A Google Exec Declared Guest Blogging 'Dead' in 2014, But Here's How to Make It Pay Dividends in 2022 and Beyond Contrary to popular opinion, guest blogging isn't dead -- as long as you use these eight strategies to maximize your brand's results.
By John Boitnott Edited by Jessica Thomas
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Ever since 2014, when Matt Cutts proclaimed the death of guest blogging, ethical marketing professionals have been reluctant to pursue this strategy in their digital marketing plans. After all, when the chief of search quality for Google says guest posting is "a more and more spammy practice" and asserts that people who engage in it frequently are "hanging out with really bad company," you tend to err on the side of caution.
However, Cutts didn't mean all guest blogging. He was referring to one particular type, usually involving questionable guest post exchanges in an effort to build backlinks. The right kind of guest posting is identical to regular content marketing. That is, it creates useful, informative and authoritative content that your audience members want to see. There's an exception though: It gets published on someone else's blog or website, not yours.
To maximize your return on the guest-posting investment, follow these best practices.
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1. Find the best guest-blog opportunities for your brand
Making the most of your guest posting opportunities starts with picking the right host sites — that is, the sites that will publish your guest post. To locate high quality sites to pitch for guest posts, use Google searches such as the following, together with a keyword or two that relates to your niche or field:
"submit a guest post"
"guest post guidelines"
"accepting guest posts"
Also identify top experts in your field and see where they're posting articles. Search "by [expert name]" to find potential host sites that accept posts in that niche. Publishing a well-targeted article on that same site will help build your audience and keep your brand competitive.
You can also search for backlinks using the following search parameters:
link:competitorswebsitedomain.com -competitorswebsitedomain.com "guest post"
This should show a list of sites that your competitor has written for in the past.
Once you have a short list of potential sites to target with guest post pitches, do a little investigative work. Check the social media feeds for each site you're looking at to make sure they're active and enjoy some degree of engagement. Examine the feeds for any key personnel and authors on that site, as well. This should help you focus your blogger outreach efforts more efficiently.
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2. Narrow your niche as much as you can
Remember in a guest posting campaign for your brand, you as the company leader or content officer are the expert face of the brand. To sell your expertise, it helps to narrow your niche as tightly as possible. Focus your outreach efforts on topics that are directly related to your business, its goals and its marketing plan overall. Find the nexus between that niche and the audience of your targeted blogs.
3. Ensure your pitch gets a good reception
Most pitches are won or lost in the subject line and first few sentences of the pitch email. To maximize your chances of landing that plum guest post spot, first look carefully at any guidelines or tips the host site offers for guest posts. Follow their instructions to the letter. Then follow these tips:
Personalize your email. It's always better to address a specific individual by name. Look at the blog's "About" page and social media accounts if you're not sure who's behind it.
Do your research. Include two or three compelling statistics or study findings if you can to help bolster your main thesis.
Prove your authority and expertise. A brief biographical paragraph listing your qualifications, experience and education helps establish your bona fides and why you're someone the blog's readers should trust.
Make your proposed topics evergreen. Propose topics that will stay interesting and useful to the blog's primary audience for a long time to come in order to maximize the payoff over time.
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4. Keep good records of your pitches
Create and maintain a spreadsheet of your pitches and outreach efforts. You can probably keep a few pitches in your head at a time, but fairly quickly you'll find you can't recall all that information. You may well find that you forgot you already pitched a particular blog on this topic a few months ago, but that blogger or site owner definitely remembers you. Avoid creating awkward situations by keeping good records.
5. Pay attention to SEO and UX
Search engine optimization and user experience are related concepts. The longer you keep your user on the host site, the more search engines will deem that page authoritative and useful. That in turn brings more traffic through organic search results, which means that the guest post page will send more visitors to your site as well.
One effective strategy for improving the UX on your guest posts is to craft a longform piece with valuable links to high-quality authorities. All things being equal, posts of 2,000 words or more tend to rank more highly in organic search results. However, don't stuff a post full of fluff just for a higher word count. Aim to thoroughly discuss the relevant topic — no more, no less. Include links out to well-regarded authority sites to back up your claims and arguments. Use as many recent studies and statistics as you can, and always link out to cite to the original source.
Finally, write the very best article you can. Proofread and edit your post before you send it to the host site. Check your spelling. Format the post for scanability. Make the post as streamlined, well-written and dynamic as possible.
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6. Stay on the right side of Google
Pay attention to Google's guidelines:
Keep your content useful.
Don't stuff your post with keywords; instead only include them where they'd naturally go without feeling overstuffed or awkwardly phrased.
Make sure each piece of content is authoritative and reliable.
Make each guest post unique to the host site to avoid duplicate content dings.
7. Commit to thoroughly promoting your guest posts
These days, even the most valuable blog post will need some amount of promotion to gain traction with relevant audiences. That means you're going to have to engage in some kind of promotion campaign for your guest post.
Use social media, your own email list, your personal social media profiles, boosted posts on Facebook, and links on your company's website (either the main page or your media page) to get your post in front of as many potentially interested readers as possible. Add the link to your email signature, and make sure you send a personalized email with the URL to any of the authoritative bloggers whose work you linked to in the post.
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8. Monitor your results
Use your "acquisition" report in your Google Analytics or other traffic analytics solution to see whether and to what extent your guest posts are actually driving traffic to your site. Additionally, monitor your "Top Linking Sites" in Google Search Console to find out which sites you've published guest posts on are sending you fresh traffic.
Let this data inform your decisions about where to direct your future blog outreach efforts. If you've written a monthly guest post for a well-regarded site in each of the past six months but you're not getting any significant traffic from those pages, cut your losses and find a site that's better aligned with your audience and market.
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