Guest blogging
Guest blogging, also known as guest posting, is an SEO and content marketing technique where a person writes content for another website.
If you are receiving less than 200 website visitors, then you should not be writing for your website but rather write for other people. This way, you will build a good relationship with other bloggers, and you will get follow them backlinks from those websites, which will help spread awareness about your site and gain domain authority.
A domain authority scales from 1 to 100, which tells if the certain website will rank on page#1 of the search engines. If your domain authority is less than 30, then making your website visible will come off hard for you. That's why guest blogging is essential if you want to see your website rank no 1 in search results.
Benefits of Guest Posting
Many potential benefits of guest blogging are:
You can build relationships. You can create brand awareness and reach a new audience. Guest posting boosts authority and helps you build backlinks. Your email list grows and with the help of guest blogging more traffic drives to your site. It also increases your social media following.
How to get started
We have listed down a few strategies for you to get started with guest blogging.
Your guest posting goals
Make an outline of your goals before diving into guest posting. To gain better results, you need an outline of your goal. Once you have a clear goal ahead of you, it will be easy to accomplish it.
Guest Blogging Opportunities
To find guest blogging opportunities, use these strategies
Sites that interest your audience
You want to find your desired audience. Start looking for sites that will interest your audience. You can even use tools to find out what your audience is interested in and which sites do they visit more often. Those tools generate a report which includes the percentage of the audience interested in certain topics and sites. This way, you can narrow down the strong guest posting sites and think of some great content ideas to submit.
Sites similar to your ideal guest posting sites
Once you know what interests your audience and which site they use most frequently, you can find other related sites as well.
For example, you get to know the content marketing tactics site of USA is the most visited by the audience then you can enter the URL of that site into the Audience overlap tool, and it will show all the sites related to that content marketing in the USA that may look good for guest posting.
Qualify guest posting sites
Once you have the sites sorted, look for sites that allow guest posting, and are also a perfect fit for your goals.
Always look for sites that
Have the right size of the audience you want to reach
Have the target audience
Are visible in search results
Strong authority in search
Can drive more traffic
Come up with Blog Ideas
One of the great content marketing strategies of USA is to develop some creative ideas for the posts that won't support your goals but also provide the wants and needs of the publisher and readers.
Choose a topic that is a fit for the readers and make sure it something that catches your readers' interest.
Your audience doesn't want to read something that has already been covered in another blog. Find ways to fill in the needs and gaps of the content. Look through the sites, find which topic hasn't been covered yet, and then create something new.
For example, a site covered the topic of creative content making in the USA, then you can try to create a blog on content marketing in the USA.
Even though you are looking forward to fitting in with the publisher's need and reader's wants, Make sure you create something that interests you and your industry as well. Let your interests connect with your ideal audience.
Guest Post pitch/draft
First, you have to pitch your guest post to the publishers. To create such a post that will grab publisher’s attention
The right person to contact
Always look for an editor of the site or someone who manages the blogs and asks for their contact information and reaches out to them.
Guest posting guidelines
You don't want to waste your time or the publisher's time, right? Not to get the content wrong, always check the site's guest posting guidelines. For example you are writing a USA’s fashion blog check what the sites allows whether it allows marketing content or if you have to keep it simple.
Eye-catching subject line
To stand out from other people, you need to come up with a catchy subject line. Because there will be many people trying to guest posting and you want the publisher to notice you first in the sea of emails. Don't use the overused and boring line like "Guest Post Submission."
Benefits
Sending the guest post pitch to the publisher, make sure you point out the benefits that the publisher will have. Show them how your guest post will help them gain readers and how it will serve their site.
Quality and value
Always include links to the other guest posts you have written and their social metrics. Show the publisher why they should consider your guest post pitch and what advantages you will be bringing to them.
Create something unique and worth publishing
Once you have your pitch accepted, start working on the content they will be publishing. How to make them fall in love with your posts? We have seen USA brands following these tactics and getting influencers help in marketing their content.
Always follow the guidelines they provided.
Even though you are promoting your product and services through that post but don't go overboard with the promotion, most publishers won't allow such overly promotional posts.
Be valuable. Add value to your posts. Show the readers what they can gain from you. This way, your chances of getting published will increase.
Proofread it and Edit it. Before sending in the post, make sure your posts are error-free and professionally written.
Follow up
One of the content marketing we have seen many USA bloggers following is to build a good relationship with the publisher, follow up after your post is published. You can help the publisher manage and market the post.
Track the results
Track the results of the guest post. Use metrics to monitor the marketing of your post. Track the most crucial metrics of the posts
Number of new visitors
Amount of traffic
Number of comments
Number of shares
Number of brand mentions
Now you know how to execute the guest blogging and how to market it also. Put this information in front of you and start planning your guest post. To our USA’s content makers, good luck with marketing your content!