Every little thing You Must Know

Not solely is visitor running a blog nicely and alive, it’s nonetheless extremely efficient. On this put up, you’ll be taught every thing it’s essential to learn about visitor running a blog. 

However first, let’s make sure that we’re on the identical web page.

Visitor running a blog is the observe of writing and publishing a weblog put up on one other particular person’s or firm’s web site.

For instance, I wrote a visitor put up for Develop & Convert a number of years in the past:

Visitor running a blog is a win-win for each the author and the writer.

Advantages for the author:

• Construct hyperlinks again to their website
• Develop relationships with editors and publishers
• Expose their model to a brand new viewers
• Construct their repute and place themselves as a thought chief

Profit for the writer:

• Leverage the experience and expertise of writers. For instance, we couldn’t have written about Zapier or Pet Eager’s firsthand web optimization expertise with out visitor writers.

Getting your first visitor put up printed might be daunting. I’ve been there. Following the steps under will make the method simpler and maximize your probabilities of success.

1. Discover visitor running a blog alternatives

Most individuals use Google search operators to search out blogs with “write for us” pages. Nonetheless, if everybody’s following this tactic, then everybody’s discovering the identical alternatives. Competitors will likely be rife, and publishers could ignore your pitch. 

You don’t must restrict your self to this small pool of blogs. Even when they don’t promote it, most blogs will likely be blissful to publish a visitor put up so long as it’s good.

So right here’s methods to discover related blogs to pitch:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Content material Explorer
2. Enter a broad key phrase or phrase associated to your area of interest
3. Choose In title from the drop-down menu
4. Run the search

Right here, you may see greater than 2 million potential alternatives. That’s too many, so let’s slender the listing down by making use of these filters:

1. Area Ranking (DR) from 30 to 60
2. Click on the One web page per area filter
3. Click on the Exclude homepages filter
4. Click on the Exclude subdomains filter

Then click on on the Web sites tab. 

These are the potential web sites you possibly can pitch.

2. Develop visitor put up concepts

The blogs you pitch will need successful content material concepts. So how will you give you good visitor put up concepts? 

Listed here are some strategies you may use:

Copycat Method

Three issues are true:

1. Each weblog desires extra search site visitors.
2. To get search site visitors, it’s essential to goal subjects persons are looking for.
3. Each weblog has extra subjects to jot down than assets to cowl them.

So why not assist your goal blogs out? Discover subjects they need to be rating for and pitch them these subjects.

Right here’s methods to discover them:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Aggressive Evaluation instrument
2. Enter the area of your goal weblog within the Goal part
3. Add the primary three urged competing domains within the Opponents part
4. Click on Evaluate

This report exhibits you the key phrases the competing domains are rating for, however your goal weblog isn’t. 

Undergo the report and search for key phrases which might be related to your goal weblog. For instance, this looks like a possible matter to pitch:

Refresh Method

Refreshing outdated content material can present an enormous site visitors increase, as seen after we up to date our put up about free web optimization instruments:

Your goal weblog will possible have outdated content material that has declined in search site visitors. Pitch them an replace.

Right here’s methods to discover pages with declining site visitors:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Website Explorer
2. Enter the area of your goal weblog
3. Go to the High pages report
4. Set the Evaluate filter to Earlier yr
5. Type the Site visitors change column from lowest to highest

This can present you pages in your goal weblog which have the most important decline in search site visitors for the reason that earlier yr. Undergo the report and look out for appropriate subjects, particularly these with declines in site visitors and key phrase positions.

For instance, SmartBlogger’s put up on membership websites has dropped in each key phrase positions and search site visitors:

For those who had been writing for SmartBlogger, this might be a superb matter to pitch.

Robin Hood Method

Well-liked blogs are widespread for one purpose: They’ve nice content material. Lesser-known blogs are lesser-known for the other purpose: They’ve but to publish tons of nice content material.

So why not take content material concepts from the highest blogs and supply them to lesser-known ones? 

We name this the Robin Hood Method, named after the English people hero who stole from the wealthy and gave to the poor.

Right here’s methods to execute the Robin Hood Method:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Website Explorer
2. Enter the area of a high-DR weblog in your area of interest
3. Go to the High pages report
4. Toggle SERP titles on

Look by the report and see if there’s any concept that resonates. Put a singular spin and pitch it to a lesser-known weblog.

For instance, when you’re writing for a private finance weblog, this looks like a superb matter to be impressed by:

A possible concept to pitch might be “free (or low cost) issues to do on a date.”

Splintering Method

Our hyperlink constructing information is so complete it spans 5 chapters:

Every chapter might be a put up on its personal. 

So we are able to break this put up into “splinters” and create standalone articles. Every of those splintered articles might be pitched as a visitor put up.

Since we already did the analysis by creating the unique piece, the “splintered” articles would possible not take a lot time to write. 

Perspective Method

You may simply reuse a subject by switching up the attitude. 

For instance, let’s say we wrote a visitor put up titled “Finest Distant Jobs for College students.” We are able to cowl the identical matter for various publications through a number of views:

3. Pitch the blogs

This step is each the best and essentially the most nerve-wracking. It’s straightforward as a result of it’s merely an e-mail you ship. It’s nerve-wracking as a result of your destiny is within the different social gathering’s fingers.

It doesn’t must be that anxiety-inducing, although. Listed here are some suggestions to enhance your probabilities of getting your pitch accepted:

Learn the rules

If the location you’re pitching has a “write for us” web page or writing tips, learn and observe them. For instance, that is what CoSchedule expects:

Discover the proper e-mail

If the publication has a “write for us” web page, then it’s possible it’ll present both an e-mail deal with or a type. 

In any other case, you’ll want to search out it.

Publications and blogs are usually managed by a managing editor, head of content material or, in the event that they’re a small website, the proprietor themself. So that you wish to first be sure to determine who that particular person is. 

You may often discover them by visiting the “groups” or “about” web page. For instance, a fast scroll on our “group” web page exhibits it’s best to pitch to our head of content material, Joshua Hardwick:

If the “group” web page is uninformative, then a search on LinkedIn or Twitter often suffices.

When you’ve recognized that particular person, use an e-mail discovery instrument like Hunter to search out their e-mail. Add their title and web site, and Hunter will do its magic:

Write a tremendous outreach e-mail

A number of years in the past, I wrote a visitor put up for Develop & Convert. Benji Hyam, the co-founder, was so impressed with my outreach e-mail that he did an evaluation.

Publications get quite a bit of emails. You must stand out; in any other case, your e-mail will likely be ignored.

About to publish the first visitor put up on our website since March 2016. Within the final 1.5yrs we’ve had 100s of friends posts requests & 1 good pitch.

— Benji Hyam (@benjihyam) November 7, 2017

Relatively than search for a template that you would be able to copy-paste, you wish to perceive the rules behind what makes a superb outreach e-mail.

You may have a look at Benji’s evaluation of my e-mail to see what publications expect. You’d additionally do nicely to learn the put up under and observe the rules it lays out.

4. Write the visitor put up

In case your pitch is accepted, then it’s time to write.

I like to recommend beginning first with the define. Some websites could request this. However even when they don’t, a top level view will assist flesh out your ideas, arrange the put up, and stop clean web page syndrome. 

To create a top level view, it’s essential to know what subtopics to cowl. The simplest technique to discover these subtopics is to take a look at the frequent key phrase rankings amongst top-ranking pages and eyeball the listing for subtopics.

Right here’s how:

1. Enter your goal key phrase into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer
2. Scroll all the way down to the SERP overview
3. Choose the top-ranking pages you wish to analyze
4. Click on Open in and select Content material hole

For instance, if we analyze the subject “affiliate marketing online,” we’ll see that the top-ranking pages additionally rank for:

• what’s affiliate marketing online
• methods to develop into an affiliate marketer
• methods to do affiliate marketing online

These would make good H2s for a weblog put up on “affiliate marketing online.”

When you’ve created your define, all that’s left is to fill within the “gaps,” i.e., write the precise put up. If they’ve one, be sure to return to the rules, learn it rigorously, and observe it to a T.

The place related, don’t overlook to incorporate hyperlinks again to your personal content material. Don’t overdo it, although; one to 2 hyperlinks ought to suffice.

5. Promote your visitor put up

It is best to count on some back-and-forth because the writer edits and sends suggestions about your draft. As soon as they’re happy, they’ll inform you of a publishing date.

Don’t simply disappear when the put up is printed. Comply with up! Thank the editor. And if there’s a remark part, keep round and reply.

Assist promote the put up by sharing it on social media too:

You may even go the additional mile by selling the put up in related communities. In my case, Benji did it for me by submitting it to GrowthHackers. However I stayed round to reply feedback.

It was possible the explanation why it acquired a lot engagement:

It was even the #2 put up in that yr’s year-end roundup: 

Every little thing above will get you 90% of the way in which. However visitor running a blog shouldn’t be a mattress of roses. So I’m sharing the ideas under that can assist you overcome a number of the frequent roadblocks.

1. Pitch extra blogs than you may deal with

The merciless actuality of visitor running a blog is that even when they’re good, your emails might be rejected or ignored. That’s no fault of yours—publications are simply too busy.

So right here’s a controversial tip: pitch the identical subjects to a number of blogs. Then supply the article to whoever replies first or has the next authority (when you get plenty of replies).

This manner, you’re by no means missing for visitor posts. You received’t even have to be anxious about rejection, for there will likely be one other weblog keen to simply accept your concepts.

For those who get multiple reply, merely inform the reality:

Sorry, you weren’t responding for a couple of days, so one other weblog took this concept. I’ll be in contact with extra article concepts that’ll be simply as good.

2. Write for blogs which have by no means linked to you earlier than

Our research of 1 billion pages exhibits a powerful correlation between natural site visitors and the variety of backlinks from distinctive web sites (referring domains).

That could be one purpose why you wish to write for blogs which have by no means linked to you earlier than.

To search out distinctive web sites, hit the Spotlight unlinked dropdown and add your web site as you’re following step #1:

These instruments will make your visitor running a blog course of extra environment friendly:

1. Ahrefs – Analysis visitor put up alternatives, discover content material gaps to pitch blogs, construct your outlines, examine backlinks from visitor posts, and monitor your visitor put up rankings.
2. Hunter – Discover the e-mail addresses of web site house owners and editors.
3. Pitchbox – Ship outreach emails at scale.
4. Ahrefs’ free AI writing instruments – Generate outlines, titles, and proofread your drafts.
5. ChatGPT – Generate visitor put up concepts, create outlines, flesh out posts, proofread your work, and extra.

Listed here are some ceaselessly requested questions on visitor running a blog:

How does visitor running a blog assist web optimization?

Hyperlinks are an necessary Google rating issue. By writing a visitor put up, you may construct hyperlinks again to your pages and, due to this fact, increase their efficiency in serps.

Is visitor running a blog unhealthy for web optimization?

In 2014, Google’s former head of internet spam, Matt Cutts, printed a weblog put up proclaiming that “visitor running a blog is finished.” Nonetheless, he was primarily referring to low-quality visitor running a blog printed on low-quality websites for hyperlinks. 

Writing a priceless weblog put up for a longtime website with a related viewers will nonetheless assist your web optimization and is unlikely to harm it.

Can I get referral site visitors from visitor running a blog?

A number of years in the past, our chief advertising officer, Tim Soulo, requested 500+ bloggers how a lot site visitors they acquired from their visitor articles.

The common referral site visitors throughout 239 visitor articles was solely 50 visits.

So sure, you may get referral site visitors from visitor running a blog—however don’t set your expectations too excessive.

Remaining ideas

This information comprises every thing our group has discovered about visitor running a blog over the previous few years. I hope it’ll assist take your expertise to a brand new degree. 

Did I miss out on something? Let me know on Twitter or Threads.