Guest blogging is often thought of as the redheaded stepchild of SEO strategies, seemingly inextricably linked with the bad old days of black hat techniques and spammy link building. Yet, despite its terrible reputation, guest posting has been the source of many great business opportunities and leads for my company.
Rather than giving up on guest blogging entirely, now’s the time to rewire our thinking and understand the tactic as one used primarily for brand building.
In this article, we will explore guest blogging tips that will not only add value to your website by improving its SEO but also do so in a manner meant to build your brand, too.
Benefits of Guest Posting in Brand Awareness
Certain tactics have been debated by SEO practitioners for so long now that they really should rank #1 for the terms. Link building, among other strategies, was considered dead in favor of guest posting – a relevant opportunity to build thought leadership and brand awareness.
Although links from guest posts are normally nofollow, the brand exposure and business from posting on a well-established blog like CamRojud make the effort worth your while.
Advantages of guest blogging include increased brand awareness, viable backlinking opportunities – even when nofollow-establishing thought leadership, site traffic, and new leads and business opportunities. Also, having your writing spread across various publications helps build your trust and authority beyond just a hyperlink back to your blog on someone else’s site.
Before diving in, though, it’s crucial that you have the right focus and expectations when it comes to guest posting. This will help you get the most from the process and create better visibility for your brand; hence, I have outlined below how you can use guest blogging to increase brand awareness.
Focus on your Niche
As a digital marketer, when reaching out for guest blogging opportunities, you want to make sure that you stick to your area of expertise. If your business is a content creation business, then you need to write about content. If your specialty is video marketing, you should guest blog about video marketing.
Experts usually have a narrow focus and stick to their lanes. To be an expert, you need to possess great knowledge and experience in your field of writing. It’s dangerous to write professionally about too many subjects lest your brand and search engines evaluating your content get confused.
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For example, my main niches for guest blogging are content creation, web development, productivity, and search engine optimization. I am also an editor of a popular review publication.
While there may be very special circumstances in which you would write about something other than your primary focus, generally, you want to stick to your area of expertise when guest posting.
Create Evergreen and Cornerstone Content
But here’s the thing: for your guest post to create any lasting impact, it really should be evergreen. It is quite common for experts to be invited to comment on items currently in the news, but they must remember that guest blogging is different. It is less about making a splash than creating content that will still be relevant and valuable several years from now.
It can be difficult to create evergreen content in fast-moving industries such as technology, but it is still worth striving for as much evergreen content as possible. As someone who writes mostly about content creation and productivity, a large amount of my content can remain evergreen.
My rule of thumb, from experience, is to make 90% of the content evergreen and 10% newsworthy or trending. Focusing mainly on evergreen content increases the likelihood that your post will continue to provide value to readers long after its initial publication.
Aim for Strong and Relevant Websites in your Industry
Although most search engine optimizers rely on the website’s domain authority, it does not define everything about a website.
One can still find a few websites that have a high DA but contain thin web page copy and are loaded with irrelevant external links, thereby diluting the core focus of the website. This alone may make relying on a high DA for a good, relevant website derail your guest posting efforts.
Instead of chasing a strong DA, you want to be looking for high-quality websites with reputable content written by experts. You should be asking for traffic metrics before pitching to a publication and finding out whether the site buys links or exchanges them for money.
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You should also check the site’s link profile or have an SEO professional do it for you. Save your energy if it links to irrelevant domains with worthless content, and head on to the next target website.
Remember, building your brand should always be your first priority while acquiring links comes second. If the site isn’t any good for your brand, move along to save yourself time and effort in finding the best online outlet to amplify your content.
If anything that smells scammy, especially when it comes to link building, it’s better to run away from it and find another prospective website.
Build Relationships with Good websites
When you come across a strong website that connects with your guest posts, give it your all. Some SEO professionals may not agree with this approach since more links have diminishing value. Usually, a guest post includes a link in the contributor’s bio to their homepage. As a result, the first link is typically the most powerful, and each subsequent link provides less value.
But if the website is influential and you’re making an impact on its audience, ignore the link’s worth and concentrate on enhancing your brand. Many people do the reverse, providing valuable content that doesn’t resonate with the audience solely to obtain a link.
Optimize Your Bio
To maximize your reach in guest blogging, focus on making a great bio as many websites will only allow links back to your website in your bio. A typical bio contains your headshot, your link, and a short bio, one or two sentences maximum.
Choose carefully the website that you will link to, and ensure it is the most important and useful to your audience. Write a description that summarizes your brand and will resonate well with the audience of the linked website. Keep in mind that so many times, your bio is what people will click on to get to know about you, so make that count.
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Use Relevant and Link-Worthy Sources in your post
The final thing: don’t be stingy with the length of your guest post. Search engines like articles that offer more substantial value, and longer posts can do just that. Don’t pad the post, though, make sure the content is well-considered and well-written.
Based on our in-house analysis of client blog content, 800 words is the minimum required for high-quality content, but most of our guest posts run about 1000 words. I suggest going even longer, up to 2,500 words per post, which is the average length of my posts.
Another great way to add value to your guest post is by quoting other experts in your article, particularly if they write for the publication in which you are guest posting. To take it a notch higher, try getting a direct, unique quote from an author or expert in your industry.
SEO is very important
Sometimes, guest contributors neglect SEO when crafting a guest post, even those in the digital marketing industry.
If you need to refresh your knowledge of SEO writing, here are the fundamental guidelines:
- Concentrate on one or two keywords per post.
- Use your target keywords in your title, keeping it around 55 characters.
- Use numbers in your headlines, as they are often popular with readers.
- Try adding brackets or parentheses in the title, as research by HubSpot and Outbrain has shown that headlines with bracketed clarifications outperform those without them by 38%.
- Use target keywords in your meta description, which should be approximately 150 characters long, with a marketing message and a clear call-to-action (CTA).
- Use related keywords naturally throughout your content.
- Use header tags appropriately, including your target keywords (related keywords work well here).
- Use bold, italics, and bullet points sparingly to enhance readability, enhance UX, and increase the on-page reading time.
- Offer suggestions for internal and external links.
Once again, remember to consider SEO when creating your content so you don’t undermine its chances of being found.
Do not forget about Amplification
Not optimizing a guest post is a significant mistake, just like writing without considering SEO. After your article is published, promote it on all of your social media channels and encourage others to share it as well. Be sure to mention the publication and anyone else who was mentioned in the post.
Another effective tactic is to link to the article on your website. In addition, I suggest using conventional strategies, such as sharing your post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and relevant Reddit communities that may find it useful.
Search for Guest Post Opportunities and Perfect Your Pitch
It’s quite easy to find guest posting opportunities online. You’ll simply have to use a search engine and add your industry keyword followed by any of the following search phrases: “guest post submissions,” “accepting guest posts,” “guest post guidelines,” or “submit a guest post.”
When you find an opportunity that best fits your publication, the next thing you’ll do is pitch. When pitching, consider the following:
- Personalize each pitch.
- Address the managing person by their first name, and tailor your language to their style.
- Keep your email brief and formal.
- Propose some specific topics that would fit the publication.
- Include relevant credentials of your previously published work.
- Highlight your ability to create content that is search engine optimized.
If one of your previous guest posts is ranking high on Google, mention it in your pitch. While the author tag may not affect your search engine ranking, building your brand online can increase your visibility.
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Keep in mind that guest blogging is not about links only; it’s also about the reputation of your brand. Develop a link-building strategy for your website focused on high-ROI pages to maximize the results from guest blogging.
Make Reference To Your Other Published Guest Posts
If you have multiple guest posts in the same niche, aim to link to your other articles as often as possible. While some publications may not allow links to competitors, most will permit them. Linking between your guest posts across the web creates synergy and helps search engines connect all of your guest posting efforts.
Engage With Posts
To foster more engagement on your guest posts, it’s crucial to respond to comments both on the post and on social media. Like reviews, monitoring your posts across various social media channels and interacting with comments can create a buzz. Although the post is hosted on someone else’s website, your brand is the one receiving the majority of the attention.
Protect Your Guest Posts
Keep in mind that guest posting is only one part of your whole brand exposure and PR strategy. Of course, guest posting may be such a valuable asset in your sector, but you have to remember that this is not your content, it’s someone else content. Publications fold and change their content strategy every day, and in a flash, your work is gone.
For that, always retain a final copy of your guest posts somewhere safe. Also, keep searching for the article just to make sure it isn’t scraped and used without your permission on other websites.
To truly own your content, put more effort into creating content for your platforms, such as books, ebooks, and your website or blog. This will ensure that your content is always accessible to your audience and can’t be removed by external factors.
Track Your Posts
Monitoring your guest posts is a useful method to keep track of your project management and measure the leads and outcomes you are generating. SEMrush offers a Post Tracking tool that monitors social media engagement, links, and keyword rankings of your guest posts.
It is always a good idea to link to your articles published on other websites on your blog or other relevant sites. This creates a thriving ecosystem and a breadcrumb trail of your thought leadership that helps you establish your brand and authority.
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Use Google’s Guidelines
It is prudent to exercise caution when contributing content to other online publications since Google has issued guidelines on what to avoid.
These guidelines include filling your article with keyword-rich links to your site, using article writers who have never researched the topic they’re writing on, using several or multiple articles with matching/similar content, and replicating the full content of an article seen on your website.
In case you reuse some of your website content, it’s recommended that along with rel=”nofollow”, you should also use rel=”canonical”.
It’s also worth mentioning that Google has penalized websites that accept guest posts, so you want to make sure to do your due diligence when pitching content to a publication. In other words, do your homework and ensure you follow the guidelines of Google and the best practices for guest blogging.
Leverage Guest Posting
To enhance your guest posting strategy, I suggest increasing the frequency of your posts. The wider range of publications you contribute to, the greater exposure you’ll receive. Integrate regular guest posting into your marketing plan to elevate your authority and drive traffic to your website.
Wrap Up
Guest posting can be a valuable addition to your branding and link-building strategies, but it requires a significant time investment. Although the links you acquire through guest posting may not hold much SEO value, they can be immensely valuable for your marketing and brand awareness.
Would you like to read more about how to increase brand awareness with guest posting-related articles? If so, we invite you to take a look at our other tech topics before you leave!
