Guest Post: Using It For SEO Link Building

Guest Post: Using It For SEO Link Building
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Summary: Link building is one of the most difficult aspects of search engine optimization. Yet to rank well in the search engine results pages, you need to acquire quality links from trusted websites, since inbound links are a significant ranking factor.

Secrets Of Guest Posting For SEO Link Building

Link building can be even more difficult if your business is on the mundane side, since companies that sell interesting services or products have an easier time getting talked about and mentioned by bloggers and online journalists. For example, a company that sells guided road bike trips through Europe’s most storied and romantic regions is potentially more interesting to write about than, say, a local car insurance provider.

However, if you are that auto insurance company or a company in a similarly humdrum niche, you still need links to compete in the SERPs. Fear not, there’s one strategy you can use to build links regardless of your industry: guest blogging.

How Does Guest Posting Build Links?

Guest posting sites are, in effect, trading content for links. You give publishers free content–in the form of articles or blog posts you have written–and in return they allow you to add a link back to your company website in the bio section of the guest post.

Besides building links, guest posting has other benefits as well, which include:

  • Generating more brand awareness by exposing your company to new audiences
  • Positioning you or someone in your organization as a thought leader on a particular subject
  • Creating new traffic channels via referred visits

However, for the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on guest posting to build links.

How To Find Guest Blog Posting Opportunities

Now, there are some really excellent guest posting services out there that will handle the process from end to end, from writing the guest article to getting it published on an authoritative and relevant website. However, if you’ve got the time, guest blogging is definitely something you can do yourself. So let’s look at some really effective tips to locate guest blogging opportunities.

How To Qualify Guest Post Opportunities

Not all guest blogging opportunities are created equal. Once you’ve found websites that accept guest posts, the next step is to qualify those sites so that you’re getting the best return on your contributed content investment. When appraising a guest posting prospect, I look at a range of factors that include:

  • Do they allow you to link back to your website?

This is the million dollar question. Most websites that accept guest posts have a policy page that spells out whether or not they allow links, and how many links you can include in a guest post. If they don’t permit outbound links, then cross them off your list.

  • Can you use keyword anchor text links?

Some publishers only allow a hyperlinked URL, like http://www.yourwebsite.com/. Many times this is explained on the guest posting policy page. If not, take a peek at the bios of other guest bloggers to see what you can and can’t do with links. For SEO purposes, you really want to build keyword-rich anchor text links vs. a hyperlinked URL.

  • Are older posts still in Google’s index?

Articles on many websites disappear from Google’s search index as they age and fall further into the website’s archive. When this happens, links on those pages no longer pass SEO value. To uncover any indexation issues, find a few guest posts that are six months to a year old, grab the URL, plug it into the Google search box and run a query? Do the URLs show up in a Google search? If not, cross the site off your list.

Getting Your Guest Post Published

The final step in the guest blogging process is to get your article published. After you’ve found sites that accept guest articles and you’ve qualified them, you can contact the website owner and submit your guest article for review. Once your guest article is accepted, it may take time to run since the majority of websites have busy editorial calendars. When your guest article does go live, I recommend emailing the editor and nice note to say thanks. That way, you’re building a relationship with the editor, so you can improve your chances for publishing more guest articles on that site in the future.