If you have been following a lot of the popular Internet Marketing and Blogging blogs out there, you have probably seen an increase in people talking about how guest posting is a great way to build an audience. But before you start writing for other blogs, make sure you do your research to see if it is worth your while.
Know the Domain Stats
Use SEO software like Website Auditor or other similar services that will pull in all of the important, high-level domain statistics. This can give you a quick snapshot of the domains credibility and its value from a search engine’s standpoint.
Know Their Traffic
It is important to see how much traffic the site is getting, so you can judge how much exposure your guest post will receive. Of course you should just look at the raw traffic numbers, but it is at least a good indication of how popular the blog is. Try using Compete.com, which will allow you to enter in a domain and it will give you traffic estimates.
Know Their Subscribers
Using a service called FeedCompare, you can see how many RSS subscribers a website has. Sometimes the site will actually post their subscribers right on their website. RSS subscribers are a great gauge of how many loyal readers a blog has. Usually there will be a correlation between the amount of traffic your website gets and the number of RSS subscribers.
Know the Audience
If you own multiple BMW Dealership across the state of Florida, would you rather drive 1,000 people from a PR 7 domain that is more broad to the automotive industry? or would you rather drive 100 visitors from a local blog that focuses on luxury foreign cars?
The answer to that question can be difficult, depending on how you look at it. If your strategy is to just drive sheer traffic to your site and acquire a high PR inbound link, you would probably want to go with the PR 7 domain. However if you are only guest blogging to try and bring local customers into your store, it makes more sense to post on the local blog that is specific to your niche.
Keep these different guest blogging strategies in mind before you figure out which sites you want to write for.
- Guest post for Credibility
- Guest post for Links
- Guest post for Traffic
- Guest post for Relevant Traffic
The best scenario is to find a blog where you are able to combine generating a lot of traffic, while catering to your targeted demographic. You should also be analyzing your Google Analytics stats after your post goes live. This way you can look at things like Time on Site and Bounce Rate to see how engaged the referral traffic is.
Know the Reader’s Engagement
Take some time to look through a number of their posts to see how involved the readers and community is. Are people sharing the content? Are they posting comments? Getting your content in front of people who are active in industry blogs, are great people to try and get as loyal readers to your blog.
