Video is rapidly becoming one of the most popular content formats around, aided in part by the rise of DIY video editing software and ubiquitous smart devices on which to view them.

If you want to increase video engagement, increase site traffic, and showcase your brand quality, video is how to achieve it.

As video soars in popularity, its importance as an SEO factor has risen too. Consequently, it’s important to get the details right so your video gets seen by the right audience and increases your SEO value at the same time.

With that, read on to learn five SEO tips that will boost the effectiveness of your video marketing.

Consider the relationship between your video and your site UX

Optimising your content for mobile is essential for every industry. With smartphone internet usage on the rise, a non-optimised website will fall at the first hurdle.

The same applies to your video content too. Strive to create responsive videos that, when uploaded to your website, will work across smaller screens on a range of devices. In the same vein, you should ensure that when the video is played or paused, it won’t impede the user’s journey around your website — for instance, if it automatically plays when scrolled past.

Image Trillion Creative

If your video negatively impacts your visitor’s experience, you will increase your bounce rate. This impacts your on-page engagement metrics, which in turn affects your SEO.

Here are a few elements that can enhance your video’s UX:

• Subtitles
• Shorter video length
• Compressed file size
• One video per page
• Animations rather than recorded video

It’s worth remembering to check your uploaded videos on a regular basis. Stale web pages, broken links, and other elements can impact overall UX, increasing bounce rate as a result.

The same applies if you embed your videos from YouTube. Videos get taken down all the time, so be sure to check yours regularly.

If you’re uploading video content onto a social platform, always use subtitles or captions (that users can toggle on and off) and follow each platform’s video specifications.

Create content that your audience actually wants to watch

The best video marketing strategies are those that are geared towards content that your target audience actually wants to watch. The more interesting or engaging a video is, the longer your viewer will stay watching. This increases your video watch time (an important video ranking factor), which then increases your video marketing SEO value as a result.

When it comes to actually finding out what your target audience wants to watch, it all starts with keyword research.

Keyword research reveals the most searched for terms around your business keyword. This gives you an insight into what people actually want to watch in relation to your business and industry.

Conduct comprehensive keyword research using a video marketing tool such as Soovle and use it to inform your video content calendar for the year.

Image Soovle

It’s worth dividing these by seasonality too. For instance, you will likely see a spike in Christmas-related queries as the festive season approaches. Make sure your calendar is populated throughout the year so you can create video ahead of time, ready for sharing as the event draws near.

Use your video to increase cross-platform traffic

Your video marketing does not exist in a silo. It is part of a wider web of marketing that is used to direct your audience where you need, either on your website, on social, or elsewhere. This gives you the opportunity to share SEO value across channels by encouraging viewers to visit other parts of your online presence.

As an example, you might share a video that showcases elements of your brand behind the scenes. You could create a Highlights reel and direct viewers to your Instagram to view them all. This encourages cross-pollination across platforms that increases your traffic broadly across your online presence.

Image Later

As another example, let’s say your video is educational in nature, a short clip used to elaborate on a pain point that your target audience experiences.

Build a comprehensive knowledge base with a free tool like Crisp that expounds on the points highlighted in the video and, once your viewers’ interest has been piqued, direct them towards it. Hosting this on your website keeps them onsite too, further enhancing your actual site’s SEO into the bargain.

Add trackable links using a tool like Bitly into your video caption to monitor clickthrough rates from each video. This lets you identify what kind of video works best so you can tailor your efforts for better results further down the line.

Make the most of your video metadata

Completing your video’s metadata is a quick task, but it can have a dramatic effect on your SEO. Much as you’d optimise your web pages URL, title, meta description, and so on, so too should you populate your video’s metadata with suitable keywords and information.

YouTube offers the following fields to complete:

• Title
• Description
• Thumbnail
• Video tags

Create a custom thumbnail that makes your video look appealing — like meta descriptions, these aren’t necessarily a ranking factor but they encourage engagement, so they do play a role in your SEO.

Naturally, your title should include your head keyword. Don’t stuff it — include it naturally to avoid a spammy-looking title.

Your video description should keep your viewer engaged, with relevant information and useful outbound links included below.

There is a growing school of thought that points to accessibility as a factor in SEO across the board. For video, this means including subtitles and transcripts to help viewers with disabilities better engage with your video.

Cascade your video across all your channels

Simply uploading a video to your website or YouTube channel isn’t enough. Views and engagement play a part in your video’s SEO value, and if you want to enhance those factors, you need to actively share your video to get it noticed.

Image Facebook

Naturally, you should cascade your video across a plethora of other channels, including email, social, and push notifications. You likely already share on social, but consider the role your captions play in this too.

Increase engagement by inviting people to comment on and share your video. Leave an open-ended question at the end of your captions to boost engagement and actively encourage follower input.

As well as cascading videos out across multiple channels, you should also increase a video’s accessibility by tailoring it to different platforms.

For instance, It’s worth chopping longer videos down and editing them into shorter, bitesize clips for social. As well as catering to each platform’s upload specifications, it also accounts for the comparatively shorter attention spans forced on by the abundance of content on social.

Edit your video for each platform, and you’ll enjoy increased views and engagement as a result.

Creating video is easier and more accessible than it’s ever been. But creating great video with strong SEO visibility requires time and effort. Follow the video marketing tips above and craft a stellar video that gets seen in 2020.

Web content syndication is an integral content marketing tactic for many businesses. It can also be a powerful off-page SEO strategy.

If you’re looking for ways to widen your audience, build your reputation and bring new traffic to your website, then this guide is for you.

What is web content syndication?

Web content syndication is when web-based content is republished on a third-party site with the author’s consent. Any kind of content can be syndicated – think blogs, infographics, quizzes, videos and more.

In the Salesbox 2017 Content Syndication Survey, they found that 65% of the respondents (all of whom were marketers) were using content syndication as a core lead generation strategy.

There are varying approaches to syndication – some sites will publish entire articles, others will publish shortened versions, excerpts, or even just headings with a backlink to the original source.

 

What is the difference between content syndication and guest blogging?

As covered in my recent guide to guest blogging, guest blogs are original pieces of content written by an author with the intention that it will be published on a third-party host blog.

Where content syndication differs is that it entails republishing content on a third-party site when it already exists elsewhere online (usually the author’s own website).

For example, I could take one of my popular blogs – How AI is shaping SEO (and how to boost your RankBrain rankings) – and reach out to several different third-party sites, agreeing that they can each repost the same article.

I would be able to show potential publishers that this article has already attracted a good number of social shares, comments and visits to the SEO+ website. If a blog has performed well on its original posting, the chances are it will attract a similar response when syndicated.

This gives the host blog a chance to post tried and tested high-quality content for their audience without having to create anything from scratch.

For the author, content syndication is more scalable than blogging. You can leverage the same content multiple times, generating as much mileage from it as possible.

Generally speaking, content syndication is cheaper and quicker than writing original content for a third-party site, i.e. guest blogging.

However, many popular websites use both guest blogging and content syndication within their content marketing strategies.

What are the benefits of web content syndication?

Content syndication is a great avenue to get your blog articles in front of a new audience.

As well as increasing the reach of your content, it’s a fantastic way to build brand awareness, boost your visibility on social media, and attract social shares and follows.

Syndicating your content can also grow your presence as a thought leader within your industry. You don’t need to use overt calls to action or sales techniques. Instead, the power of content syndication is growing the sense that you’re an expert who’s featured on multiple sites and platforms.

If you can secure a piece of syndicated content on high authority domains with a great professional reputation, it acts like a vote of confidence by association.

Let’s not forget too that if you have internal links in your syndicated content to other resources on your website, it can generate link juice and authority back to your site.

Content syndication can also be a vehicle for:

• Promoting your blog
• Attracting backlinks
• Driving more web traffic to original article

And let’s not forget that, instead of letting your best content gather dust, it’s a free way to give it more mileage.

For a website that hosts syndicated content, it’s a way of diversifying what’s available and adding a larger volume of high-quality content – i.e. content that has a proven track record – to what’s on the site without spending any extra time or money.

 

Is content syndication right for your business?

In truth, web content syndication doesn’t suit every business but it could be the right strategy for you if your current goal is to get your ideas and content in front of a bigger audience while you grow your own following.

Certainly, if you already have a back catalogue of great content, it wouldn’t hurt to give content syndication a try.

 

What are the pitfalls of syndicating content?

Before you commit to a content syndicating strategy, it’s important to be aware that there are four main pitfalls with republishing your content on a third-party site.

• Pitfall 1: Duplicate content

As we know, Google is not a fan of duplicate content as it throws up a variety of issues.

For a start, the search engine doesn’t want to return a results page full of links to copies of the same content (where would be the value in that for the searcher?) so which version should Google prioritise?

Also, how can Google tell if content has been plagiarised and republished without permission?

It’s these concerns that can make people a bit wary of content syndication.

People will often warn that you could get hit with a duplicate content ‘penalty’ for syndicating.

In fact, that’s highly unlikely.

Content syndication is a popular off-page SEO tactic used by many of the world’s leading marketers and SEO experts. There are steps that you can take to help Google understand syndicated content (see “rel=canonical” or “noindex” below).

In reality, the risk is more that you’ll end up competing against other versions of the same content in searches, which brings us to….

• Pitfall 2: Competing against your original article in searches

In the Google Search Console support pages, the search engine warns us to ‘syndicate carefully’, saying:

If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer.

Faced with duplicate content, Google is likely to prioritise the site with the highest domain authority and other greater trust signals, unless you tell it otherwise (more about this in a minute).

On the flipside, having several identical versions of your content can actually build the reputation of the original. Each version is a sign to Google that the content is so good that people are reposting it for their own audiences.

• Pitfall 3: People have no reason to visit your website

If you’re looking for off-page SEO strategies to bring new traffic to your website, then content syndication may not be the best place to focus your efforts.

The truth is that if someone is able to access a piece of content on the host’s website in full then they may not have any incentive to visit your site, even if you do provide a backlink to make it as easy as possible.

That being said, content syndication tends to be about the long game.

New readers may not visit your website immediately but, if they’ve enjoyed your content or found value in it, then it will have planted a seed of awareness of your brand that you can nurture with time.

• Pitfall 4: Not growing your mailing list

Pitfall 4 really follows on from readers not visiting your website to access syndicated content.

Most of us use our own websites as a marketing tool with the facility to capture an email address for our website visitors. However, in most cases, you won’t be able to add a lead capture mechanism to content that’s republished.

Whether this bothers you or not will depend on your goals. If you’re looking for immediate ways to grow your mailing list, content syndication is probably not your best focus. If, on the other hand, you’re more concerned with reputation building, this pitfall won’t worry you too much.

Web content syndication through third party websites and blogs: How to get started

There are a few different ways to approach content syndication.

The first we’re going to look at is syndication through third party websites and blogs where you have to pitch your content to an editor or site host.

• Step 1

With content syndication it helps to have some content under your belt, whether it was written for your own blog or as a guest blogger.

Many websites that publish syndicated content ask to see examples of previous articles as an indication of the kind of standard they can expect.

If you’re able to show that you have a proven track record of creating engaging content, it will make the job of syndicating a lot easier.

• Step 2

As with guest blogging, you will need to identify websites that would potentially republish your content.

Look for high authority sites that share a similar audience to you or work within the same niche. The site republishing your content needs to be relevant to your business.

(Please syndicate to low authority, spammy sites with no editorial guidelines).

Also, look for sites that would accept your guest blogs but then syndicate them to their own networks.

Larry Kim from Wordstream says he’s a columnist at Inc. Magazine, which means that his articles are regularly syndicated to sites like Business Insider, Slate and TIME.

Similarly, content republished on entrepreur.com is often syndicated to Fox News through a syndication partnership.

Syndication networks like these offer a potential for content to be seen by tens of thousands of people around the world, even if you haven’t amassed that kind of following on your own yet.

• Step 3

Make a shortlist of the sites you’d most like to be featured on and then check whether they currently accept syndicated content.

Look for articles with a disclaimer than says something like ‘Syndicated from…’ or ‘This post originally appeared on…’

Here’s an example from Copyblogger:

 

Many sites also have syndication request forms or guidelines so it’s worth looking for those (they’re often hiding in the website’s footer or on the About page).

• Step 4

Once you’ve done your research, your next step is to contact the editor (or other most appropriate contact) to see if they would be interested in republishing your content.

Relationship building for syndication is very similar to that of guest blogging – it’s important to show why your content is relevant to the host’s audience, how well it’s performed in the past and mention any other blogs you’ve been featured on.

In Neil Patel’s Guide to Syndicating Content, you’ll find some examples of successful syndication pitch emails.

The key is to keep your message short and simple.

• Say who you are
• Who you write for
• What you write about
• Link to your own blog
• Ask if <insert website name> syndicates content (and possibly link to a syndicated article)
• Then ask if they would be interested in accepting a relevant syndicated post

You could also mention in your pitch that you would be interested in submitting original guest posts too. This gives the host editor opportunities to diversify their content.

• Step 5

If you get a ‘yes’ back and the host is happy to republish your content, it’s important to clarify how it will be handled to avoid duplicate content or ranking issues.

There are three main options:

1. “rel=canonical” tag

The canonical tag – sometimes referred to as “rel=canonical” or “canonical URL tag” – is a page-level meta tag that is placed in the HTML header of a web page. It tells search engines that, if duplicate copies of the same content can be found elsewhere, the URL in the tag is the original version that should be prioritised in listings.

Many sites that publish syndicated content will add a canonical tag featuring the URL of the original article to the header for the republished piece. This simply points search engines from the republished version back to the author’s original.

You can find two really informative guides about handling canonical tags on Moz and ShoutMeLoud – the latter focuses entirely on handling canonical tags with syndicated content.

2. “noindex”

Another option to avoid duplicate content issues is to have the host of the syndicated copy add a “noindex” tag to the article. This tells search engines that they shouldn’t bother indexing this version.

It’s worth bearing in mind that “noindex” is a directive rather than a command so Google may still index pages that bear a “noindex” tag.

3. Add a disclaimer sentence pointing to the original version

Your final option – and it’s one that many sites adopt – is to add a short sentence at the beginning or end of the syndicated article saying, “Originally published on <website name with link to content>”.

Google is surprisingly adept at recognising this disclaimer – or different versions of it – and understanding that it’s viewing syndicated content and should prioritise the original version.

• Step 6

Once your content has been republished on a host site, you’ll need to keep an eye on how it’s performing. Are people leaving comments that need a response?

With one post under your belt and the ice broken, reach out to see if this could become a regular arrangement.

Some blogs will agree to post 100% syndicated content or you might be able to negotiate providing a mix of original guest blogs and syndicated articles each month/quarter.

On the Rough Draft podcast – Episode 46: How to (rapidly) build an audience with content syndication – writer Belle Beth Cooper says she always follows up with an email saying, “Let’s set up a partnership. We can send you more content like this. If we write more in the future would you like us to send you more?”

She describes this follow-up as the one ‘must do’ of content syndication.

Tip: If you’re syndicating the same content to multiple websites, you might want to stagger your efforts to ensure that each new version is published a couple of weeks apart. This can help to maintain the momentum of interest surrounding the original article.

 

Should you ever re-write your content before it’s published by a third party?

I have heard of blog hosts asking authors to rewrite or repurpose an article before they will publish it on their site. It’s usually because of duplicate content fears. The thinking is that the blog host wants to publish 100% original content.

However, I would caution against doing this.

If you’ve written a blog that attracted loads of engagement on your website, the chances are that it will perform well when it’s syndicated.

Rebadged versions of articles tend to be a watered-down shadow of the original, lacking the punch and clarity that made the first piece so popular.

As Larry Kim says on Wordstream, rewriting blogs for syndication is like asking Jerry Seinfield to edit old Seinfield episodes to give them a more original spin. As a rule, it’s not a good idea.

If they’re worried about duplicate content, hopefully you can reassure them that it shouldn’t be a problem with a canonical tag or link to the original article.

If the host site wants unique content, would they prefer you to write a guest blog aimed at their audience?

 

Can you invite people to syndicate your content?

In the guide to syndicating content, Hubspot writer Irina Nica gives an interesting example of a website – Universe Today – that has created a Syndication Policy (Steal our content….please) page. On this page, the company invites other platforms to republish its content without permission, as long as it includes a link back to the original article and credits the author.

This might be something you want to consider adding to your own website (or some other form of syndication guidelines).

 

Self-syndication networks: Everything you need to know

Content syndication to third party websites can be time-consuming due to the relationship-building aspect.

A speedier option is self-syndication.

This is when you post your own content on self-service blogging sites and publishing platforms without needing the approval of an editor or the web host.

Below, I’ve put together a list of some of the most popular self-syndication networks with some hints and tips about using them:

 

• Medium

 

Medium is a self-syndication network where anyone can publish original or syndicated content.

Here are just a few of the reasons that Medium is so popular:

• The easy import tool removes all issues associated with content duplication – simply upload your content from the original URL and Medium adds the rel=canonical tag for you.
• Get in front of a ready-made audience – the platform automatically connects you to any of your Twitter or Facebook contacts who use Medium.
• Access loads of stats about who’s reading your articles and for how long.
• The more hearts (the Medium equivalent of a ‘Like’ or ‘Pin’) an article gets, the more widely it’s shared – popular stories are added to Medium’s daily digest of ‘Featured’ stories (get more than 200 hearts in a day and your article may start trending).
• There is the potential to have your content discovered by influencers and larger online publishers.
• You can attract new social media followers.
• It’s even possible to set up your own publication or to contribute to publications run by other members.
• No original content is required so there’s minimal effort on your part. You can upload a piece of content in a matter of minutes.

Optimising your content for Medium

Because Medium is such an easy to use self-syndication platform, I thought you might find some hints and tips about optimising your content helpful. Try the following:

• Add a powerful image
• Some people advertise their Medium content using Facebook or Twitter ads to try to drive up the number of hearts clicked per day.
• Look for publications on Medium and see whether they’d be interested in publishing your content.
• If an article hasn’t done as well as you think it should or would have liked, you could try deleting it and republishing it a couple of months later (think about changing the heading and image to see if this helps boost the number of views).
• Follow people who engage with your content and show an interest in what they’re saying too – their engagement is a sign that they’re interested in what you have to say.
• You need to post regularly and consistently before your presence on Medium will start to gain traction.

Success on Medium won’t happen overnight but many marketers say it’s a fantastic tool to have in your content syndication arsenal.

• LinkedIn

 

Republishing content on LinkedIn is great for exposure and building your professional voice and reputation.

Every time you post an article on LinkedIn, all of your connections receive a notification keeping you front of mind with your network.

Adding an article is quick and easy – you’ll just need to copy and paste the original, add a header image and title, and a short description (preferably with a couple of relevant hashtags) when it’s time to share.

As you can’t add a “rel=canonical” or “noindex” tag to articles republished on LinkedIn, the best approach is add something along the lines of “This article was originally published on…” with a link to the original article. Google is great at understanding that this means the original article is the one that should be prioritised in search results.

When syndicating content to LinkedIn, I recommend that you:

• Publish on weekdays during work hours
• Keep your titles short
• Use an eye-catching header image
• Syndicate your best content

It’s recommended that you leave at least a week between publishing content and republishing it on LinkedIn.

• Huffington Post

The Huffington Post is an American news and opinion website and blog with various international editions, including a UK platform.

It welcomes pitches for guest blogs and syndicated content – you can find the pitching strategy guide here.

On its Contributors FAQs page, the Huffington Post says, “Cross-posting from other platforms or outlets is not only allowed but encouraged, as long as you have the rights to do so and the post isn’t more than a week or so old or out of date. HuffPost bloggers retain all rights to their work and are free to re-publish their work elsewhere”.

• Business2Community

Business2Community describes itself as “an open community where business professionals can establish their thought leadership, increase exposure for their business/organization, and network with others”.

The platform currently features syndicated content from more than 10,000 contributors – you can find out more about syndicating to Business2Community here.

• Tumblr

 

Tumblr is often described as a cross between a social networking site and a blog. It’s quick and easy to create a text post into which you copy and paste the article you want to syndicate.

Another option is to feature an image and excerpt from an article with a link to the original to read it in full.

• Facebook Instant Articles

As you’re no doubt aware, there are several ways to post your blogs to Facebook (a link in your status, posts in Facebook groups, and posting blogs as Notes are all options). However, Facebook also offers Instant Articles as a dedicated syndication feature.

Buffer’s guide to Facebook Instant Articles is a good read if you want to know more about how this tool works, styling options and more.

• Mix

Mix encourages users to save and share their favourite web pages in collections. There’s a handy Chrome extension that enables you to add pages to your ‘Mix’.

Many users use this feature to share their own content with the wider Mix community. 

• Flipboard

You can create your own Flipboard Magazine to share stories, videos and images that link back to your website.

Find out more on the Publishers’ Q&A page.

Paid syndication networks

In addition to the free options above, there are a number of hugely popular syndication networks that offer exceptional reach for paying members.

Most of these work on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis.

While some of these networks are suited to big brand budgets, several platforms are affordable for smaller businesses.

You might want to explore:

• Outbrain
• Taboola
• Zemanta

 

Accepting syndicated content on your own blog

Finally, you might want to consider featuring syndicated content on your own blog. As we’ve explored, this can be a great way to diversify your content and increase what you’re able to offer your audience without the time it takes to write an article.

My advice is to feature a maximum of 10% syndicated content versus at least 90% original content generated for your business and audience.

You could always try reaching out to influencers in your industry to ask if there is anything they would be happy to syndicate to you – it’s quicker for them to provide content they’ve already created than to write something new for you.

If you’ve written guest blogs, you could ask the host blogger if they’re happy for you to syndicate the content on your own website using a “rel=canonical” tag that points to the original.

It’s important to check first as some guest blog hosts want a period of exclusivity to ensure the original version on their site is indexed first.

 

Let me know how you get on!

Hopefully, I’ve been able to show that SEO-friendly content syndication is possible and that, for businesses with a strong back catalogue of content, the benefits far outweigh the potential pitfalls.

Ultimately, web content syndication is a great way to reach new audiences and boost your reputation as someone who knows their stuff. It also creates as much mileage as possible from your high-quality content.

Is content syndication part of your off-page SEO strategy? Is it something you’re planning to do over the next 12 months? If you’re already syndicating content, what works well for you and what challenges are you facing? I’d love to hear more about your experiences, so please do leave me a comment.

SEO Checklist

We’ve created a handy SEO checklist to help you increase your visibility in Google. Download your free copy here and create a website that Google and your customers love.

If you need help with your SEO, we can help you. SEO+ provides trusted SEO services that raise your visibility and transforms your website into a customer attraction machine so you increase sales and your business grows.

No dark art or voodoo magic, just simple ethical SEO that works.

If you’d like to know more, take a look at our  SEO packages here and if you’d like to explore your options and discuss your business and your goals schedule a call with Hazel here

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Guest blogging is a key element of an effective off-page SEO strategy. But guest blogging has to be done well and with the right intentions to the right audience to truly be great.

Use guest blogging as a grasp for backlinks from any source and your off-page SEO efforts will suffer.

I’ve written this guide to help you find the right balance.

We’ll be looking at all things guest blogging as well as some top tips for how to successfully pitch a guest blog.

 

 

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is the process of writing a blog in your own name to be published on someone else’s website.

Ideally, the host website will share a similar niche or audience to the guest blogger and will give the guest blogger the benefits of referral traffic and a backlink.

In return, the guest blog will bring valuable, engaging and unique content to the host’s audience.

What are the advantages of guest blogging for the guest author?

If you have a well thought-out plan and manage to secure guest features with respected sites within your field, then guest blogging can offer the following benefits:

·      Reach a new audience

Writing a guest blog for a third party website gives you a platform to reach the established audience that follows the host blog.

This is an amazing opportunity to speak to new potential clients who will find your guest blog through the host’s marketing and reputation.

In many cases, this means tapping into a pre-built audience that’s bigger than your own.

·      Bring high-quality traffic to your site (without paying)

With guest blogging done properly, your aim should be to create unique content for websites that share a similar audience to you.

Your guest blog should provide value and may give a different perspective to a topic that is very much front-of-mind for the audience.

For example, a website focused on marketing for small businesses might want to feature a guest blog about DIY SEO tools and tips.

With this example, there’s a shared audience (small business owners and freelancers), an overlap of topic (marketing and bringing in customers) but specialist knowledge (SEO) from the guest blogger that the host blogger may not have.

Having given the audience content that meets their needs in some way, you have a fantastic chance of attracting high-quality traffic – i.e. people who need what you offer – to your website.

In theory, you can achieve this without having to do any marketing or promotion of your own – although, of course, if you send your audience to the host’s website to read your blog, it will benefit the host by bringing them new traffic too.

·      Earn a backlink (or citation/mention)

Most people who host a guest blog are happy for the article in question to contain one or two ‘dofollow’ links to the author’s website, as long as the links take the audience to relevant, helpful content.

This is one of the most effective ways of earning a high-quality backlink from a third party site to your own.

Other guest blog hosts prefer to make links to the author’s site ‘nofollow’; some may even request that you don’t include a backlink.

Should you still provide a guest blog in these cases?

If the audience is a good fit and the host blog has a high Domain Authority then, yes, you probably should.

Google now tracks mentions and citations, even if they don’t include a live link. Just having a short bio in your blog on the host’s site or mention of your name and business can still impact positively on your reputation and rankings.

·      Grow your own site’s Domain Authority (DA)

Domain Authority is a score/metric of 0-100 created by Moz to predict how well a website will rank.

If you’re able to secure guest blogging gigs for high domain authority websites, it acts like a vote of confidence in Google’s eyes. The respected host is essentially saying, “I rate this content highly enough to be prepared to share it with the audience that I’ve worked hard to build. I believe it has value for my audience”.

This has a trickledown effect, leveraging the DA of the host site to add points to your own DA.

As we talked about in our off-page SEO guide, some backlinks have more weight and credibility in Google’s eyes than other backlinks – Domain Authority has a big role to play in this.

·      Grow your authority as an expert

Guest blogging isn’t just about Domain Authority. It can also help you build your authority as an expert in your field or niche, both on- and offline.

We know that Google looks for signals indicating expertise, authority and trust when ranking pages in search results.

People look for these signals too.

If you can show that you know what you’re talking about, especially on a platform that’s already respected as an authoritative source (the host’s website), it will mean that people will be more likely to seek out your opinions in the future.

·      Build brand awareness

By getting in front of new audiences and positioning yourself as an expert in your field, guest blogging is a powerful tool to build brand awareness.

The host’s audience may not visit your website immediately or become a paid customer straight away but a guest blog can plant the seed.

The next time someone in the host’s audience needs what you offer – or gives a recommendation – they may well turn to you because the guest blog introduced them to your brand.

·      Grow your portfolio

While your own blog is a fantastic platform for your work (and the only one over which you have complete control), guest blogging can help you to grow your portfolio. This is particularly relevant if you’re a blogger, journalist, copywriter or freelance writer of any kind.

·      Connect with influencers

Having a well-thought-out guest blogging strategy is a great reason to reach out and connect with influencers in your field.

Influencers are people who have an engaged following within their niche and who are able to influence people’s purchasing decisions. Their fans look to influencers for recommendations, trends and niche insights about who and what to trust.

If you can attract a shout-out from an influencer, it can have long-lasting benefits to your reputation.

·      Develop your writing skills

Even if you’re not a writer or marketer by trade, it’s important that you’re comfortable talking about your products, services or industry. This is how you connect with potential customers, even if you’re briefing someone else about your marketing.

Guest blogging gives you the opportunity to develop your writing skills and explore how to best share your knowledge.

It can help you build up a picture of the topics that resonate, as well as a deeper understanding of your audience.

·      Creates a new source to rank in Google

Ideally, you don’t want multiple pages on your own website to compete for the same keyword as Google may not know which one to prioritise.

However, ranking highly for a guest blog on a third party website for one of your top keywords can be a great way to appear twice for the same search.

This helps to consolidate the impression that you are an expert in the searched-for topic and build your presence in multiple sources online.

How does guest blogging benefit the host site?

As we mentioned above, guest blogging has to benefit the person/business hosting your article too.

Why else should they publish and essentially market a third party for free?

A good guest blog should:

·      Offer a different expert perspective for the established audience

We’ve already discussed how important it is to guest blog for someone who shares a similar audience to you.

A good guest blog serves to extend the knowledge already offered by the host or give a new but expert perspective on a familiar topic.

For example, HubSpot offers “a full stack of software for marketing, sales and customer service”. World-famous digital marketing entrepreneur Neil Patel often writes as a guest contributor for HubSpot (here’s an example). This gives HubSpot another way to feature top-level expert advice about topics such as sales copy, blogging and SEO – all topics that are front-of-mind for its customers.

Guest blogs help the host blogger to diversify their content and potentially breathe some fresh life into a blog known for covering specific topics.

·      Bring in traffic from your audience

While you might not have the number of followers associated with Neil Patel, you do have an audience, even if it’s in its early stages.

Your guest blog should help to introduce some of this audience to the host blog.

Try to use every marketing platform at your disposal to shout about any guest blogs that you write. Share it on social media, in your newsletter, in your email signature and anywhere else you usually promote your content.

·      Enable the host blog to target different keywords

There may be keywords and phrases that the host blogger’s customers often use in searches that are related to the host website’s offering but aren’t an exact match.

A guest blog can help to fill this gap.

·      Create fresh content when the host blogger may not have the time

Fresh content is an important part of any website as it keeps visitors coming back and gives Google an incentive to crawl a domain.

But high-quality fresh content takes time to produce (the Alexa blog estimates an average of three hours and 16 minutes per post – and that’s not for meaty guides like this one!)

By hosting guest articles, bloggers are able to offer fresh content on their website without having to spend time researching and writing it themselves. While they won’t want to do this for every article, it’s a great way to keep publishing during busy periods or to offer more content than they could do alone.

·      Connect with other experts and up-and-coming professionals

Engaging bloggers who genuinely know their stuff are worth their weight in gold.

By accepting guest submissions, bloggers have an avenue to connect with experts who complement their knowledge. It’s also an excellent way to track up-and-coming individuals in the same sector.

 

What are the disadvantages of guest blogging?

Guest blogging does come with its downsides. And often it’s the website hosting the guest blog that’s the most vulnerable.

Common problems include:

• Low-quality content – this can reflect poorly on the host site, both from an SEO perspective and in the eyes of the audience
• Duplicate content that has been published in multiple places but perhaps slightly rebadged and edited to become a poorly written version of the original
• Guest bloggers not following through with their commitment to provide content
• Guest bloggers who create great content then disappear, not marketing to their own audience or responding to comments and questions about their article from the engaged audience
• Time spent answering queries from people pitching poor quality guest blogs
• The host blog’s audience may be irritated by guest blogs – they know and trust the host blogger and want to hear their opinions; why should they care about the guest blogger?

For the guest author, the potential downsides of guest blogging come down to having no control over how your blog is used. Also, the time you spend guest blogging could be time you spend building up your own blog.

Whether you’re prepared to risk these downsides or not will come down to your goals for guest blogging.

 

How to target the right sites for your content

Step one: Identify potential host blogs

Your first step will be to identify a list of potential blogs for which you’d like to write.

There are several ways you can do this:

• Make a note of websites that you respect within your industry
• Run a Google search using terms such as:
  • <keyword or topic you want to write about> + guest post
  • <keyword or topic you want to write about> + submit a guest post
  • <keyword or topic you want to write about> + accepting guest posts
• <keyword or topic you want to write about> + guest post guidelines

For example, if I wanted to find blogs that might publish guest content about ‘local SEO’, I could perform a search for ‘local SEO guest post’

You can find some more suggestions about Google searches great at turning up guest blogging opportunities over at BuzzBlogger

• Who are the well-known guest bloggers in your industry? Use Google to find the blogs they write for – these blogs may accept your submissions too
• Use Open Site Explorer to enter your competitors’ web addresses and view whether any of their backlinks come from guest blogs – could the same referring sites accept a submission from you too?
• Search social media for guest blogs. For example, a Twitter search for ‘local SEO guest blogs’ brings up numerous posts promoting guest blogs on this topic
• It’s an old publication but Brian Keith May has a free ebook listing 1,334 sites that accept guest posts – in fact, a Google search for ‘guest posting sites’ brings up many such blog lists (e.g. this post on the Solvid website)
• Neil Patel recommends checking out com to connect with a guest blogging community

Step two: Narrow down your shortlist

Your next task is to narrow done your pool of potential host blogs to those most likely to accept your submission.

Go through your list with the following questions in mind:

• Does the website have a blog? (It’s surprising how many web hosts receive guest blog requests when they don’t even have a blog!)
• How often is the blog updated?
• How often do they publish guest submissions?
• Who is the site’s audience? Do they share common ground with your own audience? Would you be able to provide content that will be useful and relevant to that audience?
• What level is the content aimed at (e.g. beginners, intermediate or advanced)?
• What are the main categories and tags used by the host blog? This should give you some insight into the big, overarching topics covered on the blog
• How do other guest blogs perform on the site?
• Who are the guest bloggers already featured on the site?
• Does the blog include bylines, indicating the name of the author and potentially a link their information or website?
• What is the Domain Authority of the host site?

Tip: If you’re thinking of approaching multiple sites about guest blogging, it’s worth creating a spreadsheet to track what stage you’re at with each submission.

Step three: Check out the guest blog submission rules

Once you’ve got a list of relevant blogs for which you’d like to make a guest contribution, the next step is to find and read their guest blog submission guidelines (and then read them again for good measure).

You will need to pitch or draft content that falls within the guidelines. Above all, you want to make it as easy as possible to use your articles.

Step four: Find the right person to contact

Once you know what blogs you want to write for and what they expect from successful submissions, your next task is to pitch your blog idea or even send a first draft. Hopefully, the guest blog submission rules will have explained who you need to contact but, if not, you may need to do some research.

If at all possible, you will want to personalise your introductory email to the right person (see more about this below).

How to pitch a guest blog

How you pitch a guest blog will depend on the submission rules mentioned above. Some blogs just want a brief outline of a potential topic, while others will want to read a draft of the article immediately. Some blogs only accept submissions at certain times while others can be approached at any time.

Whatever approach you have to take, the biggest thing to remember is that the guest blog is not about you, so skip the self-promotion.

Pitch with the benefits to the host blog and their audience in mind and you should already be ahead of many in the guest blogging crowd.

To do this:

·      Become part of the host blog’s online community

Rather than pitching a guest blog out of the blue, it’s usually worth spending a week or two engaging with the host blogger’s content before you make contact about a potential guest submission.

Actions such as commenting insightfully on blog articles or responding to content on social media will all be appreciated. Also, because the host blog should offer some value for your audience, why not share posts, Tweets, etc. with your social media followers?

·      Identity the value you have to offer

Many people decide to guest blog because they want to improve their off-page SEO.

But this shouldn’t be your only motivation.

Yes, as we’ve seen above, guest blogging has many benefits for the guest author but it must benefit the blog’s host and their audience too.

Think about what topic will have the most value for the target audience and how you can offer your expert perspective.

Also, spare a thought for SEO value by targeting a keyword that is relevant to the host site and may fill a current gap in their content.

·      Create unique content

One of the reasons that people can be wary of guest blogging is that the blogs aren’t always well-written, accurate or unique.

For companies trying to indiscriminately grab as many backlinks as possible, guest blogging is an excuse to send the same article to multiple sources, often with a bit of rewriting to try to game the plagiarism checkers.

Your approach should be the polar opposite to this.

A guest blog deserves attention to detail. It should be well-written and carefully researched. It should include links to additional sources of information, not just self-promotion. It should treat the audience with respect, providing a unique article to each host blog.

Note: If you do decide to republish content – perhaps because you’ve updated an article that was once very popular on your own blog (not that I would recommend this approach for guest blogging) – then you should be honest about this.

Add a short disclosure such as “Originally published on <blog name> on 1^st January 2018; updated for <host blog> in December 2019”.

·      Mirror the host blog’s style

Although it’s great to put your own unique twist on the topics that appeal to the host blog’s audience, I also wouldn’t recommend straying too far from the house style.

If the host blog doesn’t usually publish infographics, then you may not want to pitch an infographic as your contribution. Ideally, the style and format of your submission should sit comfortably in the host blog’s environment.

·      Write or plan a blog of the right length

Some blogs have a required word count for guest submissions and it’s important to adhere to this.

If you’re pitching to or writing for a blog without word count guidelines, have a look at the existing articles published on the site to calculate the average word count.

·      Include some internal links to other content on the host site

You can show the host blogger that you’re familiar with their content by suggesting some internal pages (e.g. blogs they’ve written on a related topic) to which your guest blog will link.

This helps to share link juice from more established pages on the host site to your guest post and vice versa.

·      Link to influencers

As well as linking to further sources of information internally, consider how your guest blog could link to other influencers in your sector.

As the host blog should ideally have a higher DA than your own blog, it may already be on the radar of influencers you would like to connect with. Your guest blog could be a way of making your name known to them.

·      Craft an introductory email

Some blogs ask for guest submissions via an online form. Others will require you to email them with your pitch.

Try to include the following:

• Send the email to the right contact and use their name in your greeting
• Introduce yourself (including a mention of what you do and/or a link to your blog)
• State some accomplishments to build authority and add social proof (this could include names of other blogs on which your content has been published)
• If a guest blog you’ve written has performed well in the past, you could include some stats such as, “My recent blog for <insert website> on <insert topic> was shared 500 times in the first week”
• Explain that you would love to write a post about <insert topic> and why you feel this will be of value to the host blog’s audience
• If you already have a draft article written, attach the link
• Keep your email short and sweet (and super relevant)

·      Write a strong guest bio

Most websites that host guest blogs ask their contributors to provide a short bio, often featured at the bottom of the guest article. This is often the only place that you can include a link back to your website.

Think about your guest blogging goals when writing your bio:

• Do you want to bring people back to your main website? If so, include your main domain URL.
• Do you want new traffic to land on content relevant to the guest blog topic? If so, provide a URL for a specific landing page.
• Do you want to grow your following on social media? If so, add a statement like “Follow me on <insert the name of your most popular platform with a link>”.

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Guest blogging doesn’t stop when your post is published

Getting your guest blog accepted and published should just be the beginning of your guest blogging strategy.

Your next steps are to:

• Promote your article everywhere you can – on your social media pages, in your e-newsletter, in social media groups and forums where you’re usually active (don’t just spam groups), and even in your email signature.
• Thank the blog host for publishing your content.
• Respond to comments by the host blogger’s audience or via referral traffic to your site. Have conversations in the Comments section of the blog and on social media and show that you care about the readers’ opinions.
• Monitor how the blog is performing – as well as keeping an eye on social media shares, keep in touch with the blog host about traffic volumes and feedback about your article. You might want to follow-up about a month after publication to find out how the blog performed.

You can also use the Advanced Segments feature in Google Analytics to track referral traffic coming into your website from specific guest blogs – there’s a great article about setting this up on Monster Insights.

 

Accepting guest blogs on your own website

In this guide, we’ve mainly looked at guest blogging from the perspective of writing and submitting guest blogs to third party sites.

The flipside is that you may want to reciprocate and accept guest blog submissions on your own website too.

To make sure that you benefit from doing this, we would recommend that you:

• Publish or send out guest blog submission rules to anyone who wants to write for your audience – if people don’t follow the rules, they don’t get published on your site.

Your rules could include:

• minimum word count (you don’t want thin content on your site)
• maximum number of ‘dofollow’ links to the guest author’s site
• disclaimer that content must be original
• style guidelines
• audience overview
• word count for author bio
• request for images to accompany the blog, as long as the guest author has the appropriate rights to provide and use the images
• whether you want to receive completed articles or pitches for potential articles
• review timescales, i.e. how quickly you’ll let the blogger know if you would like to publish content they’ve written

• Always visit the guest blogger’s own site before you accept their submission to see whether they provide well-researched, high quality content
• Check guest posts for duplicate content using a free plagiarism checker like Copyscape or Duplichecker

 

Further resources

While working on this guide, I came across some fantastic resources that you might find helpful. I’ve linked to most of them as I’ve gone through the guide but here are a few extras for you:

• Read all about Adam Enfroy’s guest blogging experiment and find out what happened when he had eight guest posts published on high DA websites. His initial results included:
  • 32 new referring domains
  • 247 new backlinks
  • 268 new organic keywords ranking in the top 100
  • 372% increase in organic traffic
  • A 12-point increase in his DA

This article includes Adam’s template for introductory emails about guest blogging.

• Check out Backlinko’s Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging
• For a recently updated list of blogs that accept guest contributions, take a look at 121 guest blogging sites to become a contributor in 2020 or check out Blogging Republic’s list of free and paid for guest blogging sites

And now, over to you. Is guest blogging part of your off-page SEO strategy? What have the benefits been for you if you do guest blog? Is there anything holding you back from guest blogging?

It would be great to hear more from you about this huge topic in the Comments below.