Despite the changes to Google’s algorithms, getting a link on a high profile blog is still one of the most effective ways to promote your site and to improve your ranking.
This communicates to Google that your site has something worth sharing and it shows the spiders where your site is to ensure that all your pages get indexed promptly.
Unfortunately though, this effect is severely diminished if that blogger expects links back – and particularly now as it can warn Google that you may be trying to manipulate their algorithms.
This leaves you with something of a problem – because it means that you have to try and get sites onto those blogs without really being able to offer links in return.
E-mail a blogger out of the blue with a link request and you’re almost bound to get a blank refusal (if you get a response at all), so what can you do instead when they’re not being generous?
Here we will look at some of the ways you can coerce your way into getting that link…
Guest Posting
Guest posting is currently the most reliable and effective way to generate lots of links. Essentially this means giving away content in exchange for a link.
You write an article for the blog and say that they can publish it for free under the proviso that they include a link to your site in the body of the text.
This system works well because it doesn’t look like blatant manipulation and because it gives the blogger something worthwhile to help their ranking too.
Of course this process will still benefit you slightly more than them and this is something that they’re going to be aware of from the start – otherwise you wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to contact them.
You still risk getting a rejection then, unless you can make that content really shine to the point that they’re desperate to have it on their site.
Make sure that your article is not only incredibly well written, but also unique, contemporary and targeted directly at that blog’s visitors to provide the most possible value.
Create a Relationship
Some bloggers will still resent being contacted out of the blue though and rightly so.
If you want to really improve your chances of getting a guest post published then, you should also try to do some groundwork first so that the blogger knows who you are and is more receptive to your mail.
You can do this by posting on their forums or on the comments section of their posts.
Better yet you can try meeting them in person – whether at a tradeshow or just through your other contacts. Networking is incredibly powerful for good SEO.
Provide Value
Getting your guest post to provide value isn’t enough on its own – you also need to make sure that your site provides value and that it has something of interest to that blogger’s readers.
The idea here is to make your site so useful, that the blogger will be doing their visitors a favour by pointing them towards you.
Of course though this only works if you have your own niche/USP and you aren’t directly competing with said blogger…
Featured images:
License: Creative Commons
image source
License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2012/11/05/17/23/community-64195_150.jpg
Jack Knowles is an experienced SEO. He is also a passionate blogger and certainly knows the tricks of the trade when it comes to guest posting and has shed light about the same in this post.
