Guest posts: A win-win marketing tactic
Guest posts are a great tool for both your brand and website performance. It helps you attract new customers and increase your search visibility and traffic. All you need to do is write a post, choose a reputable website and place backlinks to your site/specific page you want to boost. Without paying an extra cent.
One thing you should keep in mind, though. Guest posts aren’t just about you. Remember that it’s not advertising, it’s a valuable source of info, which should be useful for all sides.
Having made this comment, let’s talk about why you should try it.
Why guest posting?
Every mention of the brand has a positive impact on your brand awareness. Especially those that are free and have links to your brand, i.e. a higher search engine ranking.
The goals of guest posts
- Traffic. You’d get new and free customers/readers/subscribers etc. For this, you should of course place links in your post.
- PR. You want to raise brand awareness, so mention the brand name.
- Leads. If you just want money, then this format works for you too. But here it’s a bit more complicated. You need to include a call to action or a direct link, but that could be taken as advertising. That’s why you might get rejected.
The best thing to do is to rely on traffic. If there will be the traffic, the awareness and sales might increase.
Mentioning a brand without links only makes sense in two cases:
- If you’re submitting a post to a recognized multimillion-dollar website like Forbes;
- When an author of a post wants to write about you. However, this isn’t a guest post, but rather an interview.
Guest posting formats
1. Guides or how-tos
Probably the most solid option and an organic format. In this type of post, you tell how to use your product, what you make, what your specialty is, etc. In other words, it’s an article where you explain something.
The media likes this format a lot. It always attracts attention and ranks well in search engines. Also, there is a chance to stay in the top search engine results forever (or for a very long time).
2. Lists
A similar format to the first. But here you don’t give a detailed guide, but a list of useful tools. This can be anything, depending on what niche you’re in. The most important task for the post is that it matches the interests of your target audience.
How to write a good list:
– The more tools you mention, the greater the post will appear at the top of search engine results;
– Check all links before you submit them. They should work;
– Descriptions and screenshots. It’s essential to have that in such articles. Otherwise, readers won’t understand anything.
3. Analytics and opinions
The format includes forecasts, comparisons, considerations, analyzes of the influence of various factors on the industry, and overviews of trends. These materials are based on the author’s findings.
If the topic is relevant and the expert is trustworthy, the media will publish the material. It’s exclusive information for them that will definitely attract regular readers. Such articles usually don’t rank high in search results, so they work more for audience quality than quantity.
4. Use cases
Find a balance between telling your brand story and benefiting the reader. Not all media want to run heavy-handed ads. In this format, you should talk about your insights, your mistakes, your ups and downs. In general, anything that can catch the reader’s interest.
5. Interviews
There is also this format. Although, in my humble opinion, it’s very difficult to call it a guest interview. Here everything is simple: you answer the journalist’s questions, tell him about the brand and trust the author.
Where to look for sites?
- Search engines. For starters, just google it. You can try the query “submit a guest post”;
- Competitor Backlinks. If you ever checked out your competitors’ backlinks while doing SEO, You might found some of their guest post links. Just use tools like Open Site Explorer to check their blog post links;
- Social Searches. One way to find blogs that accept guest posts is to search social media using the keyword “guest post.” Bloggers and guest authors often share their latest guest posts. Thus, you can find relevant sites in your industry that accept guest posts.
How to submit a post?
Once you’ve completed your search, it’s time to do some research. If you’re sure which site you want to publish your post on, look carefully at all the other materials. Most of these sites provide posting guidelines, but if you can use other posts as an advantage: for example, point out issues that are missing from other posts.
After you’ve done your research, you should answer the following questions:
- Is the target audience the same as the site’s (beginner, intermediate, professional)?
- Are you writing for the same type of audience as the site (B2B, B2C)?
- What type of content is most common on the site?
