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Home  /  Blogging • Guest Blogging  /  How to Make Guest Blogging Work for You in 2017

How to Make Guest Blogging Work for You in 2017

Bamidele Onibalusi December 31, 2016
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Ever since Matt Cutts published an article in 2014 about the “decay” of guest blogging, people have pretty much assumed that guest blogging is dead.

Even though Matt Cutts was mainly addressing guest blogging being abused as a link building tactic at the time, many people agreed that guest blogging isn’t just dead for link building, but for other purposes as well. Is guest blogging really dead, though?

I have been guest blogging for 5 years now, and I’ve noticed a sharp and steady decline in the results I get from guest posts; a few years back, I can easily get hundreds of visitors from the author bio of my guest post on an average blog.

Not anymore! It is now a struggle to get 20 visits from a guest post on a high profile blog. Does this mean that guest blogging is dead? Not necessarily.

Guest Blogging Has Evolved

In 2015, I changed how I approach guest blogging. Here are some screenshots to show the result I have gotten since changing my approach to guest blogging:

Here’s a screenshot showing one month traffic from my guest post on JeffBullas.com:

One month traffic from my guest post on JeffBullas.com

Here’s a screenshot showing one month traffic from my guest post on ThePennyHoarder.com:

One month traffic from my guest post on ThePennyHoarder.com

Here’s a screenshot showing one month traffic from my guest post on BloggingTips.com:

One month traffic from my guest post on BloggingTips.com

The above screenshots show direct referral traffic from 3 guest posts I did in 2015; this didn’t include traffic that came from feed readers, or from email that was sent to subscribers of these blogs, so the actual traffic is much more than what you see in the above screenshot.

While many people claim that guest blogging is dead, I’m still able to get good results from guest blogging by changing my approach. Based on an analysis of my most successful guest posts in 2015, I’ll be sharing some tips to help you make guest blogging work for you in 2017.

Step 1: Find the Right Blog

Many people wrongly assume that all guest posts are equal. They are not. A guest post on a site with a million monthly readers has more potential than a guest post on a site with hundred monthly readers.

A quick look at ThePennyHoarder.com, one of the sites from my examples above, show that the site has 1.9 million active followers at the time of writing this article (this includes Facebook fans, Twitter followers and email subscribers).

The site also gets around 2 million unique visitors monthly. In other words, it isn’t just another blog from my friend who wants me to contribute a guest post. It is a real, authoritative blog with a lot of readers.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with writing for your friend’s blog. However, if you want to get results from your guest blogging efforts you need to make sure that the blogs you’re targeting have a lot of readers.

My guest post for The Penny Hoarder ended up getting shared over 2,600 times, and the link back to my website in the bio resulted in hundreds of subscribers to my blog.

Another example is my guest post on JeffBullas.com. JeffBullas.com has hundreds of thousands of monthly readers. It doesn’t have as much readers as The Penny Hoarder, but it publishes significantly less content. As a result, my guest post there got more exposure and resulted in over a thousand visitors the month it was published.

One thing all the blogs I used in my examples have in common is that they are very popular blogs. As a result, my guest posts on these blogs were read by tens of thousands of people.

Step 2: Ensure Relevancy between Your Blog and Your Target Blog

Once you’ve established the blog you plan to guest post on, the next step is to establish relevancy between your blog and that blog.

Just because a blog has millions of readers does not mean you’ll be able to get their readers to pay attention to you; if you run a marketing blog and decide to guest post on a sports blog, you will get little results no matter how big that sports blog is.

If you’re guest blogging for a completely unrelated blog, you can increase your chances of success by linking the topic of your host blog and the topic of your blog.

For example, as someone who owns a writing blog, if I wanted to write a guest post for an android blog, even though the blog is completely unrelated to my blog, I can still ensure guest blogging success by writing an article titled “20 Writing Apps for Android Users.”

This way, a segment of the blog’s readers who are writers, or who are interested in writing, will like my article and I can get some of them to visit my blog.

Usually, it’s best to only guest post on blogs that are related to yours but, in case you have an opportunity to guest post on a bigger blog, make sure there’s relevancy between the topic of the blog and the topic of your blog.

Step 3: Make Resource Articles a Priority

Of recent, I’ve gotten the most results from my guest posts that were resources. I’m not surprised, because I’ve had great experience with resource content on my blogs as well.

The average resource article on my blog can get up to 10,000% more views compared to the average article on my blog, so I wasn’t surprised to see resource articles perform really well as guest posts.

Resources work because they give people reading your article the solution they need instead of tips. As a result, they get more shares, links, and traffic. Here are good examples of resources in different niches.

Here are signs that your content is a good resource:

  • Instead of giving people tips, a resource gives them resources that makes it instantly possible to implement those tips
  • A good resource is very specific. It focuses on providing solution to just one problem
  • It gives people a lot of options. The more options the better; a resource that features 30 items is usually preferred to a resource that features 2 or 3 items. On my blogs, resources that include a lot of options usually get more shares than resources that include fewer options

To ensure that more people like and share your resource, it also helps to include additional information that can help people decide on which of your resource is best for them. Don’t just give them a list. Give them information that makes it easy for them to decide what to do with your list.

Step 4: Create a Content Upgrade to Accompany Your Resource

To really benefit from your guest posts, make sure you accompany them with content upgrades. A content upgrade is something extra you present to readers of your content, which is related to what they just read, usually in exchange for their email address. Brian Dean goes into details on how content upgrades work in this article.

Usually, your content upgrade can be a PDF version of your resource, or a checklist, or something else similar to your guest post. It is important that it is relevant, though.

The below screenshot shows me presenting my content upgrade in my guest post on JeffBullas.com:

JeffBullas.com content upgrade

I introduced the content upgrade after the conclusion of my article, and before my author bio. This particular content upgrade has so far resulted in over a thousand visitors, so it’s a massive success.

Conclusion

What is working for you in terms of guest blogging? Kindly let us know by commenting below.

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Bamidele Onibalusi

Bamidele Onibalusi is a world-renowned blogger who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, FastCompany and other major publications. He teaches people how to make money writing at Writers in Charge.

22 Comments

  1. Raghu Rao
    26/01/2016 at 6:28 PM

    Wonderful post Bamidele, I wrote a post about Guest blogging too recently but with a completely different perspective. I just put together a lost of Top guest blogging websites. I did list writers in charge too. Coming to this post, very well written and an absolute gem in terms of letting all us bloggers know how it needs to be done.

    Thank You!
    Raghu.

    • Bamidele Onibalusi
      02/02/2016 at 4:17 PM

      Thank you, Raghu. I’m glad you liked the post 🙂

  2. Mukesh Negi
    26/01/2016 at 8:19 PM

    Hi Bamidele Onibalusi,
    Amazing traffic via Guest posting but my question is that if i have health niche and i do guest posting in SEO or Blogging website. In that case will i get any benifts in terms of traffic and backlinks.

    • Bamidele Onibalusi
      02/02/2016 at 4:18 PM

      Hi Mukesh,

      If you have a health blog/website, it is recommended to guest post on blogs in the health niche; writing for blogs in the SEO or blogging niche will give you little to no benefit.

      Best Regards,
      Bamidele

  3. Neeraj Mishra
    27/01/2016 at 1:33 AM

    Before reading this article I use to consider guest blogging as a source of backlinks only. But now I can clearly see that apart from backlinks there are so many other benefits like getting some genuine traffic and subscribers.

  4. Vishwajeet Kumar
    27/01/2016 at 5:40 PM

    Excellent Post. Guest blogging is indeed a great way to generate quality backlinks as well as also increase your online reputation and credibility. Guest posting in Authoritative sites are very helpful. Thanks again for this beautiful writing.

    • Bamidele Onibalusi
      02/02/2016 at 4:20 PM

      Indeed, Vishwajeet. Guest blogging is like a two-edged sword, and guest posts on the right blogs come with a lot of benefits. I’m glad you liked the post 🙂

  5. Sunil Kumar
    01/02/2016 at 11:51 AM

    Yes, Guest Blogging is helps in getting traffic to our website and one of the important thing is that providing the quality content for the bloggers. If they really like your writings you will get more chances to do guest post.

  6. Manoranjan Sahu
    02/02/2016 at 4:06 PM

    It’s a good way to increase visitor numbers plus backlink to site. Technology and health and entertainment are topic that many people get to opportunity to guest post.

  7. Karthik Linga
    04/02/2016 at 12:34 PM

    Hey Bamidele !!

    That’s great points about guest blogging works, but still i have some questions regarding blogging. I have general blog with some popular categories. Also i am providing a free guest posting on my blog for all guest authors, but still that every authors are not doing for their own blog. Everyone doing posting for their clients and also they greatly looking for back links from my website blog. So the questions is. Is any problem for my blog, if i given a do follow links to others website (their clients) ? Increase in number of out bounding links will leads to low quality status for my blog ??

    Please clear my problem…

    Thanks
    Karthik Linga

  8. jaidayal Saraswat
    06/02/2016 at 4:16 PM

    if you are a newbie blogger then Guest blogging is one the best way to introduce yourself in front of your readers. It will help you to get some Link as well as a bit relationship with your readers.

  9. Sidhu Burre
    09/02/2016 at 9:52 PM

    Hi Bamidele,
    Thanks for the great article on Guest Blogging. It is the best way to get quality backlinks and good PA and DA. Recently I examined one of my blogs by writing guest posts and I seen the SERP’s results showing on top. Anyway thanks for the article.

    Thank you
    Sidhu Burre

  10. Anuradha Chawla
    20/03/2016 at 5:40 PM

    Just wanted to say thank you for writing such an informative guide! I’ve really enjoyed reading it and it’s helped me a lot so thank you! Guest blogging is indeed a powerful SEO technique to promote yourself and your sites. Guest posting like any skill has a learning curve. I do agree it can be still valuable.
    Can you please share the list of valuable blogs or any link where i can find the list of blogs for guest blogging?
    Thanks

  11. Junaid Shahid
    31/12/2016 at 10:34 PM

    Thanks for this amazing guide line, yeah I also observed that guest blogging is abused for the sake of backlinks but guest blogging is the innovation in blogging career to exchange the ideas and potential of readers. I really glad to know that you have published guest post on really big blogging sites. Best of luck for your 2k17 guest blogging.

  12. Odira Ndubuisi
    03/01/2017 at 1:57 PM

    I have often thought guess blogging doesn’t worth the effort but reading this post changed my perspective.
    Thanks.

  13. Bashir Ahmed
    04/01/2017 at 3:05 AM

    Hi Onibalusi,

    Yes, you’re right here. Guest blogging is not dead yet but the approach is changed now. Company/Agencies just want to see their client links in Guest posts but the real author/blogger can understand the benefits of guest blogging.

    Guest blogging will not only give you so much exposure but will give you Traffic/Backlinks. On the other hand Guest blogging is also for building the relationship with fellow bloggers.

    There are few points to follow when your guest post is published:

    – Make sure to share your guest post on your social media accounts.
    – Link that post in your own blog posts or portfolio.
    – Interact with the readers in the comment section by replying their comments.

    Thanks for sharing the other tips to follow in 2017.

  14. Paul Clapp
    04/01/2017 at 4:34 AM

    I’ve had mixed success with guest blogging and am still a little skeptical but you’re article offers some interesting points., thanks for the info.

  15. Amar kumar
    04/01/2017 at 3:33 PM

    Hey Bamidele,

    Guest blogging is incredible strategy to develop traffic to website or we may say it plays crucial role to gain additional traffic to our website.

    Strategy to generate traffic to website is changing day by day due to huge competitor but guest post is effective one and almost blogger follow this strategy.

    Commonly people take help from social media to gain traffic to their website, this option is also valuable. Here I have learned many things as additional advantage of guest post this will very beneficial in way of gaining traffic. Eventually, thanks for reveling a light on this topic.

    With best wishes,

    Amar kumar

  16. Robin
    08/01/2017 at 11:00 AM

    Hello Bamidele
    I am happy to find your article that is highly expected to me recently. Currently, I am running a niche site for affiliate commission and, writing for that regularly.

    I am little afraid about link building. However, would like to write as a guest writer now. But, I am not sure that is it be the right thing to exchange the receprocal link with the guest blogging site and my own niche site as my one is the new site.

    Please advise me regarding this issue.

    Thanks for your resourceful article.

  17. Pavitra Kumar
    09/01/2017 at 11:35 AM

    Hello, Bamidele Onibalusi

    This is the really helpful post for the link building from the guest blogging.
    Guest Blogging is the best way to get quality backlinks and good PA and DA. I think this is the nice and the safe way of link building, also it is very effective for our blog. Keep up the good work. Now its time for me to start guest posting..!!
    Thanks for sharing 🙂 Happy Blogging 🙂

  18. Debayan
    10/01/2017 at 12:16 PM

    Finding the right blog to guest post on is surely the key.

    What do you think is more important with respect to the blog you will guest blog on, its Alexa rank (as a metric for its number of readers) or its back link profile?

    • Kulwant Nagi
      22/01/2017 at 9:16 PM

      I would say, link profile.

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