How to Find Guest Blog Opportunities That Offer Value

It is never too late to start learning about how to effectively utilize guest posting to improve your SEO efforts. Whether you plan to hire writers or contribute guest articles on your own, you’re going to need to make sure you find a blog that allows guest posts as well as offers value. Unfortunately, the two do not always go hand in hand. Many company owners and/or writers contribute guest articles wherever it’s the fastest and easiest, but it’s important to really analyze the different opportunities to determine if the partnership offers value.

Guest posting on valuable sites is great for a few reasons:

• It allows you to show off your expertise; thus improving your company’s reputation.
• You will be educating your audience on issues that are important to your company.
• Your content and ideas will be put in front of the eyes of a new audience, which will hopefully bring your website new traffic.
• You will earn backlinks to your website, so your SEO should greatly improve.

If you’re new to SEO or owning a company website, it can be easy to miss the benefits of guest posting. It might seem overwhelming at first, but writing articles for different websites should actually be quite simple if you’re really an expert in your field. Many company owners and writers find guest posting to be a fun break in the workday.

How to Analyze Whether Or Not a Website Is Quality

Many websites are more than happy to feature a well-written guest post, but it’s your job to make sure that the website will really offer value to your company. You can determine if a site will really benefit your company by looking at a few different things:

• PageRank – Although PageRank is not the only thing that matters when it comes to analyzing a site, a higher PR will mean better SEO benefits for you. Consider downloading the PR plugin so you always know what you’re working with.
• Maintenance – Check to see if the website is maintained. Are they posting new content at least twice per week? Are they responding to reader comments?
• Engagement – Look to see how many comments and how many social shares the content on the site receives. If it receives a lot, chances are your guest post will get some fresh eyes.

Once you find a site that you feel is quality and will help you improve your SEO and visibility, you simply look for a “write for us” or “guest post” webpage and/or contact the editor and write a post that they editor feels is appropriate. The real trouble lies in finding sites to analyze.

Top 5 Ways to Find Valuable Guest Posting Opportunities

Finding places to post your guest articles is fairly easy at first because so many sites are beginning to see the value in accepting guest posts. However, finding these sites will get more difficult the more you continue to contribute. After all, it’s best to contribute to a variety of sites as opposed to one site several times (at least for SEO purposes).

Below are five different ways you can find great sites:

1. Social Media – Social media sites allow individuals to post a link to his/her website. If someone follows you on Twitter or connects with you on LinkedIn, ALWAYS take a look at his/her website. I found several great sites this way and I had a connection to start off the partnership.
2.  Comments – Many blogs allow commenters to include his/her Twitter handle. Make sure to always click the person’s Twitter handle and then look for the website (discussed above). It’s even better if this occurs when someone comments on one of your articles because that person is obviously interested in what you have to say—the perfect way to form a connection and find a good site.
3.   Google Alerts – Set up your Google alerts to include your keywords and phrases like “write for us” or “guest post.” You will get an email right in your inbox letting you know if a site mentions any of those words/phrases. This isn’t the best way to find quality sites, but if you analyze the sites with the tactics discussed above you will find a few every once and a while.
4.  Top 5 Lists – Authoritative sites often post lists of some of the best places to guest post. Do a Google search for articles like this, and you will likely get a great list of sites that are high quality!
5.  Blog Roll – Many high authority sites also include a blog roll. Good sites will not put spammy sites on a blogroll, so you know you’re getting something of quality if you find a blogroll somewhere.