Guest blogging is one of the best available options that you have to rank on search engines.
When your blog is new and you’re struggling to get backlinks, think of how to find guest blogging opportunities in your niche.
If you really know how to start a blog, then you can use guest blogging to grow your blog.
However, opportunities in guest blogging flow through quality content.
If your post is worth linking to, people link to it without a second thought. This also goes to finding guest blogging opportunities.
The post you want to publish on another person’s blogs must be quality to get approval.
According to Neil Patel, guest blogging is the best inbound marketing strategy. He confessed to using this strategy as his best business to business (B2B) marketing tool.
Benefits of guest blogging
As such, writing guest posts is a strategic off-page SEO effort you can use to optimize the performance of your blog beyond the back-end.
But unfortunately, not every blogger likes to be a contributor to another person’s blog.
If you want to compete in your industry, read how to use guest blogging to compete against bigger competition.
However, there are a lot of opportunities to write guest posts for other blogs. When you publish your posts on other blogs as a contributor, you have the opportunity to:
- Boost your online presence;
- Enhance your thought leadership;
- Extend your brand awareness;
- Generate more leads;
- Gain more traffic;
- Establish new and strengthen current connections; and
- Attract more social media followers.
Most new websites depend on this technique to outrank their competitors on search engine results pages (SERPs).
All you have to do is to contact other prominent bloggers who are looking for contributors that can write quality content for them.
That does not mean your request to write for other bloggers will be approved automatically.
Most of the people looking for contributors will first ensure your posts meet their specifications before they approve your request.
On the other hand, you also need to consider the suitability of the host blogs before you can post on them. Some may not be suitable for your need if they don’t meet your requirements.
So, let us consider what are the criteria for accepting guest blogging?
Why need guest blogging?
The first thing you need to do is to know your aim and objective of taking your time to write great content and decide to publish it on another person’s blog.
There must be something great in a sacrifice you make with a big fat cow! Why not a crowl?
If you know what you want, getting it shouldn’t be a problem.
In fact, knowing your goals will motivate your efforts.
Assuming your aim is to generate backlinks, you have to determine the suitability of the websites or blogs you want to write for. Know their domain authority (DA) and spam score to be sure writing for them won’t be at your own peril.
Or if your own goal is to earn money from being a contributor, you may not consider the quality of the website but how much the host intends to pay when you write for them.
Irrespective of what leads you to guest blogging, it’s very important to be at the cutting edge amidst other guest bloggers.
Meanwhile, you can achieve your aim and objective by knowing your goals.
Fulfill your goals
There are as many goals as opportunities for guest blogging and the following are the three main goals you need to consider:
- To present yourself as an authority or a leader in your chosen niche;
- To boost your traffic with an increased brand exposure; and
- To generate backlinks via your guest posts;
Your ability to write quality content will make you achieve all three goals.
If your goal is just to boost your traffic, then you have to ensure you submit your guest post to a blog that is already popular.
At least, if your post is quality, anyone coming in contact with it on such a popular blog will be compelled to click on your referral links which will lead the reader to your own blog.
So, the more people you receive from the host blog, the higher the traffic that comes to your blog.
For this reason, when you write for popular websites, you have the tendency to receive a significant amount of traffic from them.
Lastly, if your goal is to generate backlinks, then you have to ensure you submit your guest posts to blogs or websites with high domain authority (DA). In fact, a website with high DA will be suitable to achieve both the second and the last goals.
You can use SEOMoz Toolbar to inspect the DA of any prospective website, which you have on your list. The tool offers the service for free.
Criteria for accepting guest posts
If your guest post is unique, anyone who is in need of quality content will be eager to accept your article and publish it on his own blog.
In the act of writing a guest post, you have the privilege to link to your previous related posts and increase the rankings of your root website.
Meanwhile, host blogs have different specifications for the number of links you can embed on your guest posts as a criterion for approval. Some blog owners won’t accept and publish your posts if it is below or above specifications.
In order to succeed as a guest blogger, the scope of your content must be narrow and specific enough to hit deep on your subject matter and have a target audience.
Thus, if anyone receives your request for guest blogging, he will critically ask the following questions to determine the quality level of your guest post before it can be accepted:
- Does your guest post critically discuss its subject matter as in its title?
- Is your guest post free of grammatical and typographical errors?
- Does your guest post clearly state what readers will benefit from reading it?
- Are the links on your guest post user friendly?
What you will achieve with these criteria is writing content that will attract likes, comments, and shares on popular social media.
How to find guest blogging opportunities
There are a lot of blogs on the internet looking for guest bloggers and in what way can you reach them?
Before discussing how to find guest blogging opportunities, it is better to consider how to distinguish between opportunities and threats?
This shouldn’t trouble you at all.
With your set out goals, you can identify the best blogs to write for.
All you have to do is to consider the ones that can help you achieve your goals.
For example, if your goal is to gain backlinks, then writing for a blog with high DA would make you achieve that goal.
Meanwhile, a suitable blog must:
- Relevant to your niche and thought leadership;
- Have an audience that can benefit from your guest posts;
- Have tools that can engage readers in commenting, liking, and sharing your guest posts most especially on social media; and
- Have social influence to promote your guest posts across different digital channels.
These criteria will help you identify opportunities that hinge on guest blogging.
That is, they will help you achieve whatever goals you have as a guest blogger.
So, keeping to the rule will maximize your prospect.
Note that the interval at which each website responds to your request as a contributor varies, most especially if you’re looking for an opportunity to write for big and popular blogs like Forbes or New York Times.
In a circumstance whereby the big players receive several applications from a lot of people, they may have stringent criteria that won’t get your request approved.
If you’re not a Neil Patel or Pat Flynn, you’ll have to keep trying until you’re reckoned with.
Whether Forbes and the likes will grant you guest blogging opportunities or not, it is better to partner with smaller bloggers that will jump at you.
Growing together with smaller blogs will help you learn and increase your connections easily.
To get guest blogging opportunities, consider the following:
Use Google search engine
It’s not news to use search engines to find whatever information you need. For that task, Google is popularly leading the rest.
Try any of the following search queries to get a comprehensive list of blogs that will accept your guest posts:
- Guest Post
- Submit a guest post
- Accepting guest posts
- Guest post opportunity
If you are particular about location, endeavor to use the location parameter is applicable to your goals. For example, your search queries will therefore become:
- Guest Post in Nigeria
- Submit a guest post in Nigeria
- Accepting guest posts in Nigeria
- Guest post opportunity in Nigeria
Any of the search queries will expose you to hundreds of thousands of blogs that need contributors to write for them.
Before submitting your application to them, try to learn about those blogs first and understand their scope. That will prepare you well for the task and help you attract the best offer.
Your findings will determine which blog to write for.
Doing this for each blog until you find the suitable one may be stressful, but will definitely help you to be ahead of your competitors.
Use social networks
I have been encountering a series of groups and pages on Facebook recently which were created for bloggers looking for blogging opportunities.
All members can use the avenue to find a guest blogger, writing opportunities, connect and guide others.
You can search for guest bloggers on either Facebook or Twitter and join as many groups as you want.
By the time you become a member, you will begin to receive announcements on available offers and opportunities. It happens almost every hour to see someone in need of a guest blogger that can write for them.
So, unlike Google search, this approach will save you a lot of time.
The reason is that users make it a habit to reveal their specifications and goals in their announcements. That means you won’t need extra work to audit the suitability of blogs requesting guest posts.
Join MyBlogGuest
MyBlogGuest is an online community created for people looking for guest blogging opportunities.
All you have to do is to visit the community and sign up. Then search within the community for blogs that are currently looking for guest bloggers.
It’s absolutely free to join.
You can equally announce to other members of your interest to write for any blog that is in need of such service.
Specify your areas of specialization so that the right blog owners can reach you.
How to prepare for guest blogging
Irrespective of the method you delight to use in finding guest blogging opportunities, you can’t just approach a blog owner and expect him to give you the job without having confidence in you.
For instance, if you use Google to find blogs that need guest writers, you need to learn one or a few things about the blogs before contacting the owners. That will make you understand the kind of content or contributor they need.
In fact, while you’re preparing for the job, you will be able to pitch the blog that will make you easily achieve your goals.
So, these are the efforts you need to make before pitching a guest post:
Learn about the content of the blog
The information you find on Google, social media, and MyBlogGuest may not be enough to understand what the blog is all about. Even if the blog covers your areas of expertise, both of you may write differently.
So, you need to visit the blog and study its scope, structure, and writing styles, whether it’s the type that likes listing or big paragraphs like Forbes.
You also need to study the level and category of its audience whether they’re beginners, intermediate or advanced, business to business (B2B), or Business to Consumers (B2C) respectively.
This will help you to ensure your approach to guest blogging is not discordant with the existing posts on the blog.
Analyze the engagement rate of the blog
Check which of the posts have the highest social engagement rates. Compare and contrast which post type engages the audience better.
Is it the owner’s posts or the guest posts?
Then study how best-performing posts get the likes, comments, and highest share counts on social media and try to adopt the tactics used in either of the post types.
Note that if the owner’s posts get a better engagement rate than the other, it shows that the owner doesn’t promote guest posts for reasons best known to him.
So, mind a blog like that.
Writing for that kind of blog won’t help you achieve your goal if it is to increase your traffic or DA.
If you’re only writing guest posts in exchange for money, you won’t have a problem with such restrictions.
Find what types of guest bloggers are needed
In your study of the blog, find out what types of guest bloggers are currently writing for the blog.
Some host bloggers prefer some categories of writers over others for reasons best known to them.
To know if you’re in the right category, study the biographies of the existing guest bloggers and see if there is any special similarity among them.
If they all share things in common, that shows what the blog owner is looking for in guest bloggers. If you have that trait, you’re good to go. But if not then upgrade yourself.
Find which topics do well on the blog
Study the blog and highlight some of the posts that perform better on it. Find the connection among them all.
If they are in the same or related category, make the category your area of focus. Your work will be quickly accepted if it covers relevant topics.
While I was reading Neil Patel’s ultimate guide to guest blogging, I found the following useful tricks, which can be used to analyze a blog and see which of its posts is most popular on social media.
- So, for Twitter, use https://topsy.com/s?q=domain.com, where “domain.com” is the main URL of the blog you’re analyzing.
- For Google+, use https://plus.topsy.com/s/doamin.com;
- You can also use https://delicious.com/search?p=domain.com&jtf=E*partial_type=B for Delicious; and
- Use https://digg.com/search?q=site:domain.com for Digg votes.
Note that you have to change “domain.com” to the particular domain you want to screen.
Create familiarity with others
On any platform, if you decide to find guest blogging opportunities, ensure you’re known.
When others post an announcement or update, endeavor to make a contribution. Doing that will make members aware of your brand.
By the time you do this for some weeks, they will recognize you anytime you approach them for writing opportunities.
That will also make them have confidence in you since you’re not a stranger.
The most effective way of building familiarity with other blog owners is to tag them whenever you share, like, or make comments on their posts.
Conclusion on Guest Blogging Opportunities
Learning how to find guest blogging opportunities depends on your goal. You can achieve whatever goal you set for yourself.
If your goal is to build traffic, backlinks, domain authority, networking, or brand awareness, all you have to do is to partner with the blog that is most suitable for achieving your goals.
Yet no blog will grant you the opportunity without having confidence in you.
So, on your part do all that is needful to make them trust you first by familiarizing yourself with them on guest bloggers’ communities before submitting your best guest posts.
You will mess things up yourself if you approach blogs for guest blog opportunities without any indication they need guest bloggers. So, the best time to pitch your guest posts is when you find out that a blog is looking for contributors.
That shows why you need to effectively use the search methods to find those in need of contributors.
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