Introduction

Here are some of the ways that you can find Guest Post opportunities as a Blogger or content developer.

Backlinks are still one of the key factors to help you climb up Google rankings.

And when it comes to link building, you have only two options:

create great content and wait for people to link to it
(insisting a little can help)
create great content and take action
Guest posting falls into the second category. It’s a process that’s pretty cheap, helps you build relationships and can land you great links. No wonder 2 out of 3 bloggers write guest posts.

That being said, guest posting is not easy. Especially finding new guest post opportunities.

In this article, I’ll share the best techniques to find blogs and websites to guest post on.

Let’s get started!

How to Find Guest Post Opportunities As a Blogger

Guest posts were not created equal.

Before diving into the process, let’s take a look at three important factors that influence the strength of the backlinks in general and guest posts links in particular.

1. The importance of relevance in Guest Post Opportunities search
Sure, the number of backlinks you receive is an important ranking factor.

But quantity isn’t the only parameter here. To identify spammers, Google also takes into account the relevance of the link.

The relevance can be broken down into two dimensions:

Domain relevance: is the website you received a backlink from in the same niche/industry as yours? This is what Majestic’s topical trust flow may help you to evaluate.

Page relevance: does the content of the page where my link was placed has anything to do with my own website and linked page?

Finding the best website to guest post on means you should make sure it belongs to the same industry/niche as yours. It also means that your post needs to be about a topic that’s closely related to your industry.

2. The importance of domain authority

Relevance is one factor, and authority is another.

Google gives each website a specific authority score. The authority score of the referring website is taken into account to give weight to each backlink that you receive.

To put it simply, a relevant backlink from an authoritative website such as The New York Times will have a much bigger impact than a link from a small blog.

Even though its exact formula is kept secret, a few players in the industry provide estimations of this score with different SEO metrics.

Before contacting the author of the website, make sure its authority is sufficient to have a positive impact on your SEO.

3. Dofollow or nothing when searching for Guest Post Opportunities
In Google’s eyes, there are two kinds of outbound links: dofollow and nofollow links.

In short, any link with the rel=”nofollow” parameter will not pass the authority to your website.

So before reaching out to a webmaster, make sure the links inside the guest posts don’t contain the nofollow parameter. In Google Chrome, for example, you can do that easily by inspecting the link.

A nofollow link example on HuffingtonPost

Let’s do a quick recap. When looking for your targets, remember to ask yourself these three questions:

Is the website in the same niche as yours?
Has the domain a high authority?
Are links dofollow?
Now you’re ready for the next steps: finding the actual websites to contact.

Technique #1: Check your competitors’ guest posts

One of the easiest ways to find websites that accept guest posts in your niche is to spy on your competitors.

They’ve already done the hard work! You just need to follow their steps to find the right websites.

Using a tool such as Linkminer, you can explore the backlinks your competitor has received. Of course, we don’t want all the backlinks, but only those that are dofollow and from high authority domains.

Linkminer offers two options that allow you to select these websites only. First, you can use the “dofollow” filter so you don’t waste your time with nofollow links. Then, you can sort the backlinks by Link Strength to show only the most authoritative websites.

Will these links be relevant as well? We can assume that they will, since your competitors received links from them. Of course, the final decision is up to your consideration.

When doing the outreach, you can mention your competitor’s article in your email:

“I saw that you mentioned this topic on your blog in this specific article. I’m an expert in this field and I’d like to share a different angle on the topic”… It shows you’ve read their blog and will increase your chances to land a guest post.

Technique #2: Contact your partners

This is one of the most overlooked techniques and also one of the most simple and efficient.

Why?

If you already have a relationship with some people or businesses, they’re more likely to accept a guest post from you as they know you and (probably) want to maintain a good relationship with you.

And as they operate in the same industry, the link will be very relevant.

There’s nothing else to add. It is definitely worth a shot.

Technique #3: Use search operators to find Guest Post opportunities

Let’s start with a quick explanation.

Search operators are search strings that you can add to your query to find specific websites.

The following list includes popular search operators used to find possible guest post opportunities. To maximize the relevance, combine them with a specific niche keyword.

For example, if I were to look for guest post opportunities for an online marketing tool, I would combine all these search operators with “online marketing” and would search for “submit post” online marketing, “bloggers wanted” online marketing, etc.

“write for us”
“guest post”
“submit post”
“guest post by”
“bloggers wanted”
“writers wanted”
“submit guest post”
“submit a guest post”
“submit blog post”
“become a guest blogger”
“guest post guidelines”
“submit an article”
“become an author”
“become a contributor”
“guest bloggers wanted”
“contribute to our site”
“become a guest writer”
“submission guidelines”
“the following guest post”
inurl:guest-post-guidelines
inurl:guest-posts
inurl:write-for-us

You can do these searches manually, or you can use Scrapebox to automate the process (the website looks shady but the tool is actually safe and super useful).

Once your list is ready, extract the root domain for each link, remove duplicate domains and rank the websites by authority.

Technique #4: Check directories
This one is easy.

Some people have already prepared lists of websites that accept guest posts.

To find them, simply look for “websites that accept guest posts” on Google + your industry.

A preview of Google results for “websites that accept guest posts online marketing”

It may look easy, but it may be tricky. The websites included in these lists often receive tons of guest post propositions. You’ll have to write a very convincing outreach email to stand out from the crowd.

Technique #5: Monitor your industry keywords

The 4 techniques I shared so far are good to create a static list to start from.

But what if you want to grow your guest post opportunities list over time?

Monitoring specific keywords can help a great deal. First, because it can help you spot your competitors’ new guest posts and apply technique #1 in real-time. To do so, simply monitor your competitors’ names.

It can also help you to spot the websites that talk about topics related to your service. In my experience, reaching out to these websites with a guest post proposition related to a topic they recently mentioned works pretty well. To do so, monitor 4-10 keywords related to the service you offer.

Now, what tool can you use to do it?

I personally use Mention. But there are alternatives such as Google Alert (not so great in my experience), Awario or Brand24.

Wrap-up

Once you’ve applied these 5 techniques, you should come up with a pretty long Excel sheet.

Don’t get discouraged! Prioritize by relevance and authority (the authority being the most objective factor).

Then, it’s time to contact these websites. Good luck.

Action Point

PS: I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

Fact Check Policy

CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.

Become Part Of our Fan Base on Facebook. Click Here.
Follow Us on Twitter. Click Here.
Many Crypto. One place. Use Roqqu

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too