Find relevant publications to contribute to with a guest post

Find relevant publications to contribute to with a guest post

1. Make a list of publications where your competitors guest post.

If you use Ahrefs, go to Site explorer > Backlinks > “One link per domain” to see relevant articles linking to your competitors’ websites. You can do a similar analysis with almost any other backlink analysis tool. Remove irrelevant websites: Publications with a low Domain Rating (DR) Social media platforms  Medium.com Competitors’ websites  Look for articles in the remaining list where the author is someone from your competitors’ team.

2. Make a list of publications where industry influencers and popular conference speakers publish guest posts.

Search Google to find articles using search terms like: “says” + [author's name] e.g. “says” Rand Fishkin inurl:author + [author’s name] -authorwebsite.com e.g. inurl:author Irina Nica -irinanica.com  "by [first name] [last name]”  -authorwebsite.com e.g. “by Irina Nica” -irinanica.com  Alternatively: Use Ahrefs’s Content explorer tool to find similar results and immediately filter out publications with a low DR. Open MOZ Pro, go to SERP analysis, and perform a similar search to see the first 10 search engine results for those queries. Though you’ll see fewer publications than with Ahrefs, you can still filter out publications with a low Domain Authority (DA).

3. Search Google or use an SEO tool like Ahrefs or MOZ to find publications that are actively looking for guest post contributors, and check their submission guidelines.

Example search terms: intitle:”guidelines for contributors” + [topic] intitle:”guest posting guidelines” + [topic] intitle:”guest blogging guidelines” + [topic] intitle:”submit an article” + [topic] intitle:”submit a guest post” + [topic] Many publications have a page with guidelines for those who want to contribute an article. For example, HubSpot’s Guest Blogging Guidelines. Find more similar pages by looking for websites that use “guest blogging guidelines” in their page title, plus the niche you want to write on. For example,  intitle:"guest blogging guidelines" gardening

4. Make a list of article ideas for each publication and make sure they don’t already have an article on the same topic.

5. Look for each publication’s blog editor or content strategist on LinkedIn and then use a tool like Rocketreach or Voila Norbert to find their contact details.

6. Reach out to them with your pitch.