Guest posting is one of the oldest link-building techniques in the book, and for good reason – it works! In this article, we’re going to take a look at why guest posting is still a viable SEO strategy in 2022 and how you can get started. We’ll also dispel some of the myths that have arisen around guest posting over the years. So let’s get started!
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Why Is Guest Posting So Effective?
Guest posting is a good way to get your website links. You can write articles for other websites and put links to your website in them.
Backlinks are good for your website in a number of ways. There are two main benefits to building backlinks: one that’s very obvious and one that’s hidden from plain sight.
The first one is, of course, the simple fact that the more people see a link to your site, the more will click on it. And obviously, you always want more people coming to your website.
The hidden benefit of having a lot of high-quality backlinks pointing to your site is the fact that they are actually a huge ranking factor. The more of these you have, the closer you will be ranking to the #1 spot in SERPs for your keywords.
The best types of backlinks are in-content links from a blog post to another relevant blog post. And guest posts allow you to get those fairly easily.
Another reason why guest posting is still alive and kicking is the fact that most websites accept guest contributions, even if they don’t have a “Write For Us” page.
So, even if you’re not in a highly saturated niche, it should still be pretty easy for you to secure guest posting opportunities.
Dispelling Guest Posting Myths
There are three main misconceptions about guest blogging in 2022. The first one is, of course, that it’s no longer effective. This whole article is dedicated to debunking that, so I’m not going to talk much about it in this section.
Guest Posting Is Only Useful For SEO Purposes
We can definitely understand where this myth is coming from. Since most of the time guest posts are used solely as a way of acquiring backlinks, their usefulness in other ways has been somewhat overshadowed.
However, guest posts can serve an even more important and strategic purpose, which is to help you establish a productive relationship with bloggers or industry experts.
It can be a great first point of contact, and after publishing your awesome article on their site, they will remember your name and that you do great work.
After a small-time collaboration like this, it will be easier for you to get on their radar, and potentially work on a bigger project together.
You Need An Already Established Audience To Do Guest Posts
There’s this misconception that if your name isn’t already known on the Internet to some degree, and if your site is getting very little to zero traffic, you can’t run a guest posting campaign.
This is simply not true – anybody can write a guest post, even if they don’t have a website. Even if they’re not working for anybody and just want to do it for fun!
Sure, having a portfolio of previous works to show your prospects is great, but if your email pitch is good, they won’t even ask for it.
I will share how you can write a good guest post pitch a little further down in the article.
Right now, I think it is important to highlight that even though guest posting is one of the best ways to acquire backlinks, it has a major disadvantage.
The Disadvantage Of Guest Posting (And How To Work Around It)
Most websites allow you to only add one or two links back to your own site. Often, you are only allowed to link back to your own resource from the author bio at the bottom of the post.
And, even if you were able to add as many links to your site as you wanted, they would really serve no purpose as having multiple backlinks from the same page is not nearly as valuable as having multiple pages linking back to you.
Of course, writing whole articles to get just a single link is extremely time-intensive.
There is a simple workaround to this limitation, though. If you have some link building partners, you can include their links in your posts. In return, they will either do the same for you or link to you from one of their sites.
So, if you’re already doing link building using some other strategies, it’s worth setting up long-term collaborations like this with people that you have successfully worked with.
If you don’t have a network of partners you can regularly collaborate with, a good place to start looking would be the various link building communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack.
Some websites don’t have a limit on how many links you can add to your guest posts, as long as they are relevant and don’t lead to the same site. So, in theory, you could have 10+ backlinks from writing just a single guest post.
Higher-authority websites usually have a limit in place, but still, it’s generally worth the time to write a short post for 3-5 high-quality backlinks.
How To Secure Guest Posting Opportunities
There are three main ways in which you can secure guest post placements.
Look For Websites With A “Write For Us” Page
At first glance, these are the low-hanging fruit. Since they’re openly advertising the fact that they accept guest posts, it might seem that they’re practically begging for your content.
Looking for these pages is very easy. You can make use of the “intitle:” search operator, which allows you to specify the key words and phrases that need to be included in the returned pages’ titles.
This keyword is, of course, going to be, “write for us”. Then, just add your niche’s keyword to the query and you should have a decent list of prospects right in front of you.
So, a hypothetical search query for guest post opportunities in the SEO niche would look like this:
Intitle: “write for us” SEO
One thing you need to remember about these websites is that they receive dozens, if not hundreds of guest post pitches every single day.
Because of this, yours will likely go unnoticed. And if it does get noticed, you might get ghosted after submitting your content.
All in all, sites with a “Write For Us” page, can be a huge pain to work with.
Simply Select The Websites You Like And Pitch Them
What? Just pick whoever you like and message them? Is this serious advice?
Yes. Provided that your pitch is good and you’re able to deliver high-quality content, there are literally zero reasons for your prospects to turn down your pitches, unless their internal content policy does not allow for guest posts.
A generic guest post pitch goes something like this:
“Hi, {first_name}
I came across your website and really liked it! I would really love to contribute an article on [topic] blah blah blah…”
Don’t. Just don’t.
To make your guest post pitch stand out, you need to do two things:
- Show that you’ve taken the time to research their site;
- Provide value.
Here is how you can do that.
- Open up Ahrefs in two tabs and enter the URL of your prospect in Site Explorer in both.
- Switch to the “organic search” window in the first tab and scroll down to the section about top 10 competitors.
- Pick two competitors.
- In the second tab, open up Ahrefs’ Content Gap function.
- Paste the two competitors you selected in the content gap.
- For the “Intersect” filter, select the “2 targets option”.
- The tool will reveal a list of keywords that your prospects aren’t ranking for, but their competitors are.
- Select a keyword with decent search value and low keyword density, and think of a topic to write around that keyword.
- In your email pitch, mention that you’ve gone through this process and send your prospect your topic suggestions along with the screenshot of the content gap from Ahrefs.
This way, you will both be showing that you took the time to research their site, and provide value to the prospect by offering to close the content gap they have with your guest post.
Don’t Do Any Guest Post Outreach At All
If you’re already doing link building using other strategies, there’s really no need to run separate outreach campaigns for securing guest post placements.
You can just pitch your guest posts using the content gap method I described just above to people who you have successfully built links with. A lot of people would be open to guest contributions, so you shouldn’t have a hard time securing guest post at all.
Wrapping Up
Guest posting is far from dead. And this very article is a testament to that, since it’s a guest post too!
If anyone is looking to get started with guest posting for either building backlinks or relationships with other bloggers, now is as good of a time as any – and don’t let anyone discourage you from it.
