Guest blogging is an amazing way to boost your blog and establish your authority. But what is it and how does it work? Find out with this detailed guide to guest post services!
Climbing to the top of the proverbial search engine charts is far from an easy task. Everyone and their brother wants the top spot, and if you don’t have an innovative strategy to separate yourself from the pack, you’re going to get ground up into mulch and forgotten in a sea of mediocrity.
However, there exists one method that has proven itself time and time again: the guest post or guest post service.
But what are guest post services, and how will they help your company?
Well, you’ve come to the right place! We’re here to give you the complete guide to guest blog posting services! So without further ado, let’s jump right on in!
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Guest Blogging/Guest Posts: Definition and Benefits
Guest blogging is a practice where one person writes a blog article for another person’s company. However, the article contains veiled promotions for the product or business of the writer.
It’s important to note that guest posts and “sponsored posts” are different entities. The key difference lies in the fact that sponsored posts feature the host company asking for money from the writing company to put their post on the host’s site.
Avoid this practice as much as possible. It’s a strict no-no in the search engine game, and Google will inflict penalties on your company if you’re caught breaking this rule.
The Power of Backlinks
The primary reason most people leap on the guest post bandwagon is for the backlinks you spruce throughout the article to build your off-page SEO (or search engine optimization).
Backlinks refer to any links you place on other people’s sites that redirect the user to something on your site. For example, let’s say you owned a cupcake store and you wrote a guest post for someone about the uses of flour. You could tie a link to your store’s website to the keyword “cupcakes” in the article and you’d have a backlink.
These backlinks are vital for SEO building since they not only work well with the system of keywords (already an SEO darling) but also give your site “presence” on other sites. This in turn will cause Google to shoot your site up the ranks of the search list (or at least sites that contain links to your site).
As for how you get your backlinks into your guest post without being obvious, most people use anchor text. Anchor text refers to a set of words in a blog article that get a link attached to them, so clicking them will send the customer to said link. This is often used as a way to “cite your sources” or prove where you got your factual information.
Anchor text frequently gets paired with top SEO keywords (like the name of your business or service) or the straight-up URL of your site. However, a key facet of good guest posts is finding a way to use anchor text without making the article sound hollow or pandering.
The Perks of Guest Posts and Guest Post Services Part 2
Another perk of hopping on board the guest post service train is that they allow you to build relationships with others you wouldn’t have had access to before. Writing guest posts for other businesses will help build a level of trust between the two of you. Also, posting blogs on their site even gives you access to their audience.
This either brings you an untapped market your business didn’t cater to before or expands your “preferred” customer base further. In turn, this can raise people’s awareness of your brand and even give your social media campaigns a boost if you play your cards right.
A great bonus of guest posts is that they work as cheap and effective options to integral parts of your SEO strategy. As long as you handle the posts with care, they will prove an inexpensive alternative to buying links on other sites. Plus, Google favors backlinks done by guest posts over ones bought wholesale by a company in terms of SEO rankings.
Need more bonuses? Well, how about the fact that guest posts can prop you up as an authority in your particular commercial field?
It’s true. After all, if you craft articles that display a level of mastery and intellect about your chosen field, customers will start to see your company as an authority in that field. This will in turn make customers choose you for their needs in that field, as well as boost your reputation as someone who knows their stuff.
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The Guest Post Hunting Process
So let’s say you decide that guest posts seem super awesome and you want to do some for your company or blog. What’s the process like?
Well, first you’ll want to decide whether or not you want to get an in-house writer for your posts or contract out. In-house writers give you a greater degree of control over what the posts look like but take forever to hire and lean towards the more costly side. You also get to determine to what sites the posts go (contractors will often do that for you, but you’re not always getting the top-tier sites).
On the other hand, ghostwriters or contracted businesses like Link Fire SEO Guest Post Services handle all the nitty-gritty work. They deliver you high-quality content and lots of it, often for lower rates than a staff writer would. You can even consult with them on specific styles of writing or tones you want to adhere to.
Once that’s decided, you’ll want to begin the hunt for potential clients that you can write guest posts for (if you’re going at it yourself). Search for top blogs on Google or look for blogs that advertise their openness to guest posts.
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If at all possible, run a check of the website yourself by researching how popular it is on search engines and the quality of links in previous guest posts on the site. If they lead you to a bunch of shady or dead webpages, it’s time to reconsider things.
If you feel like some extra deep diving, use a service like Wayback Machine to see if the site is a dropped domain (an unused domain purchased by someone to become an SEO dumping ground they can sell links off of).
It’s also important to remember that you’re going to have a dry spell of no replies before anything shows up.
This is because most blogs treat their content as serious work, and read every piece of copy they get sent to make sure it meets their standards. This can take forever, and some companies will outright toss your blog post without notice if they get too swamped.
Guest Post Opportunities – Taking the Next Step
Once you’ve picked your host site, it’s time to send the request. Make sure you follow the specific request each site outlines for submitting guest posts. After all, you don’t want to work your butt off for an article only for it to get rejected because you sent it in the wrong file format.
If the host site doesn’t have any rules listed, it never hurts to shoot them an email and ask if they have any rules/preferences. If the site wishes to receive your submission by email, make sure to send it from your professional email. Plus, ensure your subject line is quick and snappy so it stands out from the hundreds of other requests the host will have to sift through.
Should You Allow Guest Posts on Your Company Blog?
In addition to writing guest posts, your company blog can also host guest posts to build an impressive library of articles. Another bonus to allowing guest posts is that it lets you build relationships with other companies like you did when you wanted to publish the post, but flipped.
Getting others to write guest posts for you saves you the time and money of finding someone to write your blog articles for you, and you can piggyback off the guest posts to advertise your social media pages, among other things.
On the con side, passing off the guest posts doesn’t mean you get to kick back and relax. You’ll want to look over every article that comes your way. Plus, you run the risk of writers flaking out on assignments.
With that said, one way to alleviate these flaws is to establish some guidelines for blog posts if you plan to accept them. Even stuff like running the article through Copyscape or Grammarly to make sure it’s not plagiarized or indicating a preferred writing style will help keep low-quality articles from clogging up your blog.
Time to Ace the Charts
Congratulations! Now that you know all about what guest posts, guest post opportunities and guest post services are, you’re ready to take your shot at rising the SEO charts to fame and fortune!
And hey, if you’re hungry to learn more about how to increase your chances of becoming an SEO rockstar, come check out some of the other posts on our blog!
Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to get started on our blog posts. Wait a minute, what do you mean this is a blog post?
Oh boy…
Disclosure of material connection
Some of the links in this article are “affiliate links” as defined by the FTC. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, Astute Copy Blogging will receive an affiliate commission, at no additional cost to you. However, please note that we only recommend the best products and services.
