*These are the thirthy-eighth to to forty-first posts (4,000+ words) in my attempt to complete a rather epic challenge: 100 posts in 100 days. You can read more about the challenge here. Keep up-to-date with progress and all the results on Twitter #100blogs*
This post could be summed up in two words: it’s dead.
That is: ‘guest blogging is dead’. Well, at least according to Matt Cutts.
This here is the problem with ‘SEO’ though; guest blogging, as an SEO tactic, was never really alive in the first place.
If you are unaware, guest blogging is the process of creating a blog post and offering that post to another webmaster, blogger or brand to be published on an external website. This is usually done in exchange for a link back to your website from the target website.
As you will know, Google interprets links to your website as votes in favour of your website, the more high-quality links you accrue behind your website the more visibility you acquire in search. Therefore, SEOs need links – and links are hard to get!
The problem however is SEOs took this ‘idea’ to the extreme (FYI, I’m not innocent!) – in years gone by (many still do), they’d create MASSES of thin or purposeless content and post that content to websites they owned (and link back to another of their web properties from within the post), or they’d offer up the content to other publishers through guest blogging facilitators like My Blog Guest.
Huge blogging networks all owned by private companies were set-up – two of the more popular options were Linkvana and BuildMyRank (the latter saw its entire business model decimated overnight back in 2012).
Apparently, as far as Google is concerned, it got ‘a bit too much’. One thing is clear: Google frowns upon blatant manipulation of search engine rankings – low-quality (emphasis on ‘low-quality’!) guest posts which are manufactured to do just that, have had their day.
So, on that basis, it was a VERY easy move for Matt Cutts (head of Google’s Anti-Spam Team), to come out and declare ‘guest blogging is dead’. It made sense for a few reasons:
- As above, Google has intense disdain for any action which comes from an intent to manipulate search engine rankings. The problem with this is that there are varying degrees between blatant manipulation and ethical activity i.e. posting content to websites you own with links back to other websites you own vs. creating high value content for the purposes of driving referral traffic back to your blog. The former is crap, the latter is great.
- It’s easier to declare something dead which, in near any instance, is unfavourable to your objective (generating the best possible results for user’s queries), than it is to have to deal with millions of questions about all of the varying shades of grey.
Spam is spam. Spam was always low-value and overtime it evolved to become ineffective. Nowadays, it’s low-value, ineffective and in some instances downright dangerous (the act of engaging in mass guest posting – spam – has destroyed businesses which were overly-reliant on Google’s traffic).
Build My Rank died an excruciating death. My Blog Guest has had its fair share of problems over the last year. Yet, in a few weeks I’m going to have one of my posts published on one of the most visited websites in the United Kingdom – why?
It’s simple: guest blogging isn’t dead, it just depends on how you do it. When done correctly, it can have a MASSIVE and very positive impact on your website, your business and your bottom line.
Your over-arching objective should be…
…to drive referral traffic.
This isn’t about scaling out your efforts as much as possible, it’s about creating high value content which can be published, exclusively, on high value websites. It’s about sourcing a link from a website which will drive a high quantity or relevant traffic back to your website.
That’s your objective. Where issues begin is when we start scaling this process out – we start lowering our standards for what is deemed ‘quality’; we start lowering the standards of our contributions. When that happens it’s a slippery slope all the way to ‘death by search engine’.
Creating a post on a high-value website with a link back to your website isn’t a ‘dangerous activity’ – lowering your standards, accepting any and all links, manipulating anchor text and generally making your contribution to the creation of crap content on the internet is a ‘dangerous activity’.
In gist, you need a highly diverse, natural link profile. Relying exclusively on guest posting is the complete opposite.
It’s also important to remember that not all links are created equal – it’s VERY conceivable for a website with a mere few hundred high-value, purposeful, topically relevant links (from lots of different sources!) to garner more visibility in search than a website with thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ‘toxic’ or ‘lesser-quality’ links.
Not only is it conceivable but more often than not it’s a real outcome (I know, I know – my utilisation of indecisive language is probably infuriating, the issue I have is this: there are no ‘absolutes’!)
How to find guest posting opportunities.
This is a post in itself, however I want to share a single option with your for the time being (I will create a larger post on this specific topic in the future!).
Advanced search operators.
Advanced search operators enable you to be more specific with your queries and subsequently receive more specific results from the engine.
Here are some examples of advanced search operators:
- site: This advanced search operator will solely bring back results from a specific domain i.e. if I search for “site:Garethmailer.com”, I will see a list of all of the pages or posts on this website.
- inurl: This advanced search operator brings back results which contain the query string (search) in the URL of the page i.e. if I search for “inurl:wedding” the engine will solely return results which include the word “wedding” within the URL.
- Exact search: “” i.e. “guest posting opportunities” will bring back results where the specific phrase “guest posting opportunities” is included within the content of the page.
- intitle: this advanced search operator will bring back results where the specified query appears in the title of the web document (web page) i.e. “intitle:wedding” will bring back results which contain the word “wedding” within the title of the page.
Why does any of this matter to you? Well, because advanced search operators can generate a haven of FANTASTIC guest posting opportunities for you to take advantage of.
Yes, that’s right, you can leverage someone else’s brand to build up your own visibility – you can leverage another brand’s popularity to build up your own web presence. What’s more, you can do it by just being ‘helpful’.
Some example queries you can enter:
- interior design “write for us”: this query will bring back pages which are relevant to the tern ‘interior design’ and which contain the exact phrase ‘write for us’ (this will most likely be a page soliciting offers to guest post on their website – if you are struggling to find where the words ‘write for us’ feature, just use ctrl + f on your keyboard and search for the term on the page).
- Interior design “guest posting”: As above.
- Get creative. What you need to think are words which a webmaster would write to advertise a guest posting opportunity or to cite a guest poster. For example, “guest post written by”, inurl:write-for-us, “guest blogging guidelines”, “become an author” or “guest bloggers wanted”.
A few things to remember:
- It’s unlikely that your competitors will want to feature you on their website however you still need to find topically relevant opportunities. For example, if you are an architect then it may be worth searching for guest posting opportunities on interior design, home improvement or property listing websites. If you are a job board owner, it may be worth targeting Universities (very valuable links though guest posting opportunities will be few and far between on University websites!).
- It’s worth installing a browser extension like SEO Quake to quickly filter low-quality options i.e. SEO Quake will show you specific metrics like PageRank and Domain Authority from within the SERPs (search engine results pages).
- The hardest part in this entire process isn’t finding the opportunity, it’s making the approach. We will go over this in the next post.
Performing the necessary due diligence: ‘is this a good website?’
How do you tell if a website you want to post on is an ethical website?
Well, it’s quite simple really – look for social proof.
- Do they have active social profiles? Do they have a large, valuable following? Do some Twitter searches for their domain name: does their audience engage with and share their content?
- Do their posts receive a high number of comments and are they comments legitimate?
- Does their backlink profile contain a high volume of legitimate, valuable links? Is the anchor text pointing into their website natural and diverse?
- Utilise competitive analysis tools like Alexa.com to get a broad indication of how popular the website is.
- Do they have a high volume of guest posts on their website? Do they accept nothing but guest posts? For me, this is a negative factor – if there are nothing but guest posts on the website, it usually signals alarm bells.
- How many people subscribe to their blog?
- Do they have guest posting guidelines in place? How strict are they? In my opinion, the stricter the better!
- Do they utilise interruptive advertising? Is their blog awash with ads and thing content?
- While it’s far from being an indicative signal of quality, check the PageRank of the blog’s homepage.
Above all else, just use common sense. Would you otherwise read the content already available on the blog? If the answer is no, then you should probably look elsewhere.
How to ‘find people’.
The biggest challenge you are going to come up against isn’t just writing the post, but finding the RIGHT person to approach.
It’s often easier to start with a high value website and reverse engineer the opportunity. For example, take TheGuardian.com (about as high value a website as I can think of!). Let’s do a quick search:
site:theguardian.com “guest post”:
Yes, The Guardian, one of the most visited website’s in The UK accepts guest posts. The Guardian is a HUGE website though, and these opportunities don’t seem that relevant to me, so let’s take a look for something more specific:
site:theguardian.com “guest post” “small business”:
Excellent! With a little bit more digging, I found “the small business network” section on The Guardian website, not only does this section feature a number of guest posts but they seemingly actively encourage small or micro business owners to forward submissions (I’m basing this on the number of guest posts I see throughout this section of the website).
Now all I need to do is find an e-mail address, let’s try a search:
site:twitter.com “small business network” “the guardian” “editor”:
OK that’s a lot of people, so let’s try something a bit different.
site:https://twitter.com/GdnSmallBiz/ “@theguardian.com”:
Bingo! Three e-mail addresses, now all I need to do is send an e-mail and write an absolutely awesome blog post.
FYI, if you’re wondering just how much traffic TheGuardian.com receives, have a look at Alexa (it’s not exactly the most scientific measurement ever conducted, but it gives you a good enough general idea!):
At the time of writing, TheGuardian.com is the 14th most visited website in The UK – the 14th! Out of millions and millions of websites. To hell with the link, think about the traffic. This could easily be your biggest business win of the whole year.
With a regular column and an effective pipeline to capture all of that traffic (you could set up an AMAZING free offer behind an e-mail subscription form to give your community building efforts a massive boost), this could be all of the marketing you need for a micro or small business.
Cultivate the relationship and create something special! If The Guardian isn’t for you, take a look around. There are thousands of VERY high traffic blogs out there which accept guest posts – what about life hack?
Maybe dig through the top sites on Alexa and see which are relevant in your niche? It could be conceivable that a single post will drive both TONS of traffic AND ensure a very high authority, very valuable link for your website.
How to write a great guest post.
You can read tons of advice online about how to write a great guest post, and most of it shares one thing in common:
“Always come up with an original idea”.
I call nonsense on that notion. While a unique idea is likely to garner more attention, it’s not the be all and end all and for one reason: it always depends on the audience you are writing for.
For example, take the above example of The Guardian – with the greatest of respect to The Guardian’s small business audience, they probably know little to nothing about SEO other than:
- It’s confusing.
- The connotations with snake oil.
- Google rules the Earth and therefore, SEO is important.
The last thing The Guardian’s audience needs is an in-depth CTR study, or a detailed overview on how to implement rich snippets. As small or micro business owners, they need an overview, an update and some actionable information.
However, were I to write for Search Engine Land, Moz, Search Engine Watch or Search Engine Journal, I’d want to write something unique – their content archives are already saturated and only compelling, idea-driven content will rise to the top.
In short, uniqueness is likely to be more important if you are writing for another industry website – if you are attempting to write for an audience with little to knowledge of your subject, it’s likely going to be a lot less important.
A few more tips for writing a STELLAR blog post:
- If you’re struggling with ideation, check out this post. Yahoo Q&A and community forums like those found on Reddit are great places to look for new content ideas. If someone is asking a question about something, then there’s a need for information (after all, people do have search engines at their disposal – if it needs to be asked then it likely needs to be written about!).
- What you want to write about is irrelevant, it’s what you audience wants and needs to read that’s important – check out the archives of the blog you are creating a post for, what content was most relevant? Post the blog URL into BuzzSumo and get an idea of their most shared content. It should provide a lot of inspiration.
- If you plan on doing this regularly then get your RSS reader sorted out. At last count I had about 150 websites devoted exclusively to SEO in my reader – I scan through headlines and read content all the time, hoping to come up with new ideas.
- Link out, a lot – treat writing a great post as you would writing an essay at University. Don’t just make statements, try and back them up. Compile research data and only ever use authoritative resources. Needless to say, the amount of time you put into the post will vary depending on the quality of the opportunity – it’s not worth spending hours and hours on a post which will drive little to no traffic to your website (I would question whether it would be worth even making a post on a low-value or low-traffic website however I realise every industry is different and quantity of traffic doesn’t always equate to quantity of sales!).
- Try and be concise – I have a habit of being a bit wordy (simply because I like to clarify everything as much as possible, I write for my audience!), but most websites which accept guest posts will have a word count limit. Ask them what it is.
If you need writing tips then you need to go to another blog – try Copyblogger!
How to approach a webmaster and secure a great guest post slot.
I have a guest post waiting to be published on The Guardian and to get that opportunity I did everything above: I hunted for the opportunity, found the right person to contact and most importantly, I outlined my credentials.
Outreach (making contact with a webmaster) is often the hardest part. I know, I know, it’s just an e-mail – what could be so hard about that?
Well, I have a question for you: how many spam e-mails do you receive every day? How many of them do you read? If, during an immensely busy day, you came across an unsolicited approach from someone who is asking you for a favour, would you be likely to read it?
Probably not. Our inboxes are full, we’re always communicating with everyone and time is our most precious commodity. Heck, I must have ignored thousands of guest post request approaches over the years.
So, how do you stand out? It’s quite simple really:
- Create an attention-grabbing and compelling subject line.
- Act like you are talking to a person, not a cyborg. Every e-mail should be personalised.
- Keep it short. Very short. Get straight to the point and demonstrate an interest in their blog – link to one of their posts, show them that you are actually trying to build a relationship or that you know they are a human being rather than a statistic on a very long spreadsheet.
- Always use their name.
The biggest mistakes inherent in most outreach e-mails:
Framing this post in this manner is a lot easier than pointing out what you should be doing – once you know ‘what you shouldn’t do’, then you should have the process nailed.
- ‘Dear Sir/Madam’: ANY e-mail which contains that initial line is discarded pretty much straight away. I hate it. It’s so impersonal. It demonstrates you have no idea who you are talking to. I’d prefer the word ‘hi’, at least it’s a tiny bit personal and blogs are, wait for it…very personal things!
- Company Name: Of the thousands of outreach e-mails I’ve received, I can’t count how many have referred to my business as ‘Clockwork’ rather than ‘Clickwork’. At the very least you should get the name of the Company right.
- Paragraph Length: We receive a better response rate when we utilise shorter paragraphs. No-one wants to read a massive e-mail – at the very least you should give the impression of brevity (by creating short paragraphs).
- Free e-mail addresses: An @gmail.com or @yahoo.com e-mail address always, invariably, loses me. All outreach should be done using an on-domain e-mail address i.e. @garethmailer.com (they are very easy to set-up and can make the world of difference!).
- A single send: I can’t quite articulate just how important the acronym ‘RE:’ is – whenever we follow-up we get a far better response than simply relying on our first batch of e-mails. So many people engaging in outreach throw a tantrum and declare the process ‘useless’ after they send a batch of ten e-mails and receive no response. Once you’ve sent out an initial batch just politely follow-up, if you don’t get a response at the third attempt then I’d say it’s time to give up or hunt down a new e-mail address.
- Templating: Don’t send out the same e-mail to everyone. It’s singly the best way to fail. We tried this on SCALE, it doesn’t work.
I get a response from big brands because I spend a great deal of time (about 20-30 minutes in some instances) putting together tailored, custom e-mails which are targeted to the person I’m sending them to. Let’s have a look at what an outreach e-mail to a small business website may look like (were it to come from us!):
Hi John,
Hope all is good. < BE FRIENDLY! Kill them with kindness.
I’m just getting in touch in reference to this post: [INSERT POST] < This should be a post you’ve picked up from their blog, perhaps a guest post.
I noticed there were a few negative comments beneath the post and I also noticed your comment about expanding the range of SEO-related content you’re going to be delivering over the next few months. < Discuss the post, the content in the post and commentary and response to the post. Do it within a few lines. Try and avoid too much hyperbole!
I think I’m more than qualified to help, should you be looking to fill a knowledge gap?
In the past I’ve worked for some of the largest digital agencies in the UK ([INSERT QUALIFICATION]) and I now own an SEO Agency (a small one with three staff). I also deliver SEO training sessions (you can see more here: http://garethmailer.com/training/).
You can also see a snapshot of the type of content I usually produce here: http://garethmailer.com/63-advertising-or-marketing-ideas-for-smes-operating-on-a-shoestring-budget/ (largely geared towards SMEs, and those interested in internet marketing – a bit of a perfect fit) and there’s also a 40,000 words book on modern search engine optimisation available through that site, too. < This part is all about articulating your experience and the quality of content you produce. Most websites are inundated with guest posts and many writers can showcase little if no previous successful work (if you can demonstrate even a bit of success you will be moved to the front of the queue!).
If it is of interest please just get in touch – it would be a really interesting opportunity for me and a really simple way for [INSERT BRAND NAME] to acquire the right type of content, which fits the needs of your audience.
All the best,
Gareth
See how easy that is? It’s personal, it’s polite and it’s targeted. It checks all the boxes but we’re left with one problem: the subject line.
There are no ‘rules’ per say when it comes to outreach – we test a lot of different approaches (I will be uploading a more research-led post in future, when I have a bit more time!), different content and different subject lines.
For us, we acquire the most success when we create the following types of subject lines:
- ‘In reference to the latest post on SEO on [INSERT WEBSITE]. < This subject line shows we are making a legitimate request about something we’ve read on the webmaster’s website.
- Open ended questions can also work quite well. In terms of a subject line we use across a lot of different industries, ‘are you the person to talk to?’ often works quite well in terms of open and response rates.
- We’re always eager to try and solicit a response and one way to get your target to see your e-mail through all of the noise is to include their brand name at the very front of the subject line. We all respond to cues and certain words prompt an emotional reaction, or attract our interest – I personally am programmed to look for responses or e-mails which contain my company’s name.
So, this all sounds like bloody hard work, right?
Oh, it is.
But as I mentioned above, a regular column on a very popular website has the potential to completely transform your business; it could conceivably be all the marketing you need to do! Also, relative to the amount of time you have to put into other marketing mechanisms, and the uncertainty with regards to return, this is a breeze!
IF you want to make this while process that bit easier, then let me reassure you: you can. Step-forward: Buzzstream.
With Buzzstream, you can:
Save links quickly:
If you come across a guest posting opportunity then you just click an icon in your bookmark bar in your browser (Buzzstream shows you how to set this up) and it will be added to your prospect database.
Tag links:
Any time you go to save an opportunity you can categorise that opportunity so you can find it easily at a later date. This is very useful for us; we prospect for all types of links including broken links, links pages, guest posting opportunities, infographic placement etc. All of these types of sites require a different approach.
Find an e-mail address (automatically!):
Unless you’ve tried to do it yourself, you have no idea how time consuming it is to find the right e-mail address or the right person to contact. This feature alone makes Buzzstream an essential purchase – it will automatically ‘scan’ a target website and attach all contact data to your prospect record i.e. Twitter ID, any e-mail addresses etc.
Conduct custom outreach on-scale:
I don’t use Buzzstream’s built-in e-mail client simply because I prefer to have a signature on my e-mails, it makes it look more personal. That said, there is absolutely an advantage to doing it – Buzzstream allows you to insert custom tags into your e-mail which are replaced by the details you insert when you add a new prospect.
If you’re sending a LOT of e-mails then it really is a time saver.
Do I recommend Buzzstream? Absolutely. It’s in my top three SEO tools and with the number of tools available to my marketplace, that’s saying something!
So, to sum up…
Just get started. Identify 10-20 high authority, high traffic websites in your niche (or better yet, which are related to your niche!) and start approaching them.
If you’re just one person then don’t try and scale it out; don’t compromise quality for quantity. Go for the biggest prospects so that you know, when you do get that response, it’s going to be an opportunity worth writing for – the type of opportunity which will grow your community, add immense value to your link profile and yes, both indirectly and directly, generate sales!
