The Complete Guide to Getting More Guest Posting Opportunities in 2020

Guest posting is one of the best ways to build your presence online. As writing and publishing content on the top blogs out there helps you establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

So, to help you build a strong presence online I have shared a step by step process for getting more guest posting opportunities in 2020…

Publish top quality content on your own blog:

To show bloggers and editors (of sites you want to write for) that you will write top quality blog posts, you need to provide them examples of your previous work. And if you haven’t got any guest posts out there, the best place to set up some is on your own blog.

So, set up a blog if you haven’t already got one. It’s very easy to do. The first thing you will need to do is come up with a blog name and then buy the domain name.

After that you will need to find a hosting service and set up the blog on your host. I recommend that you use WordPress to set up your blog as it is one of the best blogging platforms.

Most hosting services right now make it easy to install a blogging platform to your website. You should be able to do this with a few clicks.

Next install a theme and set up your blog.

After that, you can start publishing top quality posts on your own blog. Make sure they are well-researched long form posts with a lot of visuals. Also, promote the posts and drive up shares and display the share count on your posts as this will make your content look more credible.

Create a spreadsheet full of potential sites to reach out to:

Once you have a few good samples, you can begin looking for sites to guest post on. Start this process by creating a spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet should mainly consists of columns that detail the website, the name of the person you contacted, their email address and the status. You can include other metrics like traffic if it’s relevant.

To find the sites you can use Google. Just type in queries like ‘write for us’, ‘guest post for us’ and ‘guest posting guidelines’ followed by the niche/industry and this will result in hundreds of potential sites to guest post on.

Most sites will list the editor you need to contact on their guidelines/write for us page. But if you don’t find it there, you can use a tool like Voila Norbert to find email addresses.

At the beginning you want to mainly stick to writing for smaller sites as they will be more likely to accept your pitches.

Actively reach out to these sites:

Next, reach out to the editors with a well-planned email outreach strategy. Start by sending out a simple email that addresses the editor by the name in the beginning, follow that by letting them know what you think about their blog and then express your interest in writing for them. List out a few examples of your recent blog posts and then let them know the topics you like to write on.

And follow that up with a few topic ideas. Make sure you research their blog thoroughly before pitching. As you need to avoid suggesting topics that have already been covered.

After that wait for them to respond. Give them 5 to 7 days for this. If they don’t, you can reach out to them via email again, till you get a response. There are several email tracking tools like Hubspot out there that make it easy to track the activity of people you send emails to. There is even an option to get discounted HubSpot plans that will help with your marketing campaign budget.

Make sure you use these as they help you send better follow up emails based on activity.

Write the best guest posts:

When editors get back to you and accept your pitch, you can begin writing the blog posts. The posts you write for them should be of the best quality. You should follow the guidelines and instructions they listed and give them exactly what they want. The blog posts you write here should be better than the ones you write for your own blog. They should be long form posts with lots of visuals.

Also make sure you edit them properly to remove all grammatical errors. If necessary, you can hire an editor or use a tool like Grammarly to help you.

And if you are writing a lot of guest posts or if you have hired a ghost writer to help you out, you should check your posts for plagiarism to make sure the articles are unique. You can use a Free Plagiarism Checker to conduct this test. Blog editors will usually conduct the test by themselves. So, you should do one yourself to ensure you are on the safe side.

Once the articles are ready you can submit them. If the editors ask you to make any edits, you should respond immediately and make them.

Use these as examples and find more sites:

After your posts go live, you can use these posts as examples and reach out to more sites. You can actually use these to reach bigger sites and slowly work your way up the ladder.

You can also create a portfolio of publications on which your articles have been published (for your website) and share the link to this page in your pitches.

Conclusion:

This is the step by step process you can use to get more guest posting opportunities in 2020. Begin using them today if you want to build up your authority this year.