Not solely is visitor running a blog effectively and alive, it’s nonetheless extremely efficient. On this publish, you’ll study every part you could find out about visitor running a blog.
However first, let’s ensure that we’re on the identical web page.
Visitor running a blog is the observe of writing and publishing a weblog publish on one other individual’s or firm’s web site.
For instance, I wrote a visitor publish for Develop & Convert a number of years in the past:
Visitor running a blog is a win-win for each the author and the writer.
Advantages for the author:
- Construct hyperlinks again to their web site
- Develop relationships with editors and publishers
- Expose their model to a brand new viewers
- Construct their repute and place themselves as a thought chief
Profit for the writer:
- Leverage the experience and expertise of writers. For instance, we couldn’t have written about Zapier or Pet Eager’s firsthand search engine optimisation expertise with out visitor writers.
Getting your first visitor publish printed could be daunting. I’ve been there. Following the steps beneath will make the method simpler and maximize your probabilities of success.
1. Discover visitor running a blog alternatives
Most individuals use Google search operators to search out blogs with “write for us” pages. Nevertheless, if everybody’s following this tactic, then everybody’s discovering the identical alternatives. Competitors might be rife, and publishers might ignore your pitch.
You don’t must restrict your self to this small pool of blogs. Even when they don’t promote it, most blogs might be pleased to publish a visitor publish so long as it’s good.
So right here’s discover related blogs to pitch:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Content material Explorer
- Enter a broad key phrase or phrase associated to your area of interest
- Choose In title from the drop-down menu
- Run the search
Right here, you possibly can see greater than 2 million potential alternatives. That’s too many, so let’s slender the listing down by making use of these filters:
- Area Score (DR) from 30 to 60
- Click on the One web page per area filter
- Click on the Exclude homepages filter
- Click on the Exclude subdomains filter
Then click on on the Web sites tab.
These are the potential web sites you could possibly pitch.
2. Develop visitor publish concepts
The blogs you pitch will need profitable content material concepts. So how are you going to provide you with good visitor publish concepts?
Listed below are some strategies you possibly can use:
Copycat Approach
Three issues are true:
- Each weblog needs extra search visitors.
- To get search visitors, you could goal matters persons are looking for.
- Each weblog has extra matters to write down than assets to cowl them.
So why not assist your goal blogs out? Discover matters they need to be rating for and pitch them these matters.
Right here’s discover them:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Aggressive Evaluation software
- Enter the area of your goal weblog within the Goal part
- Add the primary three steered competing domains within the Rivals part
- Click on Evaluate
This report exhibits you the key phrases the competing domains are rating for, however your goal weblog isn’t.
Undergo the report and search for key phrases which can be related to your goal weblog. For instance, this looks like a possible subject to pitch:
Refresh Approach
Refreshing outdated content material can present an enormous visitors increase, as seen after we up to date our publish about free search engine optimisation instruments:
Your goal weblog will possible have outdated content material that has declined in search visitors. Pitch them an replace.
Right here’s discover pages with declining visitors:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Website Explorer
- Enter the area of your goal weblog
- Go to the Prime pages report
- Set the Evaluate filter to Earlier yr
- Type the Site visitors change column from lowest to highest
This can present you pages in your goal weblog which have the most important decline in search visitors because the earlier yr. Undergo the report and look out for appropriate matters, particularly these with declines in visitors and key phrase positions.
For instance, SmartBlogger’s publish on membership websites has dropped in each key phrase positions and search visitors:
When you had been writing for SmartBlogger, this might be subject to pitch.
Robin Hood Approach
In style blogs are widespread for one motive: They’ve nice content material. Lesser-known blogs are lesser-known for the other motive: They’ve but to publish tons of nice content material.
So why not take content material concepts from the highest blogs and provide them to lesser-known ones?
We name this the Robin Hood Approach, named after the English people hero who stole from the wealthy and gave to the poor.
Right here’s execute the Robin Hood Approach:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Website Explorer
- Enter the area of a high-DR weblog in your area of interest
- Go to the Prime pages report
- Toggle SERP titles on
Look by way of the report and see if there’s any concept that resonates. Put a novel spin and pitch it to a lesser-known weblog.
For instance, for those who’re writing for a private finance weblog, this looks like subject to be impressed by:
A possible thought to pitch could be “free (or low-cost) issues to do on a date.”
Splintering Approach
Our hyperlink constructing information is so complete it spans 5 chapters:
Every chapter might be a publish on its personal.
So we are able to break this publish into “splinters” and create standalone articles. Every of those splintered articles could be pitched as a visitor publish.
Since we already did the analysis by creating the unique piece, the “splintered” articles would possible not take a lot time to write.
Perspective Approach
You possibly can simply reuse a subject by switching up the attitude.
For instance, let’s say we wrote a visitor publish titled “Finest Distant Jobs for College students.” We will cowl the identical subject for various publications through a number of views:
3. Pitch the blogs
This step is each the best and probably the most nerve-wracking. It’s straightforward as a result of it’s merely an e-mail you ship. It’s nerve-wracking as a result of your destiny is within the different celebration’s palms.
It doesn’t must be that anxiety-inducing, although. Listed below are some ideas to enhance your probabilities of getting your pitch accepted:
Learn the rules
If the location you’re pitching has a “write for us” web page or writing pointers, learn and observe them. For instance, that is what CoSchedule expects:
Discover the proper e-mail
If the publication has a “write for us” web page, then it’s possible it’ll present both an e-mail handle or a kind.
In any other case, you’ll want to search out it.
Publications and blogs are sometimes managed by a managing editor, head of content material or, in the event that they’re a small web site, the proprietor themself. So that you wish to first ensure you determine who that individual is.
You possibly can often discover them by visiting the “groups” or “about” web page. For instance, a fast scroll on our “crew” web page exhibits it is best to pitch to our head of content material, Joshua Hardwick:
If the “crew” web page is uninformative, then a search on LinkedIn or Twitter often suffices.
When you’ve recognized that individual, use an e-mail discovery software like Hunter to search out their e-mail. Add their identify and web site, and Hunter will do its magic:
Write an incredible outreach e-mail
A number of years in the past, I wrote a visitor publish for Develop & Convert. Benji Hyam, the co-founder, was so impressed with my outreach e-mail that he did an evaluation.
Publications get loads of emails. It’s important to stand out; in any other case, your e-mail might be ignored.
Fairly than search for a template that you would be able to copy-paste, you wish to perceive the rules behind what makes outreach e-mail.
You possibly can take a look at Benji’s evaluation of my e-mail to see what publications predict. You’d additionally do effectively to learn the publish beneath and observe the rules it lays out.
4. Write the visitor publish
In case your pitch is accepted, then it’s time to write.
I like to recommend beginning first with the define. Some websites might request this. However even when they don’t, a top level view will assist flesh out your ideas, arrange the publish, and stop clean web page syndrome.
To create a top level view, you could know what subtopics to cowl. The best option to discover these subtopics is to take a look at the widespread key phrase rankings amongst top-ranking pages and eyeball the listing for subtopics.
Right here’s how:
- Enter your goal key phrase into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer
- Scroll all the way down to the SERP overview
- Choose the top-ranking pages you wish to analyze
- Click on Open in and select Content material hole
For instance, if we analyze the subject “affiliate internet marketing,” we’ll see that the top-ranking pages additionally rank for:
- what’s affiliate internet marketing
- grow to be an affiliate marketer
- do affiliate internet marketing
These would make good H2s for a weblog publish on “affiliate internet marketing.”
When you’ve created your define, all that’s left is to fill within the “gaps,” i.e., write the precise publish. If they’ve one, ensure you return to the rules, learn it fastidiously, and observe it to a T.
The place related, don’t neglect to incorporate hyperlinks again to your personal content material. Don’t overdo it, although; one to 2 hyperlinks ought to suffice.
5. Promote your visitor publish
It’s best to count on some back-and-forth because the writer edits and sends suggestions about your draft. As soon as they’re happy, they’ll inform you of a publishing date.
Don’t simply disappear when the publish is printed. Comply with up! Thank the editor. And if there’s a remark part, keep round and reply.
Assist promote the publish by sharing it on social media too:
You possibly can even go the additional mile by selling the publish in related communities. In my case, Benji did it for me by submitting it to GrowthHackers. However I stayed round to reply feedback.
It was possible the rationale why it received a lot engagement:
It was even the #2 publish in that yr’s year-end roundup:
The whole lot above will get you 90% of the way in which. However visitor running a blog just isn’t a mattress of roses. So I’m sharing the ideas beneath that will help you overcome a few of the widespread roadblocks.
1. Pitch extra blogs than you possibly can deal with
The merciless actuality of visitor running a blog is that even when they’re good, your emails could be rejected or ignored. That’s no fault of yours—publications are simply too busy.
So right here’s a controversial tip: pitch the identical matters to a number of blogs. Then provide the article to whoever replies first or has the next authority (for those who get plenty of replies).
This fashion, you’re by no means missing for visitor posts. You received’t even have to be nervous about rejection, for there might be one other weblog prepared to simply accept your concepts.
When you get a couple of reply, merely inform the fact:
Sorry, you weren’t responding for a couple of days, so one other weblog took this concept. I’ll be in contact with extra article concepts that’ll be simply as good.
2. Write for blogs which have by no means linked to you earlier than
Our examine of 1 billion pages exhibits a robust correlation between natural visitors and the variety of backlinks from distinctive web sites (referring domains).
Which may be one motive why you wish to write for blogs which have by no means linked to you earlier than.
To search out distinctive web sites, hit the Spotlight unlinked dropdown and add your web site as you’re following step #1:
These instruments will make your visitor running a blog course of extra environment friendly:
- Ahrefs – Analysis visitor publish alternatives, discover content material gaps to pitch blogs, construct your outlines, verify backlinks from visitor posts, and observe your visitor publish rankings.
- Hunter – Discover the e-mail addresses of web site homeowners and editors.
- Pitchbox – Ship outreach emails at scale.
- Ahrefs’ free AI writing instruments – Generate outlines, titles, and proofread your drafts.
- ChatGPT – Generate visitor publish concepts, create outlines, flesh out posts, proofread your work, and extra.
Listed below are some incessantly requested questions on visitor running a blog:
How does visitor running a blog assist search engine optimisation?
Hyperlinks are an vital Google rating issue. By writing a visitor publish, you possibly can construct hyperlinks again to your pages and, subsequently, increase their efficiency in serps.
Is visitor running a blog dangerous for search engine optimisation?
In 2014, Google’s former head of internet spam, Matt Cutts, printed a weblog publish proclaiming that “visitor running a blog is finished.” Nevertheless, he was primarily referring to low-quality visitor running a blog printed on low-quality websites for hyperlinks.
Writing a useful weblog publish for a longtime web site with a related viewers will nonetheless assist your search engine optimisation and is unlikely to harm it.
Can I get referral visitors from visitor running a blog?
A number of years in the past, our chief advertising and marketing officer, Tim Soulo, requested 500+ bloggers how a lot visitors they received from their visitor articles.
The typical referral visitors throughout 239 visitor articles was solely 50 visits.
So sure, you will get referral visitors from visitor running a blog—however don’t set your expectations too excessive.
Remaining ideas
This information incorporates every part our crew has realized about visitor running a blog over the previous few years. I hope it is going to assist take your expertise to a brand new degree.
Did I miss out on something? Let me know on Twitter or Threads.
