Guest posting, often considered the outcast of SEO strategies, has a negative association with outdated black hat tactics and spammy link building. However, despite its tainted reputation, guest posting has been a valuable tool for generating numerous business opportunities and leads for my company.
Rather than dismissing guest posting altogether, it’s time to shift our focus from using it purely for link-building purposes and instead embrace it as a brand-building strategy. In this article, I will provide guest posting tips that not only enhance your website’s SEO value but also contribute to building your brand.
Benefits of Guest Posting in Brand Awareness
SEO practitioners have been discussing certain tactics for so long that it seems like they should rank #1 for those terms. However, despite the belief that certain strategies such as link building are dead, guest posting is still a relevant opportunity for building thought leadership and generating brand awareness.
While links obtained through guest posting are usually nofollow links, the benefits of increased brand exposure and business opportunities from posting on well-known blogs such as CamRojud are worthwhile.
The advantages of guest posting include increased brand recognition, viable backlinking opportunities (even if nofollow), establishing thought leadership, boosting site traffic, and generating new leads and business opportunities. Additionally, 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.
However, it’s important to have the appropriate focus and expectations in place before engaging in guest posting. To help you make the most of your guest posting efforts and enhance your brand visibility, I have compiled a list of how to increase brand awareness using guest posting.
Focus on your Niche
As a digital marketer, it’s important to stay within your area of expertise when guest posting. If your business focuses on content creation, it’s best to write about content. Similarly, if your speciality is video marketing, you should offer guest content about video marketing.
Experts typically have a narrow focus and tend to stay in their lane. To establish yourself as an expert, it’s crucial to have extensive knowledge and experience in the subject matter you are writing about. If you write professionally about multiple subjects, you run the risk of confusing your brand and search engine evaluations of your content.
For instance, my primary areas of focus for guest posting are content creation, productivity, and search engine optimization. Although I’m also an editor for a popular review publication, I don’t guest post in that industry. This is similar to how full-time staffers at CamRojud won’t typically guest post on other digital marketing publications.
While there may be exceptional circumstances where you write about something outside of your primary focus, it’s generally best to stick to your area of expertise when guest posting.
Create Evergreen and Cornerstone Content
To ensure that your guest post has a lasting impact, it’s crucial to focus on creating evergreen content. While experts are often asked for their opinions on newsworthy items, it’s essential to remember that guest posting is different. The goal is not necessarily to make a big splash but to create content that will remain relevant and valuable for years to come.
It can be challenging to create evergreen content in rapidly changing industries like technology, but it’s still important to aim for as much evergreen content as possible. As someone who mostly writes about content creation and productivity, a significant portion of my content can remain evergreen.
In my experience, a good rule of thumb for guest post content is to aim for 90% evergreen and 10% newsworthy or trending. By focusing primarily on evergreen content, you increase the chances that your post will continue to provide value to readers long after its initial publication.
Aim for Strong and Relevant Websites in your Industry
While many SEO professionals focus on a website’s domain authority (DA), this single element alone does not tell the entire story of a website’s strength. It’s still possible to find websites with high DAs but thin web page copy, loaded with irrelevant external links that detract from the website’s core focus. Relying solely on a high DA to determine a good, relevant website can derail your guest posting efforts.
Instead of solely chasing a strong DA, it’s essential to look for high-quality websites with reputable content written by experts. Before pitching to a publication, you should ask for traffic metrics and determine whether the site buys links or exchanges them for money. It’s also crucial to check the site’s link profile or have an SEO professional do it for you. If the website links to irrelevant domains with unworthy content, it’s best to save your energy and move on to the next target website.
Tips For Increasing Brand Awareness With Social Media Marketing in 2023
Remember, brand building should always be the primary focus, with link acquisition being secondary. If a website is not good for your brand, keep moving to save yourself time and effort as you search for the best online outlet to amplify your content. If you come across anything that seems scammy, particularly with regard to link building, it’s best to move on 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 impact when guest posting, focus on creating a strong bio since many websites limit linking to personal websites within the post itself. Typically, a bio includes a headshot, a link to your website, and a brief description of one to two sentences.
Choose the website you link to carefully and ensure that it is the most relevant and beneficial to your audience. Craft a description that accurately represents your brand and appeals to the audience of the website. Remember that your bio is often what people will click on to learn more about you, so make sure it leaves a lasting impression.
Use Relevant and Link-Worthy Sources in your post
Make sure not to skimp on the length of your guest post. Search engines prefer articles that provide serious value, and longer posts are more likely to do so. However, don’t include any fluff; ensure that the content is well thought out and well written.
According to our in-house analysis of client blog content, a minimum word count of 800 words is required for high-quality content, although most of our guest posts are around 1000 words. I recommend going even longer, up to 2,500 words per piece, which is the average length of my posts.
One way to add value to your guest post is to quote other experts within your article, especially if they write for the publication where you’re guest posting. For even better results, try to get a direct, unique quote from an author or expert within 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.
7 Tips for Increasing Traffic on Your Business Website in 2023
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
Looking for guest post opportunities online is a straightforward process. Simply 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.”
Once you identify a suitable publication, the next step is to pitch your idea. Consider these points when pitching:
- Personalize each pitch.
- Address the managing person by their first name and tailor your language to their style.
- Keep your email brief and informal.
- Suggest 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.
Keep in mind that guest posting is not only about getting links but also about improving your brand’s reputation. Plan a link-building strategy that focuses on pages with a high return on investment (ROI) to maximize the benefits of guest posting.
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
Remember, guest posting should be just one part of your overall brand exposure and PR strategy. While guest posting can be a valuable asset, it’s important to remember that you don’t own the content. Publications can fold or change their content strategy at any time, causing your work to disappear.
To combat this, always keep a final copy of your guest posts saved somewhere safe. Additionally, make sure to search for the article to ensure it wasn’t scraped and used on other websites without your permission.
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.
Use Google’s Guidelines
It is important to be cautious when contributing content to other online publications, as Google has released guidelines on what to avoid.
These guidelines include avoiding stuffing keyword-rich links to your site in your articles, using article writers who lack knowledge about the topics they’re writing about, using the same or similar content across articles, and duplicating the full content of articles found on your site. If you do use content from your site, it is advised to use rel=”canonical” in addition to rel=”nofollow.”
It’s also important to note that Google has penalized websites that accept guest posts, so it’s essential to do your due diligence before pitching content to a publication. In short, it’s crucial to do your homework and ensure you follow Google’s guidelines and best practices for guest posting.
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!
