Sam | Last Updated: 2022-06-06T23:29:29 How to Identify Quality Guest Post Sites
Guest posting is an excellent strategy to increase your internet credibility. You gain access to a new audience, which can result in new followers, subscribers, partners, and, of course, customers.
You also get backlinks to your website, which Google considers when ranking it.
Relevant, high-quality links are crucial for increasing a site’s online visibility and rankings in the SERPs. So, it’s important to make sure that the websites where you submit guest articles can move the needle.
Here’s how to identify quality guest posting sites to contribute to.
What is Guest Posting?
Guest blogging involves producing content for another website for the following reasons.
· To get traffic to their website.
- Boost their brand’s credibility and recognition.
- To increase domain authority.
- To connect with people in their field.
Simple Steps to Identify Top Quality Sites for Guest Posting
1. Make a List of All Niche Relevant Blogs
The first step is compiling a list of prospective authority blogs in your niche where you can post your guest blog. There are several ways you can come up with this list, including the following.
Conduct a Google Search: search for keyword phrases that describe your subject and then add the unique, high-quality sites that appear in the first 100 to 200 results to your list.
- If you want to start a blog on NFTs, for example, some keywords to focus on include “NFTs,” “how to trade NFTs,” and “Trade NFTs.” Add all the unique sites you see in the search results to your list after skipping the paid ads section. Make a list of all the keywords you want to use.
- You can also look at the website your competitors and other industry experts guest blog on. To do this, search for “Guest post by [insert competitor’s name].”
- Also search for guest blogging terms like “guest post,” “guest blog,” “write for us,” “submit a guest post,” “submit an article,” “join us as a guest blogger” and others.
2. Analyze the Websites on Your List
Once you have your list, the next step is to analyze individual websites on the list. Here’s what you should check.
i. Analyze the Overall Organic Strength of the Domain
When it comes to link building, quality is crucial. Quality triumphs over quantity. High-quality links will help you gain authority. However, spammy ones will hurt it. So it’s essential to check the website authority, which is based on the number of backlinks to that website.
Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and Moz’s Domain Authority are two tools that allow you to evaluate domain authority. If you use the Ahrefs Domain Rating tool, you can see the Rating for any website address by entering it into the Site Explorer (DR).
ii. Evaluate the traffic history of the domain
You should look at the domain’s traffic trends in addition to the average monthly traffic. If you are using Ahrefs, click on “Organic Search” to get a visual graph showing this data.
If a site’s traffic is declining, it could be a sign that something is wrong. When a site’s traffic goes down, it loses value, and you may not want to put in the time and effort to get a link from it.
iii. Consider the site’s relevance to the industry
When building links, relevance is everything. If you build links from websites that aren’t linked to your sector you won’t get as much value out of it. Worse, the absence of relevancy may give search engines the impression that you’re doing unnatural link-building.
iv. Look up their Alexa rank
The Alexa ranking is also an indication of website quality since it’s computed based on the average daily visitors to this site and pageviews over the previous three months. So you might decide to link to websites with Alexa rankings of below 600,000.
v. Examine the source of their traffic.
It makes no sense to publish a guest article on a site with traffic from Australia if your target demographic is people from North America.
Although the link may still be useful in terms of obtaining followers in the alternative country, if you want to get the most out of your time and work, you should focus on blogs where you will get the most exposure. The Alexa site’s Audience Geography tells you where the visitors to a website come from.
vi. Look at their Keyword Rankings in Search Engines
It would be ideal if you targeted blogs that rank well in search engines and got these rankings through the use of high-performing keywords. Check for acceptable keywords in the title, h1 tags, alt tags, and blog post titles, then Google them to see how they fare in search results.
You can also use SEMrush and Ahrefs to find out if a website ranks for any keywords that are important to you.
3. Plan Out Your Pitch
You’ll have a reduced list at this stage, but it will have the highest-quality sites.
It’s time to start on your pitch now that you’ve found the blogs to which you’d like to submit guest pieces.
- Check the site’s guest posting requirements to see what your pitch needs to include.
- Look for email addresses on each website and send them an email or fill out the guest blogging form to let them know you’re interested.
- Some site editors provide writing samples, and it’s important you stick to them.
Always read and follow the guest post guidelines before submitting an article. Failure to follow the guideline can lead to rejection.