication frequency
If the publication frequency is very high, your post will remain on the front page for only a few days and may go unnoticed.
How to get them to accept your collaboration
Don’t waste his time (and don’t waste it yourself)
You must create a positive perception from the first email. Let the blogger see that working with you is easy and that you are an agile person, with clear ideas.
To do this, go to the point and make a concrete proposal. But first, take a good look at whether the publication conditions are published. If you have them, read them carefully and stick to them. And since we are here, you can see here the conditions of publication in Women in Business.
This brings us to the next point.
Minimize the number of emails
There are people who are a delight to work with and others who are a true ordeal.
If you have received clear instructions then why don’t you follow the instructions?
If you send the article one day, the images another day, if they have to claim the biography, when you send the biography you have to edit it because it is five times longer than what was requested, you do not send the links to your social networks and since we are sure that instead of creating the Gravatar account to link your photo, you send us the photo so that we can create the account for you, etc, etc. It is very difficult to work with such a person. As a consequence, the thing stagnates and ends in nothing.
Tell him what you can contribute
Be proactive, instead of proposing any note, check the blog you are interested in publishing a little first and see the content it already has. Is there a missing topic or approach that you could contribute?
So there you can contact the blogger, comment on what you have discovered, and propose an article that complements the content already published. Do not propose a note that this blog already has, it is not about you competing, it is about complementing its content.
And that’s a win-win-win situation. You are going to stand out with very original content, the blog is going to gain in the richness of content and the public will be delighted to read an original note.
And from the outset you can demonstrate your efficiency by proposing 2 or 3 titles for the note in question, commenting on the main points that you plan to touch on and some keywords that you are going to target.
You attracted attention in a positive way, you showed professionalism and you sent the proposal in a single email. What do you want me to say? Gooool!!!
How to write a guest post
Your goal: Earn more readers/subscribers.
Write a super article
I mean a high-quality article, well-written, great original content. And that, dear reader, takes a long, long time. But if you choose the blogs to post well, it’s really worth it.
And here counts quality and quantity. Quality because the post as a guest author is a unique opportunity if your article is also unique, original, well structured, contains a topic of great interest to that audience, etc.
long article
And quantity because with the same quality, Google prefers the longest article (and I highlight the same quality…). It is not worth writing much to confuse the subject.
The articles positioned in the first 3 places have an average of 2000/2500 words depending on the theme.
In this post Neil Patel explains the subject in depth and gives an idea of the ideal length (in a number of words) for each sector of the industry: retail, real estate, technology, gadgets, sales, marketing, fashion, travel, etc., etc.
short article
However, there are exceptions. There are cases in which a short article can position the most well.
A short article ranks when:
- Authority prevails. Blogs have more or less authority (DA= domain authority, measured from 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest authority and equivalent to the quality or credibility of a website) on a topic and that weighs when positioning.
- Answer a specific question and no more is needed. So it depends on the intent of the search.
Sometimes people make the mistake of submitting mediocre articles and saving the good ones for their own blogs. A mediocre article does not attract an audience and there you lose a good opportunity, in other words, you worked for nothing.
I’ll tell you this: if you’re going to do it, do it well.
Structure your article correctly
There is a lot to say here, basically writing for the Internet is very different from writing for print.
That is why I recommend that if you really want to learn to write for the web, read the following article.
Follow the style of the blog
In addition to structuring your article well, you have to format it like the others on the blog, in the same way, that when a book has different authors they agree on stylistic aspects.
- How are the articles in the blog which you are going to publish?
- Do they have many images?
- Are they guide type?
- Do they highlight the key concepts in bold?
- Do they include quotes?
- what is the proposed length? etc.
Includes internal links
If you name very specific technical concepts include a link to Wikipedia or some other blog that contains a good explanation.
The same if you name a specific book, product, etc., and include a link to it.
If you are going to add a graph, statistics, research, etc., include the source with its corresponding link.
Look in the publishing conditions if you can include links to your blog to a particular post. They usually allow you to include up to two (2) links, use them wisely. This means that if you manage to establish a relationship that allows you to publish more than once, do not link to the same article again, Google will not like it and you will not gain anything.
If you want to do a top job and make a very good impression on the blog editor, include links to other content on the same blog.
The easiest way is to use the search box of the same blog and write a specific keyword to find posts that respond to that search, then you already know what other articles to link to.
Include a call to action (CTA) at the end
The goal is to get feedback. The more interrelationships you generate, the better. It is what in marketing is called engagement. Think that each comment is an opportunity to start a conversation and gain a reader.
The engagement makes Google value your articles better and position them better, its analysis is clear, if the post likes the readers, it deserves to be well positioned.
Take advantage of the Author Box
At the end of a note depending on the design of the blog, there is usually an author box. That space where the guest author briefly tells who he is, what he does, what his blog is (with a link to it), and other links to his social networks.
And you also have the opportunity to show your photo, for this to happen you have to have a Gravatar account and tell the blog with which email you opened that account, just that, you don’t need to send your username and password.
Usually, the author box is very brief. One or two lines, so it’s up to you to write a “hooky” bio.
after posting
Your objective: Get your publication to take flight.
For that, you also have to help promote it.
You have to:
- Comment and include a link to the post on your own blog
- Promote it on your social networks.
- Promote it on Twitter multiple times.
- Share it on Facebook
- Share it on LinkedIn
- Promote it on Google+
- Thank the editor of the other blog that published it
- Respond to questions and comments on the post. This point is crucial, remember the engagement!!!!
Conclusions
Doing all this prior research, contacting the editor, and preparing the different articles, it’s a lot of work. A good article can take several days to write.
So before facing the guest posting prepare your own blog to receive visitors.
No matter how new your blog is, it must have at least 10 interesting posts because if your post shines and the public flows to your blog, they have to find more interesting and different content (duplicate content is not worth it) to continue reading.
In other words, before going out to “fish” for readers, prepare the house to receive them, otherwise, you will have worked in vain.
Guest posting is one of the most effective marketing methods available to anyone who is willing to invest time, effort, and, of course, commitment.
That’s why it has to be part of your content strategy.
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