The Ultimate Guide to a Successful Guest Blogging Strategy for 2022

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Is guest blogging part of your content marketing strategy?

It’s time to get started if you haven’t already. Although there has been much speculation over the death of guest blogging over the years, the tactic is still one of the best ways to promote your business and yourself.

These are just a few examples that prove our point. Elna Cain used guest blogging to earn a full-time living from freelance writing. Buffer also used guest blogging to draw 100,000 customers.

This guide will show you how to create and implement a successful guest blog strategy. This will be illustrated with examples of successful guest blogs posts. You’ll learn how to effectively use guest blogging to increase visibility for your brand and business, and to improve lead generation.

Need blog articles at affordable rates? Checkout ArticleMarket.org – A one-stop shop for SEO friendly, ready-made articles for your blog and money sites. Articles on ANY topic from only $3 each.

Guest blogging has many benefits

A guest blogging strategy is a great way to increase traffic and improve your content marketing ROI.

The Content Marketing Institute (CMI), a marketing agency, points out that guest blogging is an important part of your marketing strategy. It provides offsite expert content.

Let’s now look at the other benefits of guest blogging. Because the content that you post on guest blogs tells other audiences about your brand, it is a great way to increase brand awareness.

These new readers might visit your landing page or site, which means that guest blogging can help you increase lead generation and attract new subscribers .

Guest blogging also builds trust. Trusted, authoritative websites will publish your content. This trust can rub off on you. Regular guest blogging can make others consider you an expert and improve your business’ reputation.

SEO is one benefit of guest blogging. Link building from high-quality websites is an important SEO ranking factor that will improve the position of your site on search results pages.

Guest blogging is not just for you. You also benefit from the guest blogging strategy on the blog hosting you. Guest blogging is an option for site owners who face a major challenge in content marketing. It makes it easier to create content and helps them meet their content needs.

Guest Blogging Strategy Guide

You must do guest blogging right if you want to make it a successful strategy. We’ll be discussing the steps required to make guest blogging a success in the remainder of this guide. For easy navigation, here’s a table:

  1. Know your goals
  2. Sites that you can contribute to
  3. Create a connection with the site owner
  4. Select a winning topic
  5. Get your pitch in order
  6. Create great content
  7. Do You Want to Work With Bio?
  8. Resilient
  9. Promote Your Content
  10. Create more guest posts
  11. Follow Success

1. Know your goals

Effective guest blogging strategies, like all marketing strategies, start with knowing your goals. If you want to reach your goals, you must know where you are going.

These are the typical goals of a guest blogging strategy. These include:

  • To increase leads and sales, drive traffic to a landing page or to your website in general.
  • You can increase awareness about your brand, products and services.
  • Attracting inbound links to improve SEO
  • You can position yourself as an expert to be cited more frequently and receive speaking engagements
  • Increase your email subscribers or increase your social media followers

It is important to set a goal so that you can create a bio that is relevant and guarantees that the resource people who see it deliver what you promised. This is the best way to build trust and rapport with your new audience.

2. Find sites to contribute

Before you can write a guest post on a blog, you need to find a site accepting guest authors. You must also ensure that the site is able to help you achieve your goals.

How to Locate a Site that Accepts Guest Posts

There are many ways to find websites that will accept guest posts.

Google can be used to search for sites that allow guest posts on topics you are interested in. Some sample search queries include:

  • [topic keyword phrase] + «write for us»
  • [topic keyword phrase] + «guest article»
  • [topic keyword phrase] + «become a contributing author»

For more ideas, see this list of search queries by Optimize Smart.

Similar queries can be used on Twitter. You can also use similar queries on Twitter by typing “guest post” and “guest article” in the search box. A list of tweets will appear showing guest posts.

You can use Google, Twitter, or any other search engine to find the websites that publish the posts. These will come in handy later, when you are ready to evaluate the possibility.

You can also check out guest posting opportunities at your competitors. You can follow your competitors on social media and subscribe to their email newsletter to find out if they are sharing their guest posts. This will help you to improve your reputation.

You can also check their inbound links to get this information. Log in to SEMRush and navigate to Domain Analysis >> Backlinks.

In the search box, type the URL of the website you wish to inspect. You’ll see the backlinks and anchor text of the sites in the report.

This will allow you to find more websites that accept guest posts. In the screenshot below, for example, we clicked on one the anchors to locate sites that contain that phrase.

You can also find guest posting opportunities to help you with your guest blogging strategy at:

  • Alltop lists the best sites in nearly every niche on Alltop
  • This list contains a few sites that allow guest posts.
  • You can find out which bloggers are the most prolific in your niche by looking at their guest blogs

How do you assess guest blogging opportunities

The process of finding the right sites is just one step. It is only one part of the equation. You must decide if these sites are worth your time and if they will help you achieve your goals for guest blogging.

These are the areas you should assess. To get started, choose one of these sites.

To check the domain authority of the site you are interested in, first use Moz’s Open Site Explorer. This will tell you how well the site is regarded online and whether it will offer good value in terms traffic and links if you guest-post there. As an example, here’s a report on the domain authority for Content Marketing Institute.

The better the number (it’s on an 0 to 100 scale), the higher it is. Moz does not define what constitutes a good domain authority, but SmartInsights created a chart that shows the average domain authority across different industries.

You should check for social followers and email subscribers. These numbers are usually published by site owners if they are large enough. This will give you an idea about the potential audience.

If you don’t have any social followers, go to their profiles on social media and check if they have an audience. Also, see if they promote all content on their site (including guest posts). This should be possible if you look back at a month worth of content.

Alexa can be used to monitor site traffic for the past few months. Simply type your URL in the box at the top of the page and you will get a quick overview on key traffic metrics.

This will give you an idea of how many people might see your guest post and where the majority of your audience is located. If the majority of traffic to the site is from the UK and your goal is to reach US prospects, this might not be a good fit for guest posting strategies.

Next, take a look at the posts. Check to see if the published content is relevant to the topics you are interested in writing about. You don’t have to worry about low comments numbers. This is true for many websites these days. Even if your social shares aren’t high, sites that reach your target audience can still help with your goals.

To ensure you get credit for guest posts and to send readers back to your site (as in the example from the OptinMonster Blog), make sure to check the author bios.

Later in this guide, we’ll be discussing how to create great guest blogging bios.

3. Create a connection with the site owner

You must establish a relationship with site owners before you can pitch them for a guest post.

Do not be deceived by the guest post pitch templates that you can find online. For most site owners, cold pitches will not work unless the content and presentation are outstanding.

Many site owners get so tired of poor quality content and irrelevant pitches that they won’t accept guest posts from anyone they don’t know. Here are some ways you can be one of these people.

First, learn about their website and what type of content they post by following them on Twitter. Many people also share their content. Subscribing in Feedly to their site will keep you up to date with any new content.

You should read the content for several weeks or more to get a better understanding of their audiences . You can also check out their most popular or best-performing content by visiting their website. WPBeginner allows anyone to easily view the sidebar and see which content is most popular.

Get in touch with site owners via social media so that you can tag them whenever you share their content. You can share anything you love, but also include a comment to make it more than a link.

Comment on their blogs, sign-up for their email newsletter, and then respond to their emails.

Establish a real relationshipwith the site owner. Do not pretend to be there. They will figure it out, and you won’t reach your goals.

4. Select a winning topic

Once you have a clear understanding of the target site and what is important to the site owner it’s time for you to choose a topic.

It’s important to know what is popular on the site. Think about what you can do to add value.

  • Response to the content of the site
  • Additional information about a topic that is popular
  • Write something fresh on a topic that is likely to be popular among the audience

Buzzsumo is an excellent tool for narrowing down your choices. It can help you discover content that is already popular on the site where you plan to pitch it. There are two benefits to this:

  • It allows you to create a topic related to yours that is likely be popular
  • You can’t bother the site owner by pitching an existing idea.

Buzzsumo will show you the most popular content by simply entering the URL of the site into the search box.

The same can be done for a topic by entering the keyword phrase in the search box.

You can start your guest blogging campaign by choosing a topic that is popular, relevant, and shared widely.

Are you looking for an edge in your topic selection? Research shows that posts that are in-depth, use proprietary research, and share personal experiences and life hacks are more popular.

Last but not least, make sure you read the guidelines for writing and pitching on the site. Site owners may reject your pitch if you don’t follow their guidelines.

5. Get your pitch in order

It is important that you avoid using generic guest posting pitches in order to make your guest blogging strategy a success. You can craft a compelling pitch that is unique to each site owner if you have done the research we recommended earlier.

Keep the pitch brief and to-the-point. This is the first rule. Site owners with authoritative sites get a lot of pitches. Don’t waste your time.

Second, should use their name. Most site owners won’t read pitches from people who aren’t able to do basic research on this contact information.

Third, should include the title. This is a common tactic used by some pitches that are successful. It can be included in the email subject and as a secondary heading in the body.

You can also get a snapshot of the most popular headlines from Buzzsumo by using the information you received from them when you chose a topic. This list of headline tools can help you create your own headline. You’re halfway to a successful pitch if the person you are pitching loves your title.

Next, briefly describe the post. You can sum up the topic in just a few sentences or bullet points.

Describe how this piece of content will benefit their readers . This will be simple because you are familiar with the existing content.

Show why you are the best person for the job. This is not a resume. Just hit a few high points.

This is one example of how it might work.

This is not a template for guest blogging. Use your natural tone and language to craft your pitch for the site that you are trying to reach.

6. Create great content

Once your pitch has been accepted, you can start writing your guest post. You want it to be better than your previous posts, especially if this is your first post for a site.

Craft a Stellar Headline

Take a second look at your pitch’s headline. It doesn’t hurt to look at the headline again, even if it is loved by the site owner. These are some of the most memorable headlines.

  • Include the benefit to the reader
  • Use action words
  • Tap into emotion

Our readers love headlines such as those found on the OptinMonster website. This guide will help you write great headlines.

Research Keyword Phrases

It will be a delight for site owners if their guest content ranks high in search engines and drives visitors to their sites. Just like with your content, do keyword research to identify core phrases that you can use to optimize it.

Search engines will recognize that good keyword usage (not spamming) is important and helps them find the content. For more information, see our complete keyword research guide.

Link Appropriately

Your guest post should have a strong link profile. This will help with SEO and building authority. This means that you should include both internal and external links to your guest post.

Link to relevant resources from external sites and great content on the site where you are writing. This gives the content a strong link profile which is great for SEO and building authority.

Follow any site owner’s linking guidelines. Some links are limited, as you will see in the bio section.

Include Images

It can be difficult to find images. Site owners may not want to do this, so you can help them by suggesting or including relevant images in your guest post. These images will highlight your key points and make it easier to read. Our guide to free image sites will help you find high-quality images that will be used in your guest blogging strategy.

Correctly Format the Post

Format the post to match the rest of the site. Note how they use subheadings and capitalization. Site owners will appreciate you doing less work. You can follow some guidelines provided by sites for guest posts writers.

7. Do You Want to Work With Bio?

Your guest blogging strategy will pay off in the bio. It’s also where you can link back to your site and other resources. There are many options available:

  • One link to your homepage
  • Link to any page/resource from your site
  • Link to your site and social media link
  • Here are a few social media and web links

Some site owners don’t place any restrictions on linking in their bios, but that is rare. Most sites allow you to link to any URL and a social link.

How to use your bio for lead generation

You have the option to improve lead generation. Link to a landing site with a lead magnet to get signups from people who like what you’ve written and want to know more. Adam Connell, Blog Boost Traffic, has provided an example of this guest blogging strategy:

OptinMonster is a great way for you to send your lead magnet. Our guide will help you create your first campaign. Next, visit the Success tab of the OptinMonster campaign creator. The lead magnet can be sent immediately by email, or via a success theme.

No matter if you are linking to a landing site or not, make sure to include a clear call-to-action (CTA). This will let readers know what next. An example of a guest blogging CTA might ask readers to:

  • Visit your site
  • Get a free resource
  • Follow you on social media

Referrer Detection is another way that OptinMonster can help you capitalize on the traffic generated by your guest blogging strategy. This allows you to show people who have come from a specific site campaigns without having to create a landing page.

Follow these instructions to create your first campaign. Next, go to Display rules >> Current URL path >> that exactly matches. Enter the URL for your guest post.

OptinMonster’s conversion analytics dashboard will allow you to track the success and failure of your campaign.

A different approach to writing a bio is to identify your target audience. Describe who you work with, and what you can do to help them. See Cate Scolnik’s example below.

You can add UTM parameters to Google Analytics so that you can track the success of each guest posting. This will let you know which websites are actually achieving your goals. This data can be viewed in Google Analytics by going to Acquisition >> campaigns. You’ll then see all the sources of traffic to your site.

Your guest blogging bio doesn’t have to be the same on all sites. You can change your bio to suit your goals. Here is one bio for a site about travel.

It is also customized to be a productivity site.

8. Resilient

This is our next guest blogging tip. We will keep it short and sweet. Respond to comments and mentions about your post.

Why? It’s not just good manners. Because being responsive can help you reach your strategic goals.

Blog owners will be more happy if your responses are prompt. This will increase their willingness to accept new pitches or suggest ways they can help you. This will help you get closer to your goals for guest blogging.

Subscribe to comments on guest posts if allowed by the blog owner. You’ll receive an email notification when someone comments. Google alerts allow you to track mentions and share of your post.

9. Promote Your Content

Your guest blogging strategy should include content promotion. This will allow more people to read your content and then link back to it. Site owners will also be pleased to see an increase in traffic.

Guest blogging content can be promoted via the same channels as your own content. You can share guest posts via social media and let your subscribers know. Encourage your followers and subscribers to comment, share and visit. Many will be glad to oblige.

Buffer allows you to add these posts to your queue if you are promoting content. If you have the right plan, you can also run drip marketing campaigns by adding your guest post on Missinglettr.

Log in to your account and click on the Add blog posting button.

Enter the URL and hit Next.

You can create drip campaigns through the site. Over the next year, your guest post will be shared at regular intervals.

Last but not least, link to your guest post content and mention it whenever you can, on both your blog and in guest posts. This brings us to the next point…

10. Create more guest posts

Although one guest post may help you reach your goals, you will be more successful if you write several. A good guest blogging strategy will allow you to write more guest posts, provided that your articles are of high quality.

You will be viewed as an authority if you post more often. This will result in more events invitations and traffic to your website, as well as more leads and sales.

You will need to track guest posts if you are writing many. It makes sense to keep a guest blogging schedule.

This is easy to do by creating a Google Calendar new calendar and adding the titles and due dates for any guest blogging commitments.

Color-coding is a great way to keep track of what’s up for which publications, especially if you write for several. You can also make a note of the posts that are due to go live by adding them in a different colour. This will allow you to kick off social media promotion.

Asana, CoSchedule and other tools can be used to track your blogging commitments.

11. Follow Success

You need to measure the success of your guest blogging strategy to determine if it is effective. You can do this by using the tools described in this guide.

To see if your content is bringing you more leads, track your traffic to your landing pages with Google Analytics and then use OptinMonster’s conversion analytics to evaluate the success of your marketing campaigns.

To see if guest content has been shared on social media, search Buzzsumo. Buzzsumo allows you to set up an author search, so that you can track all guest content from one location. To do this, enter author in the search box.

SEMRush, as mentioned earlier, can be used to determine how guest content ranks in search terms and whether you are getting new inbound links or related traffic.

Top 15 Tools to Help With Blogger Outreach and Guest Writing

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The following post will highlight 15 essential tools for anyone involved in Blogger outreach. These tools will help you not only keep track of your progress, but also increase your productivity.

Blogger outreach is a great way to find influencers for your products. It’s also essential in guest blogging, which has become a popular link building strategy.

Here is a list with both paid and free blogger outreach tools. This will help you make the most out of your time, and find more bloggers to connect with.

This list is by no means complete. New tools appear all the time. Some disappear, while others can be complicated or limit results. These tools are very popular in our house because of their simplicity and ability to maximize results.

No cost for Blogger Outreach or Guest Posting

1. SEO Moz Toolbar – MozBar

MozBar, a great SEO toolbar for Chrome and Firefox, is available. You will find helpful metrics such as Page Authority, Domain Authority and many others.

You can also use nofollow highlighting, links to traffic data sites like Quantcast, Alexa, Compete and Quantcast as well as many other features. You can also open Back Tweets and other cool stuff.

This is why I included it as a tool for blogger outreach. You need to build a list of blogs before you can reach them.

This toolbar is useful for link prospecting because of a few reasons:

First, you can obtain a SERP overlay for Domain Authority and Page Authority. This can be useful for quality checking.

The Firefox version of MozBar allows you to export search engine results pages (SERPs) to a CSV file. This can be used in conjunction with the SEO Gadget bulk analytical tool, which is also mentioned.

2. Buzz Stream Free Tools

Buzz Stream is a great tool. I find it extremely useful and time-saving.

Total 7 tools are available, which includes –

  • Email Research Tool This will generate search queries that will help you find the contact details of bloggers to which you wish to reach.
  • Link building query engine – When you are doing blogger outreach, you will need advanced search operators to help you find blogs quickly. This tool does just that.
  • Extract domain URL This tool is useful if you have some SERPs exported to a CSV. If you find that you have a list with deep links, rather than root domains, this tool will save you a lot.
  • Extract descriptive content from a URL This tool is great if you have many URLs or links to articles that you need to narrow down and see what the articles are talking most about.
  • Extract links – Imagine someone has a large list of websites and blogs they want to contact, but there are many characters and bits of information in the way. You just want the links. This tool will help you save a lot of time.
  • Create Outreach lists using blogrolls is another useful tool that will save you time and help you build your prospect list.
  • Extract page title and description from URLs. I don’t think this is useful for blogger outreach, but it does give me an easy way to see which keywords my competitors are using en masse.

3. Spreadsheets – Google Docs/Drive

When I first began blogger outreach, I used Excel spreadsheets. But as we grew our team and realized the value of collaboration, we realized that we needed something more.

We switched to Spreadsheets on Google Doc’s, which eliminated a lot of headaches. Multiple team members could now access the same document simultaneously without data loss.

Spreadsheets on Google Docs are great for anyone who doesn’t work in a team. You can access them remotely from your phone or tablet, but they have limited functionality.

4. Gmail Canned Replies

Gmail Labs’ Canned Responses tool can help you increase productivity and make it easier to create email templates.

This is a great tool to use for initial responses as well as for initial approaches. You should tailor your templates wherever possible. Include a section in your template to add something to the blogger that you are reaching out to. Make sure it’s clearly stated in the template.

Simply choose a name for your template and save it. Then, all you need is to compose a message and select your template.

Labs is easy to use if you are new to it. Simply navigate to your Google Mail settings and click on the Labs tab. Search for Canned Responses.

5. SEO Gadget bulk analysis tool

This amazing tool will give you tons of information. It will help you be more informed about blogs you are interested in reaching out to. It will also save you time.

You will need a list with URLs for your blogs before you can start. Once you have this list, you can fire it into the tool to get a massive report. This report includes IP address, WHOIS mail, contact page, contact email and Twitter profile.

6. FollowUp.CC

Follow ups are a crucial part of the blogger outreach process, or for any email correspondence.

FollowUp.CC makes it easy to follow-up by allowing you to send FollowUp.CC a customized email address which will allow you to determine when you should be reminded. For example, [email protected].

Another great thing about this tool is the way it pulls the relevant conversions to your top mail box (although this can only be used with a conversation-based email service such as Gmail).

7. Majestic SEO Chrome Toolbar

Although this tool isn’t designed specifically for blogger outreach, it can be used in the prospecting phase. Majestic SEO’s metrics Citation Flow (and Trust Flow) are my favorites.

Quality checking websites is a difficult part of any blogger outreach campaign. You need to ask yourself if you want to be featured or if they want to link to you.

A few things can set off alarm bells. One of them is unusually optimised anchor text. Click the tab to instantly see if something is wrong.

It is also worth looking at who links to your website. This can be done with the Majestic SEO Toolbar.

Paid Blogger Outreach and Guest Publishing Tools

8. InkyBee

This is a new tool, which I have been testing for the past few weeks. It’s currently in beta (pricing to change soon).

This tool’s strength lies in its ability to find lists of blogs. All you have to do is start a discovery task and add 3 keywords or topics. The tool will then search for blogs that include the keywords/topics on one page, and add them to your list.

After InkyBee has discovered blogs, you can go in and choose which blogs you wish to add to your blog list. You can also rank them in order of relevancy and audience size.

Once you have added the blogs that you wish to contact to your main list, you will have access to information such as audience size, engagement, posts per day, days since last posting, and even a button that scans for any social media accounts. This is a great tool to help you prioritize which blogs to contact.

This data can be exported to Excel, CSV, or PDF to be used in other tools or archived if you wish.

InkyBee has many features in development and I’m excited to see what they do in the future. This is the best outreach tool right now.

9. Wordtracker’s link builder

This solid tool is by Ken McGaffin, who is a man that knows his stuff. You can use it for prospecting and maintaining contacts as well as analysing your backlink profile.

Start a new campaign by adding your keywords, competitors, and customizing any settings.

The list will be large enough that you can filter them with many settings, including strategies, types of sites and other factors.

Once you have decided who you want, you can add contact data, notes, and even check for link placement.

10. Citation Labs Link Prospector

Garrett French and Whitespark.ca created the Link Prospector. It is a tool that helps you find linking opportunities.

You can choose your region, blog results, depth of search and TLD. Add safe search filters to add sites you don’t want to include at either a campaign or global level.

This is where the tool really shines. There’s a report type that you can choose from, and as you might expect, there’s a report type for guest posting. But there are also content promoters, links pages and content promoters. Reviews, donations, giveaways, and much more.

After you have customized all campaign settings, add your keywords and search phrases to the report.

Then, you can export your reports only with the domains or specific URLs.

11. Buzz Stream

Buzz Stream is a great tool that makes my job at UK Linkology much easier. I don’t have the worry of losing data or monitoring links.

Buzz Stream is a great tool for bloggers, regardless of whether you are using it to promote your blog via link building or PR.

Start by using the built-in link prospecting tools, then import them to your project.

Buzz Stream allows you to enter your email address and create templates, which can really help productivity.

You can email the prospect using the interface to see a complete history of your interactions with them. There are also notes and other notes. The RSS feed pulls in all their latest content as well as a bunch domain metrics.

Once you have a published link, you can quickly add it to your browser bookmarklet. Buzz Stream will monitor your links and check them every other week. You also have the option of running reports.

You can also add social mentions to the list and use the task management system to manage teams.

It is amazing to see the progress made by Buzz Stream and the support that continues.

12. Raven Tools

Raven Tools offers more than just a link monitoring and outreach management tool. You also get reporting, task management, PPC management, research, social media management, and reporting.

Blogger outreach can be done by first finding potential prospects using the site finder tool, then adding them to the outreach management CRM. Next, locate contact details, send emails, and track published links.

13. Follower Wonk

Instead of starting by prospecting blogs with search operators and regular prospecting tools, why not start looking for authority and influential people in your industry?

Remember that blogger outreach is not limited to email. However, if you know who you are and have already built up a relationship with the blogger, it will be difficult for them to decline your pitch.

Follower Wonk makes it easy to identify influencers and authority figures in your industry. You can search using keywords, then analyse and track the followers.

Another benefit of this tool? It highlights when and where your followers tweet. This will help you find the best times to reach your followers and other users on Twitter.

14. SEM Rush

You might have heard of SEM Rush, and wondered why it was included in this list. It’s not a good tool for guest posting or blogger outreach.

SEM Rush provides incredible data for research purposes, but it is also great for keyword research and competitive research.

You must be able to prioritize your targets and concentrate your efforts on getting the content on the right sites. This is why I recommend SEM Rush.

Let’s imagine that you are trying to promote your product via blogger outreach, guest posting, or offering your product/service for review.

Although it’s a costly process, the effort put into it is worth the return. But what if a site appears great but receives no traffic after a recent algo update?

Is it worth taking the chance?

No!

This brings me back to SEM Rush. It can quickly identify if a website has taken a pasting. I’m sure the database doesn’t always match 100%, but I don’t know of a tool that can (we can always hope though).

15. Link Research Tools

Similar to SEM Rush but not a tool for guest posting or blogger outreach, this tool is great for SEOs and has some powerful metrics.

LRT (Link Research Tools), comes with a few tools you’ll find very useful for blogger outreach.

  • Contact Finder This is an extremely powerful tool which will pull all the contact details of a website and its authors, making it easy to connect with them.
  • Backlink profiler This tool pulls in all back links from a website and breaks them down according to site type (I.E. Blogs, directories, social media networks, etc. and then provides a breakdown of the anchor text.
  • Link juice Tool – This tool will tell you which websites are most valuable for SEO purposes, but I think there are more important factors such as audience size and engagement.
  • Link alerts – Knowing which links are coming to your site is crucial in order to highlight problems and the success of your campaigns. You’ll see not only the links coming from guest posts you’ve published, but also any earned links you have gotten through blogger outreach/guest posting.

Summary

These are 15 tools you can use to promote your blog and guest posting campaigns. There are a few extras that you might not have thought of.

There are many tools available, whether paid or free. But this is not an exhaustive list. The question is: What do you have in your blogger outreach/guest post toolkit?

How To Write Good Content For Your Website Fast In 4 Easy Steps

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Having a little trouble writing good, unique content for your website? I have a simple solution that I think you will love. Better yet you won’t spend a fortune doing this. In fact, if you have $5 you’re set. Better yet, you can also buy pre-made blog articles from Article Market for only a buck!

I have been testing out a cool way to make good content for my website with a simple method that might catch you by surprise at first. I wrote a simple post a few days go on this blog where I demonstrated what the best affiliate markets are.

The blog post itself is over 1300 words and the best part is the only writing on that page that is mine is the headline! Do I have your attention yet?

Step 1 – Put together a simple Power Point based on a problem or subject in your niche market. 

If you do not have Microsoft Word get a free copy of Open Office. It’s not quite as good but it has a Power Point knock off. Hey it works and it’s free!

This doesn’t have to be thorough it just needs to cover your topic, be useful for your audience and make sense.

Step 2 – Shoot a video of your Power Point slides using either Camtasia or Jing (free). 

Jing has some limitations though as it will only allow you to shoot up to 5 minutes free. Camtasia is awesome but you’ll need $300 for it. If you don’t plan on shooting vids more often do not spend your money and simple get a copy of Jing. Besides 5 minutes will be plenty for most videos and you don’t want to scare your audience with a nice long 25 minute video.

Make sure to save your video in a MP4 format as it works anywhere pretty much universally. 

Upload your video to a file sharing site like Metacafe, Viddler or Youtube. I host most of my own but you do not need to do that and any of the 3 I just mentioned will work fine.

As you record your video use you Power Point slides as queue points or notes to keep you on track with your message like if you were to give a speech.

Step 3 – Find a transcriptionist to do all the content writing for you. 

This is the part you’ll need just $5 for. Head over to Fiverr and do a search for a transcriptionist. Many will do up to 10 minutes of audio for $5. Ask the transcriptionist to time-stamp the transcript for you every 1 minute so your audience can reference your video if they need to.   

Make sure to hire only someone who has mostly positive reviews. The people I hire almost always have only positives and little to no negative reviews.

“Ugh my secret is out and I could have easily made a product teaching this!”

But, I know you’re thinking it’s better to share and help. You’re right it really is. J

Step 4 – Embed your video into your post along with the transcript and publish it to the world.

Trust me it’ll be one of the best $5 you’ll ever spend and very time effective. You’ll have a nice post with a video that your audience can listen and watch or optionally read it. You’ll also give Google and the search engines what they love – more content to crawl through, which is great for your site and can help you increase traffic.

Are you scared to shoot the video or just do not want to mess it? Instead, record an audio track with the free Audacity Player. 

When you find someone to transcribe on Fiverr you’ll simply need to upload the file as per their instructions. You can then optionally post just your blog post based on the transcription of your audio or you can add the audio file to your post using a plugin like this one.

Conclusion:

It was much easier to just speak on my subject for 6-7 minutes and have someone transcribe that into 1300 words than it was for me to write 1300+ words myself. Plus, the added element of the video can give your audience something more than the usual text to read through.

The person also removed all of my “umms” and “ahhs” as well. I sent them a lot of love for that one!

How Page Speed is Key to Website Speed Optimization

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Your website is the place where first impressions matter most. We’re not talking just about content and design. Speed optimization is another important factor in determining its success.

Slow loading websites can harm your reputation, cause you to lose traffic and converts, which will ultimately lead to you losing money. A high-performing website will have a positive impact on your business’s success. It will bring in more visitors, which in turn will increase sales, leads, and ultimately, customers.

A website builder that provides optimized technology is the first step to ensure your site loads quickly. Your job doesn’t end there. You have to ensure that your website’s performance is maintained.

There are many things to take into consideration, but this article will help you to make the best decision. This article will teach you everything you need about website speed optimization.

What is page speed?

Page speed is the time it takes for content to load on your website. This can be measured in many ways, including speed index, speed index, large contentful paint and first contentful. However, the best way to determine page speed is to use time to interactive.

Time to interact is the time it takes for a page’s content to load and allow users to interact with it. It could be clicking on a CTA or choosing to play a movie, or any other action a user can perform on a page.

Next, you might be asking, “What is considered good website performance?” Although the answer is specific to each industry, it is highly recommended that your pages load in an average of three seconds. Page speed times may vary between pages on the same website, mobile and desktop.

Page speed is important

When it comes to website speed optimization, there are four main reasons page speed is important:

Usability

Although it may seem obvious, faster pages load the quicker a website can become interactive. This refers to loading visual content, buttons, and other items that help visitors take action on your website. These features will be more visible and easier to use by optimizing page speed. This will result in happier visitors. It’s that simple.

Users

Your website will be more popular if users can navigate through the process faster. If a checkout page takes longer than two seconds, potential buyers may abandon your online store.

This applies to any action that a user attempts to take, like filling out forms and jumping between pages. Speed issues on websites can limit user engagement and reduce conversion rates.

Conversions

Conversions are a common goal for site owners. A study found that even a 0.1 second increase in website speed can make a difference to your conversion rate, funnel progress and customer engagement. Visitors will abandon your site if they can’t use your features quickly enough.

Search engines

Google considers website speed when ranking websites (known as SEO, Search Engine Optimization). If you want your website to rank higher in search results for specific keywords, it will be easier to do so for each millisecond that your pages are visible to the eyes.

How to measure page speed

There are many ways to determine page speed for your website. Google PageSpeed Insights is one of the most popular and reliable methods to measure page speed. Simply submit your site URL and wait for Google PageSpeed Tolls to provide a report about your site’s performance.

Core Web Vitals are a collection of metrics that Google uses to determine how high a page should rank in search results. A high score (usually green) may improve your site’s overall ranking and individual page rankings in Google search. Low or warning (red) scores can have a negative impact on your site’s overall rankings and individual page rankings.

Google PageSpeed Insights will give your website a score of 100. A score between 90 and 100 is considered optimal. Anything lower than 59 is considered warning. This should prompt you to prioritize website speed optimization.

WordPress is the best platform to create a website.

WordPress Analytics provides page speed insights as well as current loading speeds. This data is pulled directly from users of your site and Google PageSpeed Insights. It makes it easy to measure page speed.

Different performance testing tools will result in different page speed scores. Every platform collects analytics and data differently, which can have an impact on your page speed score. We will discuss below the most important things you can do to improve your score.

How to speed up your page

Most of the steps required to increase page speed and website performance are built into the website builder you choose. You will only need to measure your page speed periodically and understand the impact of your content and design on your website’s performance.

You’ll find out how to improve a website’s speed and performance. This will ensure that your customers are happy and Google is satisfied. You will also find some useful tips to optimize your website’s speed.

These are the fundamentals of website speed optimization:

  1. Optimizing media
  2. Code simplified
  3. A CDN is a good choice
  4. Utilizing lazy load
  5. Avoiding plugins
  6. Mobile first
  7. Implementing caching
  8. Optimizing content

1. Optimizing media

It is possible to slow down page speed by using large images. Image quality is essential, but it must be balanced with page speed. There are many ways to compress images.

Elementor is the best website builder. It automatically optimizes media by cropping, transforming, and resizing it. This optimization ensures the highest quality across a variety of devices.

Your website’s load speed can be improved by changing how you save images. You can improve the speed of your website by using JPG images instead of PNG. Also, JPG files load faster and are smaller than SVG files. SVG files work well for shapes and logos. Finally, you can place larger images farther down the page to allow them to load slowly while your content above the fold loads.

Animation GIFs are the best way to make a page stand out. We love animated GIFs, but there is nothing that can slow down a page more. You should think carefully about using them. If you have to, consider placing them lower on your page. Design features can have a negative impact on page speed by limiting the animation’s frames and keeping the dimensions small.

Video is a great option for website speed optimization if animations are not an option. It uses smaller files than animations and has a higher quality.

Experts agree that simplicity is often better. “Reducing your site’s complexity is one of the best ways to improve site performance,” says Nolan Locke, WordPress.com Performance Tech Lead. This starts with your design and content–specifically your images–and extends into the setup and functionality of your website.

2. Code simplified

Page speed can be slowed down by complex code or poorly formatted code. Google will crawl your site faster if you use simplified code. This makes pages load faster and makes Google’s job easier. You can trust that your pages will be optimized for speed by choosing a website builder that uses simplified code.

3. A CDN is a good choice

A CDN (content distribution system) is a network of servers and data centers located in different geographic locations that deliver content to websites within their area. This increases content delivery speeds and reduces load time. CloudFlare’s global network of CDNs ensures that your pages are optimized for performance no matter where you are located.

4. Utilizing lazy load

Lazy load is the delay in loading website content or media that is not visible to the user. Many website builders use lazy loading to automatically load their pages. It is possible to do your part and place larger, or more detailed elements lower down on your page. This will allow them to load faster before users scroll down.

Consider what pages load first on each page of your website. You should prioritize the content above the fold, since this is what visitors see when they visit your website. It is important to keep the content simple but effective, so that visitors can see it while the page loads.

5. Avoiding plugins

Third party tracking codes, analytics and plugins can slow down your website’s speed. It is important to ensure that your website builder has all this functionality. This will allow you to avoid the often complicated dance of gathering as much user behaviour data as possible while optimizing your website for speed.

Do you still need additional data about your users or site performance? We recommend that you prioritize the use of tracking codes and plugins that analyze how users interact with your website. This will provide you with more useful feedback about its functionality. To fully understand the impact of plugins or pixels on page speed, it is possible to evaluate your site’s performance and page speed.

6. Mobile first

Optimizing your website’s performance is all about making sure that users and search engines enjoy the best mobile experience. This should be an integral part your website launch checklist. Google crawls mobile first and users are browsing more on mobile devices. Your mobile website should be considered a priority when optimizing page speed.

7. Implementing caching

Automatic caching is when a portion of your website’s content is saved and shown exactly the same way each time they visit again. This is an important factor to consider when improving page speed. It reduces load times by saving content and delivering it to repeat visitors to the site.

The popular WordPress plugin WPRocket automatically caches all pages so you can focus on building your website and not worrying about how fast it is loading.

8. Optimizing content

There are many meanings of content optimization. It refers to how content is displayed on a page so that it does not affect page speed or time to interact.

WordPress’ built in video player is a great example of content optimization. This allows you to display video on your pages without having to rely on external sources such as YouTube videos embedded. This can have a significant and negative impact on page speed. These features make it easier to design a site that is performance-driven.

Be aware of how many fonts you use and what size they are. Your page will load slower if you use more fonts and have more color options. Choose a few options that make an impact and stay with them. This applies to any website, no matter if you’re building one from scratch or optimizing an existing site to speed up its pages.