With all the various algorithms, updates and restrictions over the years, guest blogging for SEO remains a reliable strategy for improved search results.
Independent of the quality of the post or its popularity, guest blogging for SEO comes down to creating links back to your site from other websites. In fact, no matter how talented a writer you might be nor any amount of references you make to your website, if these attributions don’t include links, then you are missing a valuable opportunity to improve your search engine rankings.
It involves creating links to your website from external blogs and sites by providing them with free content. You write a post or article for a blog or a website and then send it to them and let them publish it on the proviso that you can include a link to your own website in there.
In many cases, the webmaster accepting your article gets some free content and you get a link. The result is a win-win situation and it can be even more useful to both parties if there is a free exchange of content as well as trading links.
Of course the quality of your blog contribution will be a significant factor in any arrangement of this kind. If the writing sucks, then no serious webmaster will accept it. Additionally, Google and Bing also have certain expectations as to content, including that your contribution should be relevant to the blog on which it is posted, including any referring links that are included in the article.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly good writing will be appreciated by higher quality blogs, and these are the blogs that consequently have fairly high rankings themselves.
To elaborate, authority blogs and sites are by far the best way to take advantage of guest blogging for SEO. These high-end blogs have Google and Bing’s attention and they have proved over time that they consistently provide quality content. In turn, your blog links will be a way of alerting the search engines that your content is to be regarded seriously as well.
There are a number of ways to find these sites. Buzzsumo, for one, is an excellent way to discover articles and blogs that are receiving a lot of attention on a daily basis. You can use the social media tool PostPlanner to discover popular posts in your niche trending on Facebook. Similarly, you can enter some appropriate keywords in Google News Search and see the sites that Google regards as trustworthy sources.
Lastly, here are a few niche blogs that accept guest blog posts:
Guest Post Tracker
Peter Sandeen’s Blog
Koporic – SEO & Marketing
Guest blogging for SEO is a tried and true method that mostly remains white hat and is accessible to all. While it is a very effective SEO tactic, don’t become bogged down in one strategy. Learn more about SEO and how you can master some of its techniques.
And, as I am fond of mentioning in many of my blog posts, if you do not have writing skills or any other talent for improving your business then, by all means, consider farming the work out to a freelancer.
You also might like SEO Checklist.