3-Point Checklist for Guest Blogging

“I am a freelance blogger and provide guest posting services.”

Does this sound familiar? If so, keep reading. If not, keep reading anyways. 

You may or may not have seen something like this in your inbox from someone who identifies themselves as an “SEO expert.” But is there really any way to qualify this? How are you supposed to become an expert in SEO if search algorithms are always changing? I digress… 

Anyways, if you manage a blog of some sort, you’ve likely received emails from people across the globe wanting to post their content on your website. As it turns out, there’s a reason for this: guest blogging has become a best practice of organic SEO. Beware, as some of these inquiries may be spam, however, others could be diamonds in the rough. 

So, for those of you interested in optimizing your online visibility via guest blogging, what kinds of things should you consider before clicking the publish button? We’ve outlined this checklist for your reference below: 

1. Assessment of Content
    

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   • Is it relevant, accurate, and on target with your mission? 
     • Be sure to stay in tune with the line of work that you are in and remain true to your organization’s goals. 
   • Does it add value that you and/or your users would benefit from? 
     • Consistently posting valuable content will encourage your readers to come back and stay on your website longer, thus increasing the likelihood of lengthening your user’s average session duration. 
   • Do you feel comfortable posting it on your website? 
     • If the two points above are true, but yet something still doesn’t feel quite right, chances are your subconscious is trying to tell you something. If you’re uncomfortable with publishing the post on your website, don’t sweat it -- there will always be other opportunities around the corner.
        
2. Link Quality and the Potential Effect on Your Rankings
    

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   • How many links are there within the post? 
     • It is best to have no more than 3 or 4 (depending on post length), to prevent users from leaving your site. 
   • How relevant are the links? 
     • Review these thoroughly, and make sure they are targeting the correct market and geographical areas in which you do business (if you provide goods or services that are local, that is). 
   • What is the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) of each linked page in the post? 
     • According to Moz, DA is the way in which “the predictive ranking strength of entire domains or subdomains” is measured, whereas PA “measures the strength of individual pages.” 
     • You can check rankings with this free tool via Small SEO Tools. The rule of thumb is to list links to pages with a PA of 25 or better. On the flip side, it is preferable to decline posts that include links with a PA of 20 or less, as these will likely hurt your website ranking. If that is the case, this presents an opportunity to suggest the writer swap these out for higher quality links. 
        
3. Potential Fees and Willingness to Provide Backlink
    

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   • Does this writer request payment in order to seal the deal? 
     • If so, you may be better off walking away. This cycle of idea generation should be viewed as a partnership instead of a transaction; you are providing equal quality content for both parties involved with the intention of benefitting their appropriate target markets.
     • Posting their content on your own blog for free (and vice versa) is okay, but there is no reason to get funds involved if both parties are genuinely invested in strengthening their online visibility. 
   • Will this writer post the same content to their own blog? 
     • If so, ask if they can provide a backlink to your website. This also presents a good opportunity for you to provide that writer with a guest post in exchange, including another backlink to your website. 
     • After you’re done writing the post for their blog, you can then repurpose the same post on your own blog (in addition to sharing it on the appropriate social media channels, of course).

While the process of guest blogging may appear to be quite time consuming, this organic SEO strategy has the potential to greatly improve your website’s visibility in the long run. After all, if you are posting to your blog on a relatively frequent basis, it’s optimal to supply a wide variety of content for your readers (both humans and bots!) so they’re enticed to come back for more. 

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