Does accepting Guest posts help with your SEO? Here is what website owners have to share.

For quite some time, we have been deliberating if we should open the Surveysensum blog to guest authors.

When it comes to guest posts or guest blogging, most SEO forums are dominated by the one-sided discussion i.e. How to score more guest posts linking back to your website? There are hardly any meaningful discussions or studies that talk about how having a ‘write for us’ or accepting guest content can help you with your SEO.

I think guest posting has a negative stigma associated with it because it’s a form of content that has been abused by spammers. Too many SEOs have pitched sites with generic content that won’t do anything or submitted articles that were very poorly written and full of grammar mistakes. These experiences have left a bad taste in the mouths of many site owners. However, it’s important to remember that a guest post is really no different than a post your brand wrote. The only difference is that you didn’t have put in the work to write it. With a guest post, you’re getting content that could earn you sales at absolutely no cost with minimal effort. ~ David, Green Wellness Life

Having guest authors has its own advantage which outweighs the negativity and stigma.

“Connecting with industry experts who have a good understanding of their field and a solid following means having a bigger audience for the guest content. It can lead to more exposure for both the author and domain and creates a potential for cross-traffic between sites”, says Rochelle Burnside from the Best Company.

When it comes to SEO, allowing an expert to write on your website has its own distinct advantages.

“You get free quality content from the expert authors”, says Daniela Andreevska, Marketing Director at Mashvisor. She adds, “Many of our contributors are experts in very specific areas, and they are able to provide us the content which we wouldn’t have covered otherwise. Moreover, their writing style is different from our content writers, which is important for attracting different types of readers and users. Another important advantage is that we manage to get very high-quality content for free. This means that we are able to publish more content that increases the number of organic sessions on our website.”

Source -https://optinmonster.com/blogging-statistics/

• The guest authors will promote their article enabling you to reach their audience for free.
• Your blog gets a diversity of content, a broader set of authors bring a new and unique perspective. Taylor Randolph who is a travel blogger and owns Thetravellinsouk shared this “Our favorite guest posts are ones that provide local insight into a popular city, tell an exciting story about an off-the-beaten-path destination, or give unique travel tips and advice. Guest posts must be well-written, should provide content that we have not already written about, and be relevant for our readers. The reality is that we cannot experience everything that a destination has to offer in one trip. Guest bloggers allow us to provide more valuable information like the things to do, where to stay, and what to eat at these awesome locations.”
• “You get the chance to build relationships with the people working in the common space”, suggests Jayant Gosain founder of The Tech Toys. Anastasiia Khlystova, content marketing manager with HelpCrunch elaborated this nicely “We never publish anything irrelevant for our target audience, so I don’t see why not. However, there’s another reason we accept guest posts and it has an indirect effect on our SEO. Guest posts are a great way to build strong partnerships with other companies. Later on, we can exchange co-mentions, link back to each other from other guest posts of ours, and promote each other on social media. It is a reliable foundation for future collaboration.”
• “Offering an external link to an authority website enhances trust. Also, allowing guest posts boosts the domain authority of your blog as you add external linking to credible sources. There’s a good chance that when you allow someone to guest post on your website, they will return the favor on their own blog. This is an easy and effective way to get backlinks to your own website”, says Jeff Moyer who owns an SEO agency Advance Web Solutions.

One benefit of publishing guest posts is that I get a break from producing content on my own. It’s easy to get burnt out as a writer, especially when you generally cover the same topics as we do at our parenting blog. says Varda Meyers Epstein, a Parenting Expert and Writer at Kars4Kids. It can be difficult to find new angles to write about in parenting and education, week after week after week (though coronavirus has given me TONS of new writing material).

What are the criteria for accepting a guest post?

“We do not have a specific cadence to abide by. If your content fits our site, we will find a place for it”, says Lauren Torregrossa from CareerPlug.

If you are struggling to decide a criterion, this advice from Rochelle Burnside will surely help. “We choose our guest posts based on the previous writing samples, authority in the niche for which the writers are submitting the content, and the quality of the content they’re pitching.”

For example, an accountant who has done primary research to publish content related to accounting and several samples on high DA sites is more likely to be accepted than a marketing specialist who wants to write about basic accounting concepts without writing samples.

“The content has to be unique, something which we have not already written, and which is of interest to our target audience”, suggests Daniela from Mashvisor.

Certain other aspects to be checked are if the article is written in a conversational tone (first person), if it is beyond 1,000 words, or if it does not explicitly promote a product or service.

We pick websites in a similar niche but not those which are direct competition so that we can benefit from some of their traffic. ~Olga Mykhoparkina, CMO at Better Proposals.

Who is writing the post is as important as the topic itself.

The criteria for selecting a solid guest post is that the topic should be relevant to our audience and what we do. The background of the individual should also tie-in to that topic (I.e. an entrepreneur with a startup sharing small business advice or a financial firm providing small business funding tips).” — Deborah Sweeney, CEO, MyCorporation.com

Is it important to have a write for us page?

Among other findings, the answer to this question came as a surprise to me. I am personally in favor of having a write for us page as it helps you connect with other content contributors.

Though most publications have a write for us page which clearly lays out the norms, writing style, kind of content they accept, But SEO folks have a different story to share altogether.

Kevin Rodrigues, founder of Gardening Mentor says. “We do not have a ‘write for us’ page as that would bring a lot of low-quality applications for guest posting just to gain a link. We want people to guest post the content that is actually beneficial for our readers.”

Jayant also has a similar opinion, in his words, “‘Write For Us’ page attracts a lot of spam websites who just write for the sake of backlink. That kind of content not only looks suspicious to Google but it also degrades the content quality of your own website. Moreover, it also takes extra time to scrutinize the relevant emails in your inbox.

For anyone who genuinely wants to publish the content can contact me via the Contact Us page which is always easy to spot. I simply convey them the criteria for the guest post via email and it works brilliantly for both the parties.”

Tejas Nair, founder and freelancer blogger at Nairtejas also has a similar perspective on this, he says, “No. This is fodder for spam. I instead submit my website across guest posting sites and gain leads from there.

“Even though I accept guest posts, I do not currently have a page inviting these. I analyzed that when I did have this page, it attracted a lot of questionable sources who, despite the guest post requirements being clearly set out on the submission page, would propose content that had nothing to do with my site. Hence, I removed this page and find that I still receive proposals for guest posts which, generally, tend to be of a higher quality than before”, says Anna Barker, Founder of LogicalDollar.

How does the writer contact you?

It’s not a good idea to share your professional email address with the public as this will make you prone to unwanted sales pitches, promotional content, and a ton of spam.

If you are unable to figure out the right way, you can integrate a simple google form in your write for us page like Linda from allaboutbabyblog.com/write-for-us or you can have your own form like content marketing institute.

While the perks of opening up your website to guest authors are huge, spam and irrelevant article pitches are toxic byproducts of the SEO industry. ( Hard to avoid)

Should you accept topics or fully written articles?

You should be open to both. Accepting a complete article means you save a lot of time while suggesting a topic gives you greater control and alignment to your content plan.

David Bell is from Country VPNs and their marketing team sends a lot of pitches for the guest posts. This is how he shares his own experience. “For the selection of a guest post to be published, first, we have to send a list of topics to the guest blogging websites and then the outline of the article that they select. They want us to write on a unique topic that’s original and never been posted anywhere else before. Also, it shouldn’t have any fluff in it or stuffed with links to our website. Every paragraph of it should be full of knowledge and thought-provoking for the audience. Only one link to our website is allowed and sometimes only a bio link is allowed.”

“While we invite topic suggestions, we also give feedback or direction when needed”, says Carmen Bodziak from Goodshuffle Pro. Goodshuffle accepts articles and looks for credible authors with experience in the aforementioned industries. “We appreciate the new insight into popular or complex trends, as our users are not always the most tech-savvy! We allow up to three different backlinks per post, however, this is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. We typically link our blogs to the informational posts but occasionally use some blogs for ads. We decide this based on the campaigns we are choosing to run at the time. Typically, we use our own in-house blogs for ad campaigns, but if the situation arises where we would want to use a guest blog, we work that out with the author.”

What should be the frequency of the guest posts?

There is no such rule. You can keep adding as many as you like till the time you do not compromise on the quality and you are able to promote the post well enough to ensure its reach. It depends on the quality of the submissions we receive. We don’t try to hit a particular goal with the number of guest posts we publish, because that might lead to a compromise on the quality of guest posts we accept to meet that goal.

Like Pete Ryan from CoSell.io says, “Given that we are on a mission to change the behavior of sales teams, education, and evangelizing co-selling. Our new, and often overlooked, the go-to-market strategy is inviting sales, marketing, and partnership leaders to guest post on our blog.” The Cosell blog is always looking for new contributors to bring fresh co-selling strategies, opinions, research, and thought leadership about the ever-changing world of co-selling to our readers.

How do you reward the author?

Most writers would expect a link back to their website, while publications like Search Engine Journal reward the best performing article. You can offer a link back to a valuable informational source back to the author’s website, some publications prefer to give backlink in the author's bio.

The downside is that the vast majority of submissions I receive are disappointing and need lots of editing to make them work. Most of the time, I end up completely rewriting the post, but with the guest writer receiving the byline/credit. ~Varda Meyers Epstein a Parenting Expert and Writer at Kars4Kids

We are not overly concerned about the number of backlinks included in the post, says Pete from Cosell.io. However, they are reviewed for quality upon submission. The quality of the post and relevance is reviewed by our team prior to publishing, and we typically ask ourselves:

• Will our readers, which consist of individual contributors and leaders in sales, marketing, and partnerships, learn something new and find the article interesting?
• Are the opinions made about partnerships and co-selling backed up by real-life experiences and/or data?
• Will the post spark conversation amongst our readers?

“When it comes to the links, we don’t have any limitations”, says Jane Kovalkova, CMO of Chanty, a Saas tool for team communication and collaboration. She adds, “As long as the links are natural, link to high-quality resources and are legitimate, and not part of some link building scheme, we accept it. We don’t accept spammy links or anything related to gambling, essay writing, or adult websites.”

“We require blogs that are written between 600–800 words, focused on customer experience, customer engagement, operational efficiency, and workflow management”, says Ray McKenzie from StartingPoint. Startingpoint has a backlink limit of two links and that the post is more informational and less a sales pitch. They review all the blogs submitted and typically post 5–10 per month so content is high.

“We allow for 1–3 backlinks to the author’s website and are willing to link to commercial and informational posts if it makes sense from a reader’s standpoint”, says Boyd Norwood VP of Marketing at Nozzle.

Best Practices for publishing guest posts

Nirmal is an SEO Expert at OnlineRockersHub, he receives a lot of guest post pitches and apparently uses these three criteria to choose what to publish

• Unique Content: The first and foremost thing to check is for plagiarism. Using online plagiarism tools helps me to find the uniqueness of the content.
• Engaging Topic: I expect guest posts on engaging topics that I haven’t covered in my blog already.
• Readability: This is the key criterion that many guest posts are rejected. If a guest post is not in a similar tone of my blog, I clearly understand that it will not connect with my audience.

Don’t allow too many links in the article or the author’s bio as it can get you penalized over the long run. Don’t allow keyword stuffing. Having a few keywords is fine but make sure they appear naturally within the text and make sense. ~ Hamna Amjad from DSRPT.

If you are looking to score more guest blogs, heed to Pete’s generous advice.

• Do not be overly self-promotional.
• Be 100% original and not published anywhere else.
• Be well-written, clear, and above all, helpful.
• Provide attribution for all data or statistics cited with a hyperlink.
• Invite your customers to write blogs/ case studies for your website. This would take your engagement to the next level
• Quality and relevance are the two most important factors to keep in mind while accepting guest posts
• Some website exists for the sole purpose of publishing content and they charge money for it. If you are a publisher and want to earn by promoting other people make sure you understand Google’s guidelines for accepting paid articles. You cannot sell backlinks, it’s against Google’s policy, if you are charging money for putting up a blog on your portal, mark the post as promotional and all outgoing links should be no-follow.

A diversity of content always helps you in building your thought leadership, most website owners I talked to agreed to the fact that guest posts are a great way to promote diversity of their content. Before jumping to this, ensure it aligns with your content strategy.