Just as you need to know what makes for a good guest posting opportunity, equally, you need to know what makes for a potentially bad one when you find guest posting opportunities. These are the kinds of links that can result in harm to your SEO, meaning a loss of ranking, traffic and, ultimately, business.
When evaluating guest posting opportunities, it's crucial to be vigilant for red flags that may indicate a less-than-ideal or potentially harmful collaboration. Here are some red flags to watch out for:
Unrelated Niche: If the website's niche is entirely unrelated to your industry, the guest post may not resonate with the target audience. Ensure that the content fits naturally within the website's theme.
Overly Promotional Content: If the host website encourages overly promotional content with a primary focus on product or service promotion, it may diminish the value of the guest post. Guest posts should provide informative and valuable content rather than being blatant advertisements.
Lack of Engagement: Check for signs of engagement on the host website. If there are few comments, social shares, or evidence of an active audience, it might indicate a lack of interest or a small readership.
Questionable Linking Practices: Be wary of websites that engage in suspicious linking practices, such as excessive use of keyword-rich anchor texts, link farms, or other black-hat SEO tactics. Google penalties for such practices can negatively impact your site.
No Author Attribution: If the host website doesn't provide proper author attribution or a bio section, it could diminish your ability to showcase your expertise and build personal brand recognition. A lack of transparency may also be a red flag.
Inadequate Social Media Presence: A lack of social media activity or an insignificant following on social platforms may limit the reach of your guest post. Consider the overall online presence of the host website.
This is something that can really pay dividends, because it is one of the best ways to find mutually-beneficial link building opportunities–and those are often the ones that turn out to be the most helpful in the long-run.
This would include things like utilizing LinkedIn for guest blogging opportunities; joining relevant Twitter and Facebook groups to stay updated on potential openings, and exploring industry-specific forums and online communities where bloggers and editors might be actively seeking contributors.
Always start by introducing yourself and expressing a genuine interest in the blog. Spend some time actually reading through their published articles and look for examples of things that actually stood out to you. You would be amazed by how many people try to feign interest.
Instead, explain how your expertise aligns with their audience's need. You can also meet people with whom to cultivate relationships at networking and virtual events, and by participating in discussions and connecting with influencers in your niche. Building genuine relationships opens doors to guest posting opportunities and collaborative ventures.
If you can showcase your enthusiasm for contributing valuable content to their platform, a site owner is going to be much more receptive to your efforts and, even if they aren’t current looking, might be open to other guest posts in the future.
Crafting a personalized and attention-grabbing email pitch is your ticket to securing guest post opportunities. Tailor your pitch to the specific blog, addressing the pain points of their audience and highlighting the unique perspective you bring.
Showcasing your expertise and unique value proposition is non-negotiable when going after high quality guest post backlinks. No one is going to even entertain the idea of working with you if you are unable to convey how your guest post will benefit their readers and enhance the overall quality of their content.
What’s more, you need to be able to demonstrate that you've done your homework and genuinely understand the blog's ethos. Think about it this way: how would you respond if someone reached out with a generic guest post pitch for your own blog?
Let’s break down some of the things you need to do in order to make your guest post effective and worth the time and money it takes to create it.
If you’re writing guest blogs as a link building tactic, then you’re doing it in order to send link equity to pages that you want to rank in Google in order to increase your organic traffic.
More organic traffic means more visitors means more conversions (in theory). Through our guest blogging efforts and other link building tactics, we’ve helped clients dramatically increase the number of people finding them via search engines like Google.
How To Find Guest Post ClientsThe idea behind guest content is that other sites link back to a page of your choosing on your website. This is really the be all and end all of your guest posting efforts.
But, most website owners are not going to want to link their readers directly to your commercial pages. You have to choose informational pages (resource pages, interesting blog article, etc.) that you can then, through good internal linking, use to distribute the aforementioned link equity.
You need to have your target page and internal linking strategy in mind before trying to become a contributing writer or you’re just guest blogging for the sake of it which, while it might land you some nice referral traffic, isn’t maximizing the SEO value of the link.
Effectively placed links serve as signposts, guiding readers to additional, relevant information and enriching their engagement, communicating to search engines that your content is well-researched and trustworthy and letting you distribute maximum link equity ot the target page.
Anchor text, the clickable text within a hyperlink, plays a pivotal role in the SEO landscape and user navigation. Its careful selection and seamless integration can wield significant influence, contributing not only to search engine rankings but also to the overall user experience.
Well-optimized anchor text aids in boosting a page's relevance (your target page) for specific keywords, thereby positively influencing search engine rankings, and clear and descriptive anchor text enhances user understanding, facilitating smoother navigation through your content.
The key to optimization lies in ensuring that the anchor text aligns contextually with the surrounding content, reflecting accuracy and relevance, as well as the target page you have chosen for your guest post link
Outbound links serve as your digital handshake with the wider online community. By linking to reputable sources, you not only bolster the credibility of your post but also foster a sense of community within your niche.
These links showcase your engagement with the broader online conversation, positioning you as an active participant in your field and search engines view outbound links to authoritative sites as a positive signal, elevating your content's perceived value.
Aligning with a site's editorial guidelines ensures a smooth submission process, minimizing the need for extensive revisions and expediting the approval process. This adherence showcases your respect for the site owner's rules, laying the foundation for a trusting and collaborative relationship.
You could spend time and money crafting an article, only for the site owner to determine that you haven’t adhered to their quality guidelines strictly enough and they no longer want it on their site.
Guest posting is a controversial link building tactic with a lot of SEOs and link builders. Google’s recent link spam updates have certainly made it harder to find worthwhile guest posting opportunities.
There are a lot of sites out there that accept guest posts from anyone, anytime, anywhere, so long as money is on the table. These are not the kinds of websites you want links from
If, however, you’ve got a good guest post idea, know what kind of website would a) make sense and b) mutually benefit from your guest blog article, guest posting is still a tried and true way to build backlinks, authority, trust and recognition in your niche.
Get in touch with dofollow today and find out more about how our years of experience building user-centric backlinks using guest posting and a range of other proven tactics can help take your off-page search engine optimization to the next level.
Eric Carrell & Sebastian Schaffer have been working in SEO for over a decade, building their own projects - understanding and testing SEO strategy, along with building hundreds of white hat links per month for our projects. They take their learnings and experience and apply them to the strategy that drives our link building strategy for our clients.
