Guest Posting: The Complete Guide For Beginners

Looking for the ways to let more people know about your business?

Would you like to get more traffic to your blog with guest posting?

Guest posting is an excellent way to promote yourself, your business and boost your own website’s search rankings. Increasing traffic to your site, earning backlinks – it is all possible with guest posts.

But what should you do on the way toward guest posting?

Prepare the basics first:

• Create social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.)
• Search and follow influential people in your niche
• Show your social media presence (comments, retweets, likes, shares)

Afterward, you have to determine your guest post purpose:

• Guest posting for building your authority
• Guest posting for getting traffic for your site
• Guest posting for earning backlinks

It looks like there is nothing difficult in making these first steps.

However, if you’ve never done it before, you could merely achieve any success in guest posting without a good plan.

In this guide you will find some effective tips on how to:

• Come up with a guest post idea
• Find guest post opportunities
• Send guest post inquiry(make it right and successfully)
• Do the final steps when the blogger is on the hook

Let’s begin!

I. Come up with a Guest Post Idea

It is important for you to find a guest post idea that is in-demand.

There are a several ways to do this:

• Using Skyscraper technique
• Using Quora
• Using BuzzSumo
• Using popular blogs as a source of inspiration

1. Use the Skyscraper Technique

This practical method was popularized by Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko. The main purpose of this technique is to use ‘ancient’ content in a new perspective.

You just follow these steps:

• Choose an article with dozens of shares, backlinks etc.
• Write much better version of it
• Get in touch with the people who liked it before
• Offer them your version of this article

By the way, in this case, you can use an effective helper Ahrefs Content Explorer. It is especially handy when you need to see which content performs the best according to the total amount of social shares and backlinks.

This tool suggests you a list of top content according to your keyword inquiry. Type a keyword into a search box and choose a topic that you like the most.

Let’s say you want to write an article on “email outreach.” So, you put this keyword “email outreach” in a searching box and see what Content Explorer will suggest:

Content Explorer will show you the most popular content related to your inquiry. Now you can choose any topic you like and turn it into a brand new article, for instance:

“Email Outreach Tools Any Marketer Must Use”

Or

“How to Build Backlinks with Email Outreach”

Guessing you got a clue on how to search ideas with Ahrefs Content Explorer. Furthermore, if you like to form topics for articles from the juiciest keywords, you should have a look how to find these keywords with Keyword Explorer tool.

Skyscraper technique is a great opportunity for those who don’t want their writing to be hit and miss. It helps create content, that people will love almost for sure.

2. See what people ask on Quora

Quora is a place where people ask questions and get answers. Basically, any question you’re stumbling upon could be an ideal topic for your article:

Here you can see some questions people ask where ’email outreach’ keyword has been mentioned. For instance, choose the question: “What are your best outreach email process methods?” and turn it into the topic “Best Email Outreach Process Methods Any Marketer Could Use.” Easy, right?

That’s why Quora is an excellent way for you to find whatever topic you want.

3. Search blogs for guest posting on BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo.com is also a solid tool for searching new blog post ideas. Basically, you do the same steps as with Ahrefs Content Explorer. You use a keyword related to your niche and see what the results BuzzSumo suggests you. For instance, you’re using a keyword “email outreach” and choose the content you like:

If you want to get the freshest ideas, filter the results for the past month. Afterward, choose the topic you like the most and create your own material.

BuzzSumo is another one “weapon” in your toolbox that you can use to advantage.

4. Popular blogs are your source of inspiration  

Another one cool trick for finding ideas for future articles is searching for the best blogs that get tons of visitors every day. Depending on your niche, search for those blogs that are the most popular.

For instance, you are interested in content marketing. Thus, one of the blogs you should discover is smartblogger.com. As you can see, any of the posts have lots of comments here:

It means the topic of the article is in-demand. Moreover, comments can give you tips on what you should avoid or add in your future post:

Now you can write a brand new article on the related topic considering the items been mentioned in the comment above.

II. Guest Post Opportunities: How and Where to Find Them

When it comes to discovering, which blog would be better to choose, new writers do the common mistake. They write the article first and afterward start searching a blog to publish it. Instead:

• Find the blogs that accept guest posts first,
• Get in touch with the editor of this blog and offer your blog post idea,
• Write an article that fits this blog perfectly and send it over.

Why so? Because you will be 100% sure that your article will go live on the blog you chose. Otherwise, you might be upset if all your tries were in vain. It is especially important for those who have a posting schedule.

There are several places where can you find blogs in your niche for guest posting:

• Google
• SEMrush
• Social shares

1. Google search

Google search is the first place where you can find blogs for guest posting. The only thing you will have to do is use the right keyword (related to your niche) and the following word combinations:

• Keyword + “submit a guest post”
• Keyword + “write for us”
• Keyword + “guest post guidelines”
• Etc.

2. SEMrush

SEMrush can help you in searching and finding guest post opportunities as well. Use as an inquiry the following types of keywords: “write for us”, “submit a guest post” etc.

As the result, you get a list of blogs that accept guest posting:

3. Social shares

This method is also cool. You can find guest post opportunities via Twitter. Make a request in a search box, for instance, “marketing” + “write for us” and voila:

Twitter will suggest you a bunch of tweets that reveal some blogs related to your niche. The same thing you can apply with Google+.

III. Guest Post Inquiry

Once you’ve collected a list of blogs you need, it is time to send your guest post inquiry. Before sending your inquiry, pay attention to:

• What topics blog accepts
• Blog posts reception (comments, shares, likes)
• Structure and formatting blog posts have
• Guest posting guidelines section (if available)

Right after that, you can start reaching out to bloggers. Here is a little trick for you: offer just the topic of your article with a few details about it first (even if your post is already written). Don’t send your article at once! Here’s a rough template I use quite often:

“Hey [name]

I saw you’re accepting guest posts on your blog. I think I’ve got an awesome guest post idea for you.

5 Steps to Improve Your Email Outreach

In it, I want to share 5 outstanding tactics every marketer should use for improving email outreach. What do you think?

Cheers!

Sergey Aliokhin

Outreach Manager at @Ahrefs”

Of course, this template is just an example of what you can send but I’m sure you got a general idea. Don’t forget to include your email signature (or introduce yourself somehow in your message at least). A person you’re sending the letter must understand who you are.

This approach works quite effective! Wait a bit and the blogger you’ve sent the message to will get in touch with you. The next step is to introduce your article to the blogger. But, again, don’t hurry with this (even if you have already written the article). Try to figure out what blogger thinks about the topic you offered him.

Once the blogger shows interest in your post, send it over or start your writing.

Blogger Is on the Hook

Actually, your general work starts here. Writing an article is a time consuming and tedious process. Despite the fact, you can make it easier with the help of extra tools for writing and editing your piece of content.

1.  Titlecapitalization

This free service helps you automatically capitalize your titles in a proper way.

2.  Coschedule Headline Analyzer

This one helps you do headline evaluation. It shows a word balance, headline type, length analysis, headline tip etc. To come up with the new eye-catching blog topic ideas you can use one of these simple headline formulas.

3.  Grammarly

Find and fix grammar, spelling and punctuation errors with the help of Grammarly.

4.   Polish My Writing

Use the tool for checking lexical, style and grammar mistakes.

5.  Hemingway Editor

Hemingway Editor will help you write as easy and clear as Ernest Hemingway.

Conclusion

Guest posting opens the door to sharing your knowledge with new people and attract the new audience. It builds your credibility and brings more traffic to your site.

Using the tips above you will be able to write interesting, unique and well-shaped articles.

If you have any questions about guest posting, just leave me a comment below.