Guest posting has always been a point of contention among content marketers. If you don’t know the right way to do the same, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time and effort. Done right, it can drive next-level growth to your website. 

What are guest posts? How to do it? How to gauge the success of guest posts? What are the most significant metrics of guest posting? 

We know that these questions are haunting you for a long time, But not anymore! We are here to give you detailed insights regarding this topic. 

In this article, we will tap into the core of guest posting and explain it to you in simple terms. Here we will share a bullet-proof plan for your upcoming guest posts. Moreover, we will also go over the right metrics that determine the success of your guest posts. 

Let’s dive in. 

What Are Guest Posts?

What Are Guest Posts?

Simply put, guest posting is publishing your content on other respected websites. You’ll become a guest author when you write for other websites. 

And, of course, this is always a mutual benefit between both the guest post site and your own website. Because you receive an inbound link from the guest post site pointed toward your website. 

Whether you’re a content creator, marketing professional, or someone simply looking to make your website more visible, guest posts are an important part of SEO and digital marketing. 

When done right, you can gain followers, increase website traffic, and even establish your credibility. Guest posting is also beneficial for the website hosting your posts. When done correctly, you can get some valuable exposure for your website and build a reputable online presence. It’s an effective way to promote your content and build authority within your industry.

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How To Do A Guest Post?

How To Do A Guest Post_

You can not randomly post on any websites. The guest posting comes with certain best practices: 

1. Setting Clear Objectives 

Having clear objectives in mind can set the tone for your outreach, helping you create a compelling message for potential guest posters. 

Here are five key objectives that you should consider setting for any successful guest post:

  • Increase The Volume Of Referring Domains: One of the most important objectives is to increase the number of domains linking to your content. This should help improve SEO performance and drive referral traffic. Narrow down the analysis of quality and opportunity into categories, such as domain rating/relevancy and the likely domain type (e.g., .com, .org, .net, etc.). 
  • Generate More Referral Traffic: Another key objective is generating more traffic. This will increase the number of visitors to your site and give your content more exposure.
  • Improve SEO Performance: Linking to high-quality content will help to improve your SEO rankings. This is because Google views this content as more relevant, leading to a higher search ranking.
  • Increase Social Media Following: Getting people to share your content on social media helps build brand credibility and relationships with potential customers.
  • Building Brand Credibility: Having a guest post on a reputable website helps to increase trust in your brand.

2. List Of Placement Sites

For expert writers attempting to publish content on external websites, the greatest challenge is often being overwhelmed with too many requests, which leaves less time for exploring new opportunities or appearing on the sites they originally hoped to.

Set A Bar For Yourself: Set a realistic goal for your content and be honest with yourself about it. This will help you stay focused on your efforts and avoid any guest posting that involves low-quality, spammy, or volume-based guest posting.

How To Prepare Your List Of Prospective Guest Blogging Sites

  • Add sites that are highly relevant and come with great content.
  • Search for award-winning sites that resonate with your writing approach. 
  • Target high-authority websites that are acclaimed within the industry. 
  • Reach out to people and ask them about their most preferred knowledge discovery sites. 
  • There may be a few sights that are new but have created a buzz. You can’t afford to neglect these sites.

3. Prioritize Content Quality Over Anything 

Ensuring quality is top-of-mind when creating content for guest posting ensures that you maximize returns for your investment of time and resources. Quality content comes with depth, insight, types, value, and authoritative-relevant websites.

How To Quality Content For Guest Posting 

Generating engaging and thoughtful content is the hack here! And here’s how you can do it: 

  • Choose A Topic You Like: When you’re passionate about it, it allows you to express your unique perspective and encourages you to produce credible and interesting content.
  • Research The Topic Extensively: Make sure to understand the subject matter and stay updated on the latest trends before creating your content.
  • Develop Your Writing Style: Even if it might take some time, it is important to differentiate yourself from others by crafting your writing style.
  • Interview Sources Or Experts: Quoting business experts or interviewing the people involved in different projects that are relevant to your content provides additional information, increasing the value of your content. 
  • Ask For Feedback: Once you’ve come up with a first draft, get feedback from those in your network before progressing further. 
  • Have An Opinion: Quality content should attract attention and challenge the reader. Are your ideas creative, innovative, and thought-provoking? 

Authoritative Websites 

Initially, you may find the process tricky, but here are some quick tips to make the process easier:

  • Look For Limited Amounts Of Ads: Websites that contain many ads can indicate a lower-quality website with less reader-focused content.
  • Check For Content Length: Long-form content generally indicates higher quality websites because it signals that the website is committed to providing helpful content for readers.
  • Ensure That Web-Ready Content Is Present: Cross-device usability signals and other web-specific elements should be present. This is a sign of a professionally managed website and a good fit for posting content.
  • The Number Of Social Shares: Social sharing is a great way to gauge the quality of a website. Look for high levels of engagement, likes, and shares to indicate a higher-quality website for guest posting.
  • Check For Unique Insights: This can be done easily through simple keyword searches. The more unique content, the more likely the website is authoritative.
  • Grammar And Readability: Quality websites often employ editors and copywriters adept at spotting typos and misspellings. 

Why Are Metrics Important In Guest Posting?

Metrics provide you with data-based, actionable insights into the effectiveness and progress of your campaigns. 

Without metrics, it’s difficult to determine whether your efforts are successful. Measuring the success of guest posting campaigns is more difficult than other online marketing campaigns. 

Guest posts often appear on different platforms and with other formats, making it difficult to compare performance. 

Instead of relying solely on impressions or page views, metrics can provide a much better indication of success – by measuring the specific ROI of each guest post. 

Metrics help to compare the success of each platform, format, and post, allowing you to define what works and what needs to be changed. 

By taking advantage of available metrics, you can optimize your strategy and increase your overall performance. Guest posting can produce high ROI only if you focus on the right metrics. 

Set realistic goals and measure the right factors – such as traffic, conversions, engagement, lead quality, and more – to get the most out of your guest posting efforts. Please don’t leave it up to chance; keep the guesswork out of place. 

The Right Metrics Of Guest Posting 

To get a clear picture of your guest posting efforts, you should know how to analyze them accurately. And here are they: 

1. Post Interactions

Post Interactions

The number of shares, comments, and interactions with your article gives an idea of its reach. A well-known figure in your field may find your content helpful and decide to share it.

One of the individuals at a firm actively looking for someone like you may take notice of your work, which indicates you bring practical value to the table. 

2. Bounce Rate And Conversions

Bounce Rate And Conversions

No matter our titles, we all have a part in ensuring we reach our end goal. Everyone has a unique way of achieving the desired outcome. Still, the way to success is to develop the most effective methods for showing the number of people affected by a given product. Checking bounce rate and conversion stats is ideal for measuring our Return On Investment.

3. Referral Traffic

Referral Traffic

Being in the industry for a while, we realized that referral traffic is the best way to gauge the success of any guest posting effort. 

But do you know exactly what referral traffic is? 

Referral traffic is the number of users visiting your website from the content you posted on the contributor’s site. 

4. Direct Traffic

Direct Traffic

When your article gets published on a certain site, you may see a surge in direct traffic numbers. This is something we have noticed happening multiple times. If you create a piece of guest-contributed content, you’ll likely be able to see your direct traffic increase!

Visitors may be inclined to view your name and business when they read your article published online. If they like it, they might be interested in learning more about you, which often leads to them searching it up on Google (referred to as organic search traffic). 

Alternatively, they could click on a link within the article (calling it referral traffic) and type your website directly into the address bar (known as direct traffic). On that same note, an enhancement in organic search or referral traffic may result in a surge of direct traffic, as it is a category that your analytics system cannot log. 

5. Social Shares

Social Shares 

It allows us to track overnight guest-contributed articles based on their social Shares. 

Although some websites list the number of times an article is shared, you can also check it from the number of interactions it has. 

If your post is at the center of the conversation, with people referring to it, linking to your sites, and bringing more visitors to you, then that’s something to celebrate!

6. Number Of Searches

Number Of Searches

Placing guest content correctly will benefit your brand beyond just website referral clicks. It will drive company recognition with your desired audience. Therefore, it is essential to be mindful of where you post articles. Choose wisely, and your brand name’s search volume will increase, resulting in greater visibility.

And That’s A Wrap! 

We have already mentioned the secrets of guest posting here. Anyone planning to make the most out of your guest posting efforts will surely benefit from the information mentioned above.

With the wealth of opportunities it offers, guest posting is still a favorite for many people. 

Ending the article with a high spirit. We hope you enjoyed exploring guest posting the way we did. From the basics to the relevant metrics, understanding everything is important.

Don’t let anything deter your guest posting success. 
If you have anything to ask, feel free to contact us.

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Mashum Mollah
Content Writer

Mashum Mollah is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO at Viacon, a digital marketing agency that drive visibility, engagement, and proven results. He blogs at BloggerOutreach.io.