Expert Take: Does Guest Posting Still Work In 2018?

It only works if done correctly. With the rise in popularity of any link building strategy, comes the rise in abuse of the strategy. There are so many sites popping up that are built purely to attract link builders and sell them guest posts opportunities.

When deciding on a site to guest post on, you need to do proper due diligence and answer these questions:

• Is the website site topic relevant?
• Where does the site traffic come from? A high percentage of direct traffic is a red flag!
• Which countries does the traffic come from?
• What is the website history?
• Which sites are linking to it?
• Is every post a guest post or do they publish their own content as well?
• Is your target audience likely to visit the guest post website?

Answer these questions and you'll be well on the way to evaluating a guest post opportunity.

Finally, don't just go by metrics such as DA. This can be manipulated and is a lazy way to evaluate a guest post opp.

Contributor: Nick Arthur from nickadigital.co.uk

Although it's been known to professional bloggers for years, a vast number of sites are just starting to realize that 'content is king.' And plenty of these sites are actively seeking contributions in exchange for a little brand recognition. Building authentic relationships with others in your niche and submitting quality content that is truly worth posting is one of the most natural and organic ways to get your name out there.

Contributor: Jessica Dais from TakeLessons Live

You just have to be a lot more careful about the content that is being published as guest posts, as well as which websites you are guest posting on.

Always make sure that the content you are publishing is unique, high-quality and very relevant to the website it is being published on! The golden rule here is not to publish a guest post unless you would be happy with the quality on your own website.

Contributor: Ryan Jones from imaginaire.co.uk

There was some time where many marketers said that it was dead; I think we’ve seen just the opposite. Guest posting is a great way to build links in 2018 and relationships.

Guest posting allows you or your brand to establish a web-wide authority. Building quality links in 2018 will be a must if you want to dominate and guest posting should be a part of every marketers strategy.

Contributor: Michael Bertini from iquanti.com

We have been employing guest authoring as a strategy this year as well as last year because it does still work. Not as well as it has in the past though. As you know many of the larger publications like Inc, Forbes, and Entrepreneur Magazine have reversed their links to no follow links recently so those are not where we are targeting at this time.

We have been going to smaller more niche publications and other blogs that we read and asking for the opportunity to guest author a piece for them. Long story short is that yes it still works, not as well as it did in the past though.

Contributor: Ben Walker from transcriptionoutsourcing.net

I just started a new blog In April did one guest post and got significant traffic to my blog And signups to my mailing lists. My advice is to be a reader of the blog you want to post on and understand what the audience is looking for. Then write in your own voice and provide free images.

Contributor: Mary Anne Lewis from magicofhistory.com

But the key is to ensure that it isn't the ONLY link building strategy you are using (so that your link portfolio is diverse and Google doesn't see you as 'gaming the system').

Plus, you also want to focus on tons of long tail keywords rather than going after one word or two words based keywords. So yes to 'buying shoes online' (perhaps) and no to shoes and shoes online.

Lastly, it also matters what kind of sites you 'hang out' with. Google judges you by the kind of sites you get links from. If your guest posts are in a spammy, bad quality site (which is getting its links from, say, bad sites), it can harm you sooner or later.

We personally restrict our selves to work with sites which meet the below criteria to avoid this issue:

• Should have good content + design (and nothing misleading, spammy)
• Must have a MOZ spam score of 2/17 or lower
• Must have a Majestic trust flow to citation flow ration of at least 0.5

Contributor: Syed Irfan Ajmal from ridester.com

The fad of producing content to gain merely backlinks is a thing of past now, and Google knows how to crack down such low-quality links. If your only purpose to pitch a post is to get some love back, give it first. Guest posting should be done to spread knowledge in a specific niche that falls under your expertise. This way guest posts will not only add value to your readers by citing relevant resources but also improves your brand identity. 

In fact, publications are more wary and can easily differentiate between the good and the bad guest posting techniques. So, it's all the more harder to earn that author bio but it still works!

Contributor: Mahima Sharma from kaysharbor.com 

Guest posting will always have a place online as long as posters are looking for an audience. As the Google algorithms advance, it becomes increasingly more difficult to get a foot in the door in terms of SEO. In an ideal world, original postings would make it through the door on first search. 

But as the nature of SEO advances and becomes more intricate, the greater the exposure, the greater the effect. To make your guest post effective there needs to be an overlap of relevance to your original post, and exposure to a new audience. This ensures that although your product is reaching a new audience, the integrity of the product stays intact. If you are not guest posting, you're not using SEO effectively.

Contributor: Nate Masterson from mapleholistics.com

Gone are the days when mutual guest posting on another blog in exchange for a link was a solid link building strategy. Nowadays, it’s much more about creating content that is relevant to your industry, newsworthy and that other sites will want to link to without needing an incentive.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for a guest post at all – just as long as it’s a small factor in your overall SEO strategy. Google will not penalize the odd guest post that pops up if it is relevant, not overly promotional and hasn’t blatantly been created purely for the purpose of getting a link.

If you do create a guest post, you should ensure you ask that the publisher doesn’t include the phrase “guest post” anywhere in the article. It’s also a good idea to ask for a no-follow link.

Contributor: James Nuttall from healingholidays.co.uk

Instead of just posting anywhere that will take you, it's more about posting on authority sites that your audience reads. 

I also think guest posting has shifted towards (and will continue to do so) the sponsored post. The issue I saw people have with previous guests posts was the lack of transparency, and changing laws and user expectations has moved the guest post into the sponsored post.

Contributor: George R Perry from bandwidth.com

In 2018 guest posting has shown great results for our websites rankings as well as helping to invest in consistently improving our writing content for our website and others. We had a large term on our website go from rank 40 to rank 5 in a very competitive given niche. However, we had several smaller websites show little to no results driven and a lot of time investment. 

I'm a firm believer in 2018 they are still a must along with generating great content.

Contributor: Michael Russell from ratchetstraps.com