The Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging

Here at GS Web Tech, we’ve discussed how you can build authority in your industry through blogging. If you’re a fan of Social Media Examiner, you might have read about major brands that have benefited from guest blogging. So today, we are going to look at exactly how you can get guest blogging opportunities and make the most out of them.

Determine Your Guest Blogging Goals

Before we begin, your first task is to decide what your goal for guest blogging is. Knowing this goal ahead of time is key in determining the right kind of blogs to submit guest posts to. Typically there are three main goals for guest blogging.

Positioning yourself as an authority and well-known name in the industry.
Getting exposure (traffic) back to your website.
Building backlinks to your website.

With the right kind of content on the top blogs, you can do all three of these things. If you are trying to accomplish either #1 or #2, then you will want to find blogs that have a good sized and engaged audience. If you are just trying to accomplish #3, then you need to pinpoint blogs with strong root domain authority. You can check this for free using the SEOmoz toolbar. Knowing your goals in advance will help you in determining which blogs will be the best for you to submit guest posts to.

How to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

The first thing you will want to do is find guest post opportunities. When looking for places to guest post, your main goal is to find sites relevant to your niche or industry. You are looking for blogs that fit the following criteria:

The content is focused on your niche / industry.
The audience of the blog will be interested in your industry.
The blog has engaged readership (posts have been shared socially and commented upon).
The blog owner is active on social media (so you know that they will be promoting your work on their site).

So if you are selling seeds, you will want to find gardening blogs with an engaged audience of gardeners. The following should help you find the right kind of guest post opportunities.
Google Searches
Google is a great place to start in the search for guest posting opportunities. You can use any of the following keyword searches to find blogs that accept guest posts. Just replace keyword with keywords from your industry.

keyword “submit a guest post”
keyword “guest post”
keyword “guest post by”
keyword “accepting guest posts”
keyword “guest post guidelines”

These searches should lead you to a blog’s guest post guidelines page, guest post submission page, or actual guest posts by other writers.
Prolific Guest Bloggers
Know of any prolific guest bloggers in your industry? If you read enough blogs in your industry (which you should), these will be the names you see over and over writing content for others. For online marketers, that list includes Gregory Ciotti, Danny Iny, Leo Widrich, Neil Patel, Marcus Sheridan, and many others. Using Google search, search for the name of prolific guest bloggers in your industry plus the phrase “guest post by”. This will reveal all of the sites that these guest bloggers have posted upon. They should be good places for you to guest post upon as well. A bonus would be if you actually know a guest blogger in your industry that can make an introduction for you to the owners of blogs they have guest posted upon.
Competitor Backlinks
If you (or your online marketing agency) has ever pulled up a backlink analysis of a competitor while working on your SEO campaign, chances are one or more of your competitors have backlinks from guest posts they have done. If you have access to tools like Open Site Explorer, you can look at the backlinks of your competitors and spot any blogs they have written for. If you don’t, you can do a Google search for link:domain.com -domain.com “guest post” (replacing domain.com with your competitor’s domain) which should reveal sites that a competitor has written for.
Social Searches
A lot of bloggers and guest posters will share their latest guest posts on social networks. Since the easiest one to search is Twitter, you should try running a Twitter search for keyword “guest post” to get the latest tweets about guest posts in your industry. Just follow the links to see which blogs are accepting the guest posts.
600+ Guest Blogging Opportunities
Need more keyword search ideas or a just a list with lots of different guest posting opportunities? Check out this post on Buzz Blogger with 500 places to syndicate content and this one by Brian Keith May with 100 sites to submit guest posts.
MyBlogGuest
Last, but definitely not least, is My Blog Guest, a community of guest bloggers. Sign up for free and search for blogs which are accepting guest posts. Better yet, post your own information to say that you are looking to write guest posts on a particular topic so blog owners can find you!

Preparing to Pitch a Guest Post

Notice that we don’t just jump from finding guest blogging opportunities to contacting the blogs. That’s because there are a few things you need to do before you propose a guest post for a site you’ve just found.
Get to Know the Blog’s Content
Getting to know your target blog’s content is key. Sure you know they have content about the keyword you searched for while looking for guest post opportunities. But you need to know even more about that content such as…

What level of audience are they writing for (beginners, intermediate, advanced)?
What type of audience are they writing for? If your business is B2B, then you will want the blog audience for your guest post to be businesses, not general consumers.
What type of content do they write? Is it mostly general concepts or specific, detailed tutorials? Do they like lists?

See How Other Guest Posts Do
While a blog may have guest posts, the question is do the guest bloggers do well? Do guest blog posts on the site get as much comments and social sharing as blog posts by the owner? Some sites might accept guest posts, but if the audience is only tuning in for the blog owner, then you won’t do so well if your goal is to build authority or get traffic back to your website.
See Who the Guest Bloggers Are
Some blog owners are more likely to accept guest posts by certain types of people over others. Peruse a few guest blogger bios on the blog to see if they are fellow bloggers, freelancers, consultants, business owners, and so forth. This will be important when you introduce yourself to the blog owner for your pitch. You can read more about the success rates of guest posting outreach in this study on SEOmoz.
Find Out What Posts Do the Best
To ensure that your guest post gets accepted, you will want to pitch the blog owner with topics that will do well with their audience. To get some good ideas of topics that will work with the blog’s audience, use the following sites to see what posts have been popular on social media. Just replace domain.com with the blog’s domain.

http://topsy.com/s?q=domain.com – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been tweeted. Click on the number if you want to see who has tweeted the post and learn more about the blog’s audience.
http://plus.topsy.com/s/domain.com – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been shared on Google+. Chances are, blog posts that have been shared on Google+ a lot will also have a lot of +1’s which might mean better search visibility.
http://delicious.com/search?p=domain.com&jtf=E&partial_type=B – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been saved on Delicious.
http://digg.com/search?q=site:domain.com – This will show you the posts on a blog that have received the most amount of Digg votes.

Become a Familiar Face in the Blog Community
To increase your chances of getting accepted as a guest blogger, you will want to get some recognition from the blog owner first. The best way to do this is to take a week or two and comment on their latest posts. You’ll get bonus points for sharing those posts on Twitter too – just be sure to include the blog owner’s @username on Twitter. This way, when you pitch your guest post, you won’t be a complete stranger.

The Best Times to Pitch a Guest Post

You won’t always have a golden opportunity to pitch a guest post, but there are certain things to take advantage of when they arise. These include the following.

When blog mentions you in one of their posts or on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.).
When the blog lists you, your business, or your product in one of their posts.
When the blog specifically advertises they are looking for guest posts.
When the blog publishes another guest post.

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