How to Get More Traffic by Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is one of the most effective ways to drive more traffic to your blog or business website.

People used to think it was only good for improving SEO by increasing the number backlinks, but there’s much, much more to it—especially if you want to do it right.

What is guest blogging, and why does it matter?

Put simply, it’s creating content for someone else’s blog in the hopes that you’ll create quality backlinks, get more traffic, gain exposure, and build relationships.

Guest blogging matters because it helps you...

1.     Get more eyes on your content and brand, bring them back to your site for more, and grow your audience
2.     Increase your credibility and make connections with influencers in your niche
3.     Build your own site’s authority with backlinks from high-authority domains

Now that you know what guest blogging can do for you, how do you get started?

Figure out your goals

Decide on your main purpose for doing a guest blog.  It could be driving traffic to a certain product you offer, increasing your social media following, or any number of other things.

Pick one and focus on it.

Once you know your specific reason and purpose for guest blogging, decide how you’ll track your success—for example, you could create an Advanced Segment in Google Analytics.

Find the audience you want to target

Next,

you need to decide who you want to reach with your guest post.

The audience should be similar to the one for your site, and that suit the specifics of your goal.  Think about how what you’re offering will help them.

Find opportunities to guest post

You want quality sites with engaged audiences who can benefit from what you have to offer.  There are tons of ways to find the sites you want, but the simplest is to do a Google search combining the keyword you want your post to target with a term like the following:

•     “Guest post”
•     “Write for us”
•     “Guest article”
•     “Contributing writer”
•     “Guest posts wanted”

Narrow down your choices

Once you have a list of possible sites, you’ll need to figure out the best targets.  Make sure they’re related to your site and have an authoritative link profile, a real following, significant social media exposure, high-quality standards, and the ability to bring you targeted traffic.

This step can take a lot of legwork, but there are a variety of free and paid tools you can use to streamline the process.

Get familiar with the blog you want to target

Read through the blog to see what they like to post, and what kind of guest posts they usually have, to gain insight into what kind of article you’ll need to write and how best to pitch it.  Don’t just jump in; do your homework first!

Some other good things to do in preparation for getting more blog traffic include seeing who else has already guest posted for the target blog, find out what posts on the site do best, and engage with the community within the blog.  Provide insightful comments on existing posts, connect with the writers on social media, and make sure you’re familiar with how they like their content.

Decide what you want to write

Figure out what you can offer the target audience regarding relevant, helpful content.

If you’re not sure what to write, you can get inspiration from all kinds of sources—look at the top blogs in your niche and see what posts do well for them, check out Yahoo Answers for questions people are asking about your niche, or even look through the comments sections of your favorite blogs to see what people are asking about.

Prepare and send the pitch

Once you have your idea, get your pitch ready.  Read the target site’s guidelines for guest bloggers and follow them closely when prepping and submitting your pitch. 

When you contact the blog owner, personalize your email by addressing them by name.  Let them know who you are—it helps if you’ve interacted before through social media or comments on their blog posts—and what you’re offering their audience.  Include a link to content you have elsewhere online to give an example of your work.

Make your guest post awesome

If the blog owner agrees to put up your guest post, it’s time to create it.

Don’t forget: this post isn’t about you—it’s about giving something of value to the audience.

It also helps to format your content like what’s already on the site and include internal links to their content. Finish with a call to action for comments to encourage discussion.

The content should be at least as good as what’s on your site, if not better.  If you want help making your post the best it can be, the reviews page at AllTopReviews.com will help you find some of the best writing services available.

Follow up after your post is published

This step is critical!  Once your guest blog post goes live, make sure to engage with the audience in the comments section, as it helps send the message that you’re there to provide value and not just get a backlink—which builds trust and helps encourage readers to come to your site or follow you on social media.

It’s also a good idea to follow up with the blog owner and thank them for the opportunity since that will help keep your relationship with them on good terms—and possibly lead to more chances to guest blog for them down the road.

Conclusion

Guest blogging takes more consideration and effort than just asking someone to post your content on their site, but the benefits are more than worth it.  Far from just helping you get backlinks, guest blogging—if you follow the guidelines above—can be a lucrative and rewarding way to promote your brand.

A guest contribution by Benedict Brychta, he is a MBA student at San José State University.