The benefits of guest posting.

Guest posting has come a long way since it was done for good intentions. Now we guest post for more reasons than just getting eyes on our posts. Look at these typical reasons as goals for guest posting

Let’s explore some reasons.

• Setting yourself up to be an authority in your niche
• Getting eye balls on your content
• Getting visitors to your blog
• Building important backlinks. 

So, why is it important to build backlinks? Well, backlinks are a vital metric for Google when it comes to ranking a website. Links to your website are seen like votes of confidence and Google loves that. 

Not all links are good and you can easily fall in a trap of messy and harmful links. All websites have a PA and DA. 

Page authority and domain authority. The closer the website is to a 100 the better the authority of the website. So, the idea is to request backlinks from websites with a high PA and DA. You can read more about DA and PA here and the easiest way to check for authority scores is by using a tool called Moz Toolbar.

How do you find guest post opportunities?

Well, this can be easy or very difficult because of few reasons. Luckily for us, hear in South Africa we don’t have that many blogs and competition, so we could find new guest blogging opportunities rapidly by doing a search for blogs in your industry. 

Take the first 10 results on the first page of Google and simply send them a mail asking for an opportunity (later more this) 

You can use Google and do a string search by using modifiers. It works like this. 

Type in the Google search bar – “keyword”” write for us” A whole list of blogs will pop up with the term “write for us” pages. Let me be more specific here. 

Us combinations like:

• “Blogging”” write for us”
• “landscaping”” write for us”
• “Beauty”” guest posting”
• “Food”” guest author” 

The combinations are endless, but I am sure you catch my drift here? Search for a keyword related to your niche + something similar to “write, guest, post and author. Simple but very affective. 

One thing I want to add here, you might find blogs from around the world and not necessarily blogs focusing on the South African market. You can always try to add “South Africa” at the end and see what Google spits out. 

You can always type “top food blogs in South Africa” and see what pops up, if you are lucky enough to find a list check out each of the listed blogs to see if they accept guest blogging. 

With all this being said, not all bloggers like being hassled for guest post opportunities so, if you hear nothing back or an email letting you know what they think of you, just walk it off! Your blog will go on without their help in any way. 

How do you pitch for a guest post opportunity?

If you find a blog who allows guest posting you will find that most bloggers have few requirements you have to meet before you can request anything. Make sure you at least read through the requirements and understand them. Then under those requirements make your request. 

If a blog does not feature a “guest blogging“ opportunity it does not mean they don’t accept them at all, it just means you have to do some extra work before you pitch a guest blogging idea. 

Here’s what you can do – 

• Make sure you have read their content and understand what they write about. 
• What type of audience are they writing for and will you be able to write for a younger, older or even academically audience?
• How much traffic do they get. 
• Find out what post generally do better with their audience. A quick tip, check their posts comments to find out. 

Now, if you have all the info you need to write and awesome guest post, it is now time to reach out to them. Write an awesome personalized email and not some generic mail you stole of the internet. 

Your mail should need the following – 

• Introduce yourself and let them know who you are
• What is your idea with the blog post
• What do you want to blog about 
• And why this blog post would be beneficial for their blog. 
• Add links to your blog post for them to have a look
• Keep it real, it is not about you! It is about them. 

All this info seems like a lot of effort to go through for one blog post but remember what can happen if your blog post is excellent. You could get a massive amount of highly targeted traffic to your blog plus you build links back your site and for the reason of building backlinks alone, it is worth it. 

Things to remember

If you get the chance to write a blog post, add some internal links to other related articles of their blog. You can even link to products they sell. 

Add some sort of call to action at the end of your blog post to encourage the readers to leave comments. 

While we are on the topics of comments, don’t be that guy who never replies to comments please! Do your part and reply them, this will say a lot about your ethics as guest blogger.

Make sure to write an awesome BIO for yourself with a link back to your website. 

Lastly, guest blogging should be a two-way street. You should use this opportunity to build an awesome relationship with the owner of the blog. In the end, we all have to work together to make it work. 

Wrapping it up

Guest blogging is fun and can greatly improve your blog’s rankings and traffic but it is so much more than that. Blogging and entrepreneurship can be a very lonely road so if you can build relationship with like-minded people like yourself that is a huge bonus and something you should not take for granted. 

Happy blogging.

Affiliate Disclaimer: In this or most of my post I recommend products or services via links or and banners. If any of these links end up in a sale I get a small commision at no extra cost to you.

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