Why Guest Posting Is Something Your Online Business Can’t Overlook

Building up a good backlink profile is the next stage in building up your online presence. You need to ensure that you are driving regular traffic to your site and gaining social proof. The higher your social share metrics and the more reviews you generate, the more well-known you will become to industry thought leaders.

Thought leaders are trusted voices online that can catapult your brand to success and bring in a regular stream of sales. In many cases, from just a single endorsement post. Luckily, building up a name for yourself is possible for all businesses, no matter how much budget you have to spend.

You just need to make sure you put in the ‘grunt work’ and do all you can to build up your guest blogging opportunities bit-by-bit. This article will tell you why guest posting is something your online business cannot afford to overlook.

Guest posting builds relevancy

If you have worked hard to add informative content to your site, you will have already signaled to Google’s crawlers that you mean business. But that’s not the end of the story.

For every link you post to a high authority site, you seek to ‘fuse’ your site’s content with theirs. So by that assumption, shouldn’t you also try to encourage blogs to ‘fuse’ with your content?

Once you get your chance to feature on a well-known authority site, it is up to you to entice readers to take an interest in your brand.

However, you cannot just plug the readers with a hard sales message. This is against the rules and could harm your site in return. Instead, you have to work hard to offer the audience a new piece of information – something they haven’t considered before. Get a notepad and start listing exciting product-related topics potential customers would take the time to read.

Guest posting provides audience insight

Head to your favorite industry blogs online. What is it that brings you back here? Is it the topic range? The amount of detail and analysis they include in their articles? Perhaps it’s their timeliness in covering new stories?

Consider the content of your favorite blogs and look for ways you can make similar content that will appeal to your intended audience.

In your search for suitable blogs, check the domain and page authority scores with the Moz tool or something similar. Ideally, you will want to choose websites with a high domain authority – anything from around 30 upwards.

Your audience of potential customers also shares a range of interests within different industries. You need to appreciate that your guest posting content should be broad in scope. Use social media competitor analysis tools to dig into audience profiles, build up an ideal ‘blog reader persona’, and draft some ideas.

Guest posting solidifies your reputation

During your first dabblings with guest posting, you will need to approach the site’s admin with a decent article pitch. Many websites will include a ‘Write For Us’ page where they outline their exact guidelines for guest bloggers.

Here are some sites accepting guest posts – and some common content requirements:

VentureBeat – The online hub for all things tech. VentureBeat attracts Silicon Valley giants, like Mark Zuckerberg, to its pages every month. Their content covers a range of topics, everything from entrepreneurial advice to wearable tech. To submit, check out their writer submission page. These posts are designed to spark online debate, so always use specific illustrative examples throughout your pitches.

TechRepublic – Targeted to the IT professional ‘in the know’, TechRepublic is a leading news and commentary site. To get your post accepted, read the terms here. You must provide original content that has not been republished elsewhere. Send an email with your pitches and more information on your content and areas of expertise. You will need to follow and have a good understanding of the voices they like. TechRepublic seeks your specific insights and experience within the IT industry, so get personal with your posts.  

Smashing Magazine – This online platform is devoted to web development specifically. So if you are looking at issues such as security, you will need to link these concerns within the web development sphere credibly. The submission guidelines are in-depth and even offer writing tips. You will need to email the team outlining your experience and provide article guidelines and first drafts. The magazine is design-led in style, so offer your personalized tips with real-life examples if you’re looking to impress.

Medium – Alternatively, for a more generalized audience of millions of potential readers across all subject areas, Medium is an open source site that can bring in hits. The site offers clear instructions on how to contribute. They are looking for original content with thought-provoking headlines. Their tech and business sections are particularly interesting, as this is a site targeted heavily by writers rather than business owners. This can provide an excellent source of inspiration for creative writing and guest blogging styles.

Please note: with all of these blogs, promotional posts are heavily frowned upon. You may be allowed one link to your site, in which case, this will be a link to your blog in your author bio.

You can make your guest posting links count

Editorial linking refers to how you should present your desired hyperlink within the guest blog post. For instance, if you are trying to tell the readers how easy it is to secure their customer’s payment information, link to a blog post on payment security. This gives readers an editorial ‘bridge’ to your site.

Once you have enticed the reader over to your page and provided them with some high-quality content of your own, set up a pop-up email opt-in form. If you run an ecommerce brand using a plug-and-play store builder, you can find a wealth of apps that will sync with your online storefront and encourage site visitors to like you on Facebook, join your newsletter, and refer a friend, etc.

The idea of guest posting is to ensure that you are building up your reputation as an author. It is more important to connect with the readers’ interests and get your name remembered in the future.

Guest posting gives you content to share

If you have reached the front page of your favorite publication, you will want to share this terrific news with your fans. You can retweet these links to your followers and potential influencers to help build your online reputation up over time. Seek permission and check the rules of any site before you go ahead. Provided you have permission, you can also sometimes push your published posts into a customized ad.

For instance, if you get a post published in a national newspaper site, you can build up the comments and likes on Facebook. Push this post (complete with significant ‘social proof’ points) to fans of the publication in general, or even fans of rival newspapers and businesses. You may start to see big sales and leads from the campaign.  

The opportunities guest posting brings go far and above what you could achieve in ‘reach’ through on-page SEO alone. On the road to become a leading B2B name, you will need to ensure that your guest blogging strategy is targeting the right readership.

Go beyond Google searching for ‘tech blogs’ and ‘write for us’ and research your audience’s profiles thoroughly. Make your links count by creating high-quality content that entertains and informs the reader.