4 Ways To Secure Guest Post Opportunities

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Sep 4, 2015 / by
4 Ways To Secure Guest Post Opportunities

Accumulating numerous mediocre guest posts used to be an effective (albeit underhanded) link building strategy for the purpose of increased page rankings.


For better or worse, this practice was stamped out by Google, which lead many to give up on the idea of guest posting completely. However, guest posts can still be hugely beneficial for boosting brand awareness, showcasing your expertise and creating positive relationships within your niche. Aside from crafting excellent content, one of the most difficult parts of guest posting is actually finding and convincing influencers to feature your posts on their sites.

1. Produce an abundance of high quality content

If you want to get featured on Problogger or Firepole Marketing, it’s unlikely that they will accept your offer if the only traces of you as a writer are 3 unproofed articles on your own badly designed site. In other words, you have to pay your dues before you reap the rewards! Before you even consider guest posting, you should have produced an abundance of high quality content that showcases you are a true expert within your niche. If other influencers can’t immediately tell that you will provide value to their site, why would they want to feature you? After all, they need to ensure that their audience enjoys every post, so it doesn’t make sense to feature content from someone who is unproven.

2. Find the right opportunities

When listing the sites you would love to feature on, a handful of names are sure to come to mind immediately, and they are likely to be the most noteworthy in your industry. However, just because a site isn’t a household name doesn’t mean you should neglect a guest post opportunity – far from it, posting on smaller sites is a great way to expand your outreach and improve your guest blogging portfolio (which is very useful in securing more prominent guest spots in the future).

Fortunately, there are many resources online which makes finding contextually relevant guest post opportunities a piece of cake. For starters, you may wish to try Topsy, which is a great tool for searching for guest posts which are currently trending within your niche (if the site isn’t one you recognise or one that you previously thought were accepting guest posts, you now have another to add to your list). Other resources such as Guestr and Boostsuite are excellent tools for soliciting and promoting guest posts. With tools such as Open Site Explorer, you can check the authority of the sites you are planning to pitch to – but it’s also recommended that you view the site’s social media engagement as a general indicator of how much outreach your post is likely to receive.

3. Pitch correctly

4 Ways To Secure Guest Blogging Opportunities

Make sure you pitch correctly when securing guest blogging opportunities

When it comes to pitching, it’s absolutely essential that you follow all guest posting guidelines (if they are available). Some sites openly state that if you don’t follow the guidelines, your email will be deleted without being read – unnecessarily burning a valuable opportunity through sheer laziness! It’s also important to focus on what’s in it for them, instead of you. If you have reason to believe that their audience would be interested in a particular topic which conveniently falls within your knowledge base – let them know that a guest post from you would be a win-win scenario.

On the subject of cold pitching a guest post, Co-Founder of CoSchedule, Garrett Moon, advocates injecting a human element into your email.

“There must be a few hundred blog posts out there that provide a template for how to cold pitch a guest blogging opportunity. Don’t follow them. These fill-in-the-blank templates stick out like a sore thumb. You should have a good formula for your pitch emails, but always write something custom and personal. You might be surprised at how much better it works.”

4. Go above and beyond the call of duty

If someone has given you the privilege of a guest post, repay them by delivering a well-researched, awe-inspiring piece of content. Going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to guest posts is a smart move – if the external site has a larger audience than your own, it makes sense to use your best content for this opportunity since your brand will be exposed to more traffic. Additionally, if you have a portfolio of excellent guest post opportunities, it will be increasingly easier to secure more guest posts in the future. Best of luck and remember, content is still king!

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