Some SEO experts have provided a few tips for guest posting that may be worth considering. You should weigh out the pros and cons of these tips and decide what actions to take yourself.

1) Link Location

Some experts say to put your link within the body of the article rather than in the bio box in the end.

One reason for placing links within the article is that a contextual link is more likely to get read and clicked on than a link in the bio. In fact, many people that read blogs regularly might habitually skip over reading the bio box.

Another reason is that some SEO’s fear that Google may someday discount links in the bio box in order to reduce the positive effects of guest posting on search engine rankings. Placing your link within the article body makes the link look more natural.

Some people say that if it makes sense to have the link in the end, then leave it there. In many cases, people will be most likely to click through to your site after reading the article.

If it is permitted by the host blog, the best recommendation may be to have both links within the article and in the bio box. Some people will click on links within the article and others will click on links at the end, so it’s a good idea to have both anyways.

2) Links within the content

If possible, include a link within the article itself instead of just in the bio box in the end. There are a couple of reasons to include a link inside the actual article.

#1 – Some SEO’s think that eventually, search engines might discredit or discount links in the bio box. So these SEO’s have suggested using a link within the body of the article so that you will still get full SEO credit for the link.

#2 – Sometimes having link within the article will get more visitors. People who have been reading blogs a lot sometimes ignore bio boxes.

Make sure your most important link appears first in the article. If allowed, some people like to include one link within the article and another in the bio box. The link in the bio box can lead to an email capture page.

3) Google Plus Attribution

Google Plus attribution can help in a couple of ways.

First of all, if you are creating high quality content, then Google may reward you by placing your image next to your articles in the search engines. Having your image next to your articles will increase click through rates, which means more search engine traffic to your site.

Secondly, it helps protect you in the event that someone copies your article. By being the first to publish it and attributing credit with authorship, your content should be recognized as the original article.

Note that Google has shown some inconsistencies and errors with attributing credit for articles. Although the system is far from perfect, Google ultimately intends for article writers to receive credit for their work and will likely make improvements on their system over time.

Thirdly, links to your Google plus profile can give your profile more search ranking power. Mark Traphagen provides a good example and explanation in this article.

Using Google authorship does come with some risks, especially if you are posting low quality content on low quality sites. Authorship makes it very easy for Google to find all your guest post articles and discount them.

Generally, most people that are producing high quality content are not worried about this risk. However, enough SEO and online marketing experts that have been trying to do things the right way have gotten penalized by Google. So the risk is certainly worth mentioning especially since the rules can change at any time.

4) Link Text

Google doesn’t like people purposely using keyword phrases in their link text to try to rank in the search engines.

Why do we have to be more careful with linking in guest posts versus regular posts? Because these links are not considered “natural” by Google. In other words, since link text still counts for ranking purposes, Google doesn’t want people to try to increase their ranking using keyword rich anchor links in their guest posts.

In a non-guest post, if a blogger links to another site with keywords, then it should be okay because it is a natural link. Theoretically, of course.

Here are some ways to link to your site that should be safe.

#1 – URL links – Linking to your site by URL is probably the safest thing you can do and will probably never incur a penalty. For example, www.smallbusinessideasblog.com.

#2 – Article Title or Name of Site – If you are linking to your home page, then using the name of your site as the link text should be fine. For my site, I would use “Small Business Ideas Blog”.

If you are linking to a blog post or article, then using the name of that article also makes sense and would likely be considered a natural way of linking to it.

#3 – Generic text that you are obviously not trying to rank for – Finally, using generic text that you are not trying to rank for is a third option. For example, “click here” or “read this post”. Generally speaking, if you don’t include keywords in your link text, then you’re probably safe.

Should I Look for Guest Post Opportunities on Guest Blog Networks & Communities

My Blog Guest is still under penalty as of today, but a lot of the sites that were penalized have been able to get their penalties lifted. A few people have said that even though they were members of My Blog Guest, their sites were not penalized.

No one knows for sure what Google will do next, although it wouldn’t be surprising if they started cracking down on other guest blogging communities and networks. Some people think it is still okay to find opportunities for guest blogging through guest blog communities.

There’s no definite evidence that finding opportunities through guest blogging communities will hurt your site, but some experts have suggested avoiding them to be safe. If you do decide to use communities, make sure to provide high quality content and evaluate the host site as well to make sure they have high quality standards and are also producing quality content.

No one can accurately predict what Google will do in the future. But Google’s position on guest posting is clear. High quality content on reputable websites is okay, but producing low quality content just to get links is not.

Two rules that you should follow:

1) Don’t create low quality guest posts just to get links. Instead write high quality content on sites that are likely to send you relevant traffic

2) Pick websites that have high quality standards. Google doesn’t seem to like websites that will publish just anything.

Why You Should Still Guest Post

For bloggers, guest posting is one of the top ways to become influential in your niche and get targeted traffic to your blog. Many influential bloggers will say that they got to where they were by guest posting.

Getting published on sites that get significantly more traffic than yours makes sense. You can get a lot more exposure to that blog’s audience and some of those readers will visit your blog and become your subscribers.

Furthermore, Google is not against all guest posting. Just low quality guest posts and the sites that allow them. So for now, here are some guidelines and precautions to take when guest posting.

Which Sites to Guest Post On

Before writing your post, you should select which site you want to write for. Google is going to be looking for sites that are allowing people to write low quality guest posts just to get links back to their own site.

So here are some things to look at:

1) Guest post quality –

Examine the quality of the guest posts on the target site. Does it look like the site is just publishing any content, regardless of quality? If so, then you may want to skip this site and look for another site to post on.

2) Relevance –

Relevance is a tricky subject and there are many grey areas when defining relevance. But generally, when guest posting, the question you should ask yourself is this – will that blog’s audience be interested in my blog?

Will some of those readers want to visit my blog and subscribe to it? If the answer is yes, then consider guest posting here.

3) Traffic –

Another factor to consider is the website’s traffic. Although I wouldn’t necessarily rule out a low traffic site, a high traffic site is usually a better target for guest posting.

Posting on a low traffic site should be okay, as long as they are doing the right things. But don’t post only on low traffic sites. Instead try to create high quality content and get published on popular high traffic sites in your niche also.

4) Engagement –

Check the level of engagement on the target blogs posts. Is there a lot of commenting on each post? Do the blog posts get a lot of social shares?

Generally, blogs with higher commenting and social sharing will have more attentive readers. This means more subscribers for your website.

5) Blog Post Frequency –

Another important factor is blog post frequency. Blogs that publish less frequently are likely to have a more engaged audience. Plus if you do get a guest post on that site, your post is more likely to be seen by visitors.

6) Promotional Strategy of the Target Blog –

How is the target blog promoting their own content? Blogs that do a good job of promoting their own content are a good place to post. Here are some things to check for:

– Blog comments – Take a look at the dates on older blog posts. Are they receiving more recent comments? If so, this could indicate that blog owner is promoting old content.

– Internal links – Does the blogger link to other posts on their site? Linking to old content is a good way to drive new readers to old content as well as improve search engine rankings.

– Social media – Check the blogger’s social media channels, like Twitter. See if they occasionally share or tweet out old content.

– Pagerank – Check the page rank of older posts. A skilled online marketer will link to older posts from other websites as well as internally from their own blog posts.

– SEO rankings – Finally, guess what keywords the site is targeting on older blog posts and see if they are ranking for those keywords in the search engines. Although search engine rankings shouldn’t necessarily be a requirement before you guest post, it’s a nice thing to see.

Generally, if a site will send you targeted traffic without Google and has acceptable quality standards, then you should guest post on it.

Your Content

The quality of your content and subject matter should match the content on the target website.

1) Familiarize Yourself with the Blog

Spend some time checking over the target website to see what type of content they are producing. Make note of their best posts and which posts received the most comments and social shares.

2) Check their guest posting guidelines

Some blogs will have guest posting guidelines with their criteria spelled out. Be sure to follow instructions precisely.

3) Check Word Count

Do a quick word count to see how long the average article is. An easy way to do this is to copy and paste each article into a Word document and use the Word count feature.

You don’t have to do this for every article. Just do a few so that you can get an idea of the average post length.

4) Pay attention to images

Does the blog use images? If so, then you may be expected to include a few of your own.

5) Try to Creating Your Best Content

Even if the quality of the site’s content is less than what you can do, try to create something awesome for their audience. High quality content will stand out and increase the odds that their visitors will come back to your site.

It is also a win for the target blog as you have created an excellent piece of content for their blog.

6) Don’t Forget Keyword Research

Don’t forget to do your keyword research. If your guest post on their site ranks, then it may get links from other websites, which will help both the host site and your own. You might also get more traffic from that post.

In case you’re not familiar with keyword research, check out these tools.

7) Help the Host Site Promote Your Guest Post

Be sure to promote your own guest post, even though it is on another site. Share it with your own audience through social media and consider referencing it in other posts in the future.

If you really want to help out and get a larger number of people to the post, then try out these traffic generating tips.