The Ultimate Guide to an Effective Guest Blogging Strategy in 2022

Buffer attracted 100,000 customers using guest blogging.

Gregory Ciotti added 36,733 subscribers to his list. How? Guest blogging.

Even HubSpot agrees that guest blogging not only helps you drive traffic to your website but also helps you to increase revenue. 

Okay, you’re convinced about the benefits of guest post services. But you’re wondering how to go about it. 

That’s what we’re going to talk about now. In this ultimate guide to an effective guest blogging strategy in 2022, learn how to:

• Identify your goals
• Find sites you can contribute to
• Recognize guest blogging opportunities
• Figure out the best time to pitch a guest blog 
• Build a rapport with the site owner
• Pitch a guest blogging post
• Use your bio for lead generation
• Engage with your guest post
• Promote the guest post
• Track success

1. Identify your goals

If you sail without a compass, you’re bound to get lost. Your goals act as a compass when you want to guest post.

You can guest post for three primary reasons:

• Positioning yourself as an authority and reputed name in the industry
• Driving traffic to your site to generate sales and leads
• Growing your email list or social media followers  

A general rule of thumb? Go for blogs that have an engaged and wide audience base. Furthermore, choose blogs with strong root domain authority.

2. Find sites you can contribute to

Consider sites that meet the below-mentioned criteria:

• The website offers content that fits your niche
• The audience base is interested in your topic
• The website has an engaged readership (Hint: look for the comments and shares)
• The site owner promotes guest posts on social media

Furthermore, use the following methods to search for sites:

• Google search: Type the topic keyword phrase followed by ‘guest article,’ ‘write for us,’ or ‘become a contributor.’

• Twitter: Type ‘guest article’ or ‘guest post.’ You’ll find a list of tweets featuring guest posts.

• Your competitor’s social media: Businesses share guest posts to attract more attention. Thus, follow their social media or subscribe to their email newsletter and you’ll find tons of opportunities.
• Competitor backlink analysis: Use third-party tools such as SEMRush or Open Site Explorer to find the backlinks, anchor texts, and referring domains of guest posts. If you don’t find any, do a Google search ‘link:domain.com-your competitor’s domain “guest post.”’ 

3. Recognize guest blogging opportunities

Once you have finalized the sites, use the following ways to check whether the sites will help you meet your goal:

• Check the site’s domain authority. Choose the ones that have higher numbers. A strong domain authority means the site is credible, offers good value in terms of links, and higher traffic.
• Check the social media followers and email subscribers.
• Check site traffic for the last two months. 
• Check author bios that come with the guest posts to see if you’ll get proper credit and a link back to your site.  

4. Figure out the best time to pitch a guest blog 

Will you eat the juiciest steak if your stomach is full? Similarly, you must find the best time to pitch a guest blog. The following instances are a good time to try your luck:

• When the blog advertises they’re searching for guest posts
• When the blog publishes another guest post
• When the blog mentions you on their social media or posts
• When the blog recommends you or your products or services on their posts

5. Build a rapport with the site owner

Every site owner knows the cold email templates you want to use. Thus, using the templates will only irritate the owners. Instead, build a rapport with the site owner by:

• Reading the content for at least two weeks. Furthermore, check the featured content section. The process will help you understand what type of content they post.
• Subscribing to their newsletter and following them on social media.
• Sending a personal message to the site owner and letting them know what you love about their work. Leave a comment and share their posts.  

6. Pitch a guest blogging post

Never use a generic pitch template. Instead, you must:

• Personalize the email. Use the site owner’s name in the salutation.
• Follow each submission guideline to the T.
• Add the post heading in the email subject.
• Describe the post in a couple of sentences.
• Mention a couple of points as to why you’re qualified to write on the topic.
• Add source and internal links to your blog.
• Add a call-to-action for comments.

7. Use your bio for lead generation

Include a link to a landing page with a lead magnet on your bio. The process will help you get signups for email newsletters and possibly generate revenue as well. 

Make sure to include a call-to-action for the reader. Some of the call-to-action examples include:

• Visit your website
• Follow you or your business on social media
• Signup for the email newsletter
• Download a free resource such as an ebook or a DFY template

8. Engage with your guest post

Respond to comments on the blog. Furthermore, comment whenever someone shares your post on social media. 

The process helps in two ways: 

• Responding to readers will help you build connections with them. These readers can become your lead and in future, customers. 
• Responding to comments shows site owners you care about their audience. Thus, the owners will be receptive to future pitches. Furthermore, the owners can suggest ways to collaborate in future.

9. Promote the guest post

Content promotion helps new readers find your content. These new readers can follow the content back to your site too. The result? Higher traffic and chances of higher revenue. 

Furthermore, site owners will be delighted to receive higher traffic. The process will make them receptive to new pitches as well.

Promote your guest post through:

• Your social media
• Email newsletter 
• Other posts you write

10. Track success

What’s the point of writing guest posts if they don’t bring you traffic and revenue? Use these ways to track the success of the guest post to find out if you met your goals:

• Track site traffic to see if the guest post is bringing you more leads
• Track if people are sharing your content on social media
• Track the guest post ranking for target keywords and new inbound link numbers  

Guest blogging is win-win

62.96% of people treat blogs with multiple authors as credible resources. Thus, guest blogging helps both the guest blogger and the site accepting the blog. Thus, there’ll always be a demand for guest posts.

In this article, you’ve learnt:

• Why it’s essential to know your goals
• How to find sites you can approach
• How to recognize guest blogging opportunities
• Why should you figure out the best time to pitch
• Why building rapport with the site owner is crucial
• How to pitch a guest blog
• Ways to use your bio for lead generation
• Ways to engage with the guest blog
• Ways to promote the guest post
• Ways to track success

We hope the information will help you use the demand for guest posts to your benefit.