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Over the years, search engine optimization has led to numerous link building strategies, some spammy and some not. One of the very few link building techniques that still, to this day, work very well when done right – is guest blogging. But how do you find great guest blogging websites? How do you make the most of this opportunity for quality and contextual links that will not only improve your SEO, but also your visibility in your niche?
In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to find great guest blogging websites with 5 easy tips.
1. Leverage lists of websites that accept guest posts
Since guest blogging is such a popular and widespread tactic, there are a lot of lists out there created by other bloggers with blogs from all kinds of niches. Plus, they’re often categorized by topic and placed in order of their domain authority which can help you identify the best opportunities for you, personally, much more easily.
A quick google search will likely bubble up numerous lists of blogs that accept guest posts; all you need to do is google “list of blogs that accept guest posts”, as well as “list of – your keyword – blogs that accept guest posts”.
It’s worth noting though that if you find these types of lists, you’ll still have to research and check that they’re still welcoming guest posts (as some of these lists can be quite old and not all of them are properly researched), as well as check whether the DA is still as high (or still high enough for what you were looking for) and even if they’re still publishing new content on the blog.
2. Google your search terms to find guest blogging websites
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One of the easiest and most straightforward ways to search for guest blogging websites is to google your search terms.
There are a variety of search terms you can try to help you find numerous websites; basically, you need to start the search with your keywords; for example, if you were looking for marketing blog that accept guest posts, then you’d try various combinations of keywords relate to marketing, such as: marketing, “digital marketing”, “online marketing”, “internet marketing”, “social media marketing”, “content marketing” and so on.
Then, search for these keywords + one of the following search terms:
- + “guest blog”/”guest post”
- + “write for us”
- + “submit an article”/”submit a guest post”
- + “contribute guest post”
- + “contribute to our blog”
- + “become a guest blogger”
- + “guest blogging guidelines”
- + “contributor guidelines”
- + “send a tip”
- + “guest post by”
- + “guest author”
It’s also worth noting that you should check out numerous pages of results and not just the first couple of pages; in many cases, you can find great opportunities even on the 5th or 10th page.
3. Search for guest blogging websites in reverse
Another way to find relevant guest posting websites is to look at your competitors and to find out where they guest posted before and what high-quality websites they’ve written for.
There are a couple of ways to go about this.
One of the easiest ways is to identify bloggers in the same niche as you who are already guest blogging a lot. You’ll start to notice this when you follow popular blogs in your niche and certain names start popping up again and again but you can also search to see who guest blogged on some of the popular websites in your niche and then look them up to see if that is indeed a strategy they use very often.
You can search for this by using these search queries:
- Site:domain.com “guest post by”
- Site:domain.com “a guest contribution by”
Once you have a list of names ready, you can then use a backlink tool to see what other backlinks they have – not all of them will be guest blogs, but if you found someone who guest blogs a lot, you’re very likely to find quite a few gems in those lists.
Find their main website (the one their linking to in their guest post and/or their guest post author bio) then use a backlink checker like Monitor Backlinks. Then, simply go through their list of backlinks to find those where they actually guest blogged.
4. Use tools to help you find guest posting opportunities
Another method for finding guest posting opportunities is to leverage various tools to help with your research; for example:
- Content research tools
- Social listening tools
- Audience overlap tools
In the case of content research tools, you can use tools like Buzzsumo to look up guest blogs; simply look up your topic keywords + “guest post” or “guest post by”. This will help you find relevant blogs that clearly accept guest posts; the best part is, some of them might not even have a “write for us” page, but as you did find a guest post on their blog, it’s worth reaching out to ask them just in case.
As for social listening tools, some allow you to search the entire web (blogs, social media, forums, news sites and other content sources) while others focus solely on monitoring social media – both options can yield great results.
For example, you can use social listening tools just like you would on Google; that said, each social listening tool has its own way of doing things and of setting up monitoring searches (some offer, for example, Boolean search which allows you to dig much deeper than a simple keyword search, as it allows you to add different modifiers to your search).
Another handy tool for looking up potential guest posting sites is with a tool that can help you find websites that share an audience or that are very similar between them (you’ll need a website that will be your starting point); for example, Amazon’s Alexa (not the virtual assistant, but rather the marketing software) has 2 different tools that can help with this: Find Similar Sites, for finding websites similar to yours and the Audience Overlap tool which helps you find websites that share an audience.
Although none of these tools were specifically built for this purpose (for finding guest blogging opportunities), they can prove to be very useful to your search.
Conclusion
Guest blogging has stood the test of time for good reason; it’s still a highly effective link-building technique and what’s more, it’s also a great way to reach a wider audience, drive more traffic to your website and show your value as a thought leader in your niche.
How often do you guest blog and why?