How To Find Guest Post Opportunities

So you’ve heard about guest posts and that they are great backlinks to help rank sites in search engines, and now you want to know how to find guest post opportunities yourself. Well, this is one of our how-to guides on writing guest posts for guest blogging sites (and sharing useful blogging tips).

Writing or accepting guest posts, also known as guest blogging, is very popular in SEO right now. Fortunately, guest post opportunities (and guest posting sites) are everywhere if you know where and how to look for them. Guest bloggers are in demand.

First, we are going to quickly cover some of the basics of guest blogging that will be important for determining which type of guest posts you would like to incorporate into your link building or digital marketing strategy.

Then, we will go over some of the best methods for finding guest blogging opportunities to write guest posts.

And finally, we will discuss how to separate the winners from the losers and the next steps in the guest post submissions process.

Ready to start writing guest posts and be the best guest blogger you can be? Let’s jump right into our guest bloggers’ guide on how to find blogs and submit guest posts.

What is Guest Posting?

Guest posts are articles written by you (or for you) that are then posted on other websites that are usually within your target niche. The goal is to receive self-promotional links from your guest blog posts that point back to your own website.

Some relevant websites that accept articles where you can submit guest posts may include business blogs, digital news sites, health blogs, technology blogs, tech news, or someone else’s website which is trying to use guest blogs for internet marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, referral traffic, or other digital marketing purposes.

Guest post links are a powerful type of backlink for ranking purposes, and as a bonus to guest posters, they can drive more traffic to your website/target blog as well as increase brand awareness among your blog audience and the global community.

Guest posts are one of the top 3 most sought-after backlinks for ranking sites in Google search, and the primary linking weapon that many white hat SEOs prefer to use.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Guest Posts

Guest posts are great for SEO because they allow you to leverage the relevance and authority of established sites in your niche. You can find out more about link relevance here.

They are a very natural type of link that is very safe to use. That being said, you should still be ensuring proper backlink diversification to keep everything moving along nicely.

The best kind of guest posts will have dofollow backlinks to your site, and they will not have author boxes, “sponsored post” tags, or anything indicating it was written by someone other than the owner or writer of the website.

Guest posts with nofollow links and author boxes can still be good for your site and rankings, it’s just not the ideal that you should be searching for.

The downfalls of guest posts are that:

• They don’t have much power (due to being on new inner pages with no links)
• The new page they are created on has no age (diversity issue)

Instead of trying to rank sites with guest posts alone, be sure you’re mixing in pillow links along with the other two most powerful types of links:

• Niche Edits – Like guest posts but in existing articles with age (and maybe some links)
• PBNs – Pack a lot of power, relevance, and age for more experienced link builders.

Read more about the benefits of guest blogging.

So how do we find these link opportunities?

How to Find Opportunities for Guest Posting

Anyone can start guest blogging if they know where to find guest posting guidelines and a guest blog accepting guest posts. How you go about finding guest posting opportunities will vary depending on which type of guest post best fits your strategy, budget, and time available.

The main types of opportunities for guest posts you will come across are:

• Free submission sites
• Sites that are very visibly seeking contributors and will accept almost anyone (e.g. “write for us”)
• Authority blogs that accept guest posts from select individuals to promote the author as well as bring more attention to their own blog/site. It helps if you know how to write blog posts for SEO.
• Authority blogs that accept guest posts and are indistinguishable from a normal website that’s all written by the same person/team

The last two options (authority blogs) have the greatest benefit for helping sites to rank with a guest post and are the ones that we most often use.

Whatever types of targets you end up going for, remember to keep your backlink portfolio diverse and to stay away from spammy tactics (quality over quantity).

Let’s get into how you actually find these sites to write guest posts.

Mega Lists of Popular Guest Blogging Sites

The easiest method to find guest posting opportunities would be to let someone else do all the hard work for you.

People have aggregated huge lists of blogs accepting guest posts by the hundreds, so all you have to do is look through them, find websites in your niche, and check them out to see if they are suitable candidates for your project.

Here are a few to keep you busy for a while:

• 700+ Guest Post Sites
• 200+ Websites and Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
• 140+ Guest Blogging Sites
• 150+ Sites to Guest Post on

If these lists of sites that accept guest posts aren’t enough for you, you can always find more guest posting lists through a Google search.

There are also blog directory sites such as AllTop.com that you can use to find the most popular blogs that accept guest posts in your niche – however, popularity usually comes with a price (you might have to pay to have a guest article published).

Just because a big digital marketing site appears on any of these lists does not mean it’s high quality, would be a good fit for your needs, or would be worth the time or money involved.

We will discuss vetting guest post sites later in the article so you can make informed decisions about which blogging opportunities to pursue.

Guest Post Footprints

Using guest post footprints to find guest posts is perhaps the most powerful way to find guest posting opportunities en masse.

Not only can you uncover a ton of opportunities that you would have otherwise never found, but when coupled with the right automation techniques, you can save loads of time.

This topic deserves an article to itself, so make sure to read our full guide on guest post footprints and how to use them!

Twitter

Twitter’s search feature comes in very useful for finding guest posts, sites that accept guest posts, and guest posting opportunities.

You can use it much the same way you would use the guest post footprints in the previous section. For example, you can search for something like SEO “guest post by” or “write for us”:

Because active guest posting sites often use Twitter to also promote their new content, searches like this will return some good results of possible targets that will give guest bloggers like yourself an opportunity to write guest posts.

An advantage of using Twitter to find guest posting opportunities over Google is that the search results will usually be more recent. This means that you know they are actively taking guest contributions for their website.

You can even use Twitter to search and follow other guest bloggers (who often share their guest posts). This way you can see what they are guest posting about and who they are doing them for. Prolific guest bloggers will almost always have a Twitter account to share their opinions and guest blogging work.

So head over to Twitter and see what you can find for guest posts in your niche.

Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering the competition for link opportunities is one of our favorite methods for finding quality backlinks for our projects. In this example, we will be applying this technique to look for guest post opportunities.

We use this method for nearly every site we rank due to its massive benefit and ease.

First, perform a Google search for your main keywords to get a list of your top competitors.

Once you have your list of competitors, put them into a linking tool like Ahrefs or something similar one at a time and sort through their backlinks.

Of course, not every link that the site gets will be a guest post, but over time you will be able to tell them apart easily and quickly (but until then, you can click through to the sites to determine what type of link they are). We are looking for backlinks that look like guest blogging sites or guest posts on someone else’s blog.

When you find a blog post on a site that you think you’d like one on too, just search around the site for information about contributing or contacting the blog owners (not all sites will have public info about making guest post contributions, but that’s probably even better). This is made easier for you if the site specializes in guest blogging.

Regardless if you find footprints that they accept guest posts or not, you can reach out to the site owner and try to get your guest post accepted with a backlink to your own website.

Reverse engineering the competition is a great way to uncover guest posting opportunities that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to find using other methods. Thank your competitors for doing all the hard work for you!

Networking in Your Industry

Networking with other people in the digital marketing industry can be very time-consuming but very worthwhile if your project demands that level of attention, link building, and resources.

This method of acquiring guest posts tends to pay off in spades and often costs nothing but time (if you’ve got some to spare). By building relationships with people in the same niche (such as a blog owner or guest blogger), you are setting yourself up for guest posting opportunities down the road.

Here are some ways you can rub shoulders with people in your industry:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Linkedin
• Niche Forums
• Blog Comment Sections (yours and theirs)

Regardless of what platform you are using, all of this basically works the same. Like, share, leave comments, have conversations – just interact with them in a friendly, professional way. Show them some love and contribute what knowledge and insight you can.

Many popular and substantial business blogs, technology blogs, or breaking news sites will have a social media profile on one of these platforms and forum sites.

After you’ve done this for a while and get to the point of reaching out to them about the guest post, they will be familiar with you and hopefully even like you a little.

So Now What?

Until now we have talked about finding your guest post targets. Now you want to make sure that the sites which accept guest posts that you’ve chosen are indeed good choices. Here are some guest posting guidelines for selecting the right guest blogging website:

• The blog is in your niche
• It has a decent backlink profile with relevant links
• They have a good amount of quality, non-spammy content for SEO
• They place a few links contextually (not in an author box)
• They use dofollow backlinks (nofollow can be OK on bigger sites)
• Bonus – there are no author boxes or visible signs of guest contributions
• Bonus – the site has a decent amount of traffic

Now that you know which sites you’d like to get links from, you need to find out which will actually be worth it for you.

Smaller websites that accept guest posts (those with less domain authority that are looking for more referral traffic) will generally be easier and cheaper to submit a guest post to. If the blog owners ask for money, you will have to determine how much you think a link from their site is worth (you can often negotiate).

For larger, more authoritative sites (e.g. Wall Street Journal), you will really have to bring your A-game. Some things that will help you get a guest blog post on high domain authority websites are:

• Your own blog for niche-relevant, quality content
• Past examples of other posts you’ve done for publications
• Active social profiles with a decent following & interaction (i.e. readers and other guest bloggers)
• History of interaction (i.e. networking with other guest bloggers or website owners)

After you’ve made your decision of which guest posting sites to reach out to, it’s time to make your pitch and hope for the best. Check out our article about cold emailing for links for more info.

When blog owners agree to your pitch, all you have left to do is write the actual content. And that’s a whole other job on its own!

Buying Guest Posts from a Provider

As you’ve probably noticed by now, finding guest post opportunities can range anywhere from a good amount of work to a huge amount of work.

It’s for that reason that many SEOs prefer to skip everything we’ve talked about in this article and just buy guest posts from a reputable provider.

Blog post providers take care of everything for you – all you need to do is provide simple information like your niche, the page you want linked to, and the anchor text you’d like used.

Guest posts can cost from $20 to a few hundred dollars depending on the authority of the site. It’s best to shop around and find a provider that you can trust to consistently deliver quality posts. You can vet their work much the same way we talked about vetting sites in the previous section.

You generally want to stay away from the providers that are too cheap – you usually get what you pay for. A quality provider that delivers posts on real sites is completely safe and will do great things for your rankings.

Finding Guest Post Blogs Wrap-Up

That’s about it for how to find guest blogging opportunities that will benefit your SEO. They are one of the most powerful link building tools we have, so make sure that you’ve got this process nailed down right.

Sites for which you might submit posts may have a variety of functions. Some may be niche-relevant blogs that accept guest posts, like a technology blog about gaming, or a business blog about financial news. Others may serve as informational guest posting sites featuring many guest bloggers who share their expertise about a certain field or topic.

We’ve covered some different types of guest posts, which ones are the best for SEO, how to find them, and how to pitch them. Make sure to also read about guest blogging best practices to really increase your chances.

There are also SEO groups that share advice and strategies related to link building, how to write guest posts, how to submit guest posts, and finding guest post opportunities, so check them out! There is bound to be a blog owner, guest blogger, or someone who can direct you to websites that accept guest posts or one that is looking for a guest blogger.

If you have followed the guest post guidelines in this simple guest blogging guide, I’m confident you will be able to safely grow your backlink profile with quality links from sites in your niche and start making money online with guest blogging.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.

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