Five Sure Ways to Increase Guest Post Acceptance Rate

You’re probably doing link building for many months now, exerted too much effort building backlinks from different sites, and already tried different strategies – from broken link building to blog commenting.

Perhaps you’ve sent tons of guest post pitches, but still aren’t getting any replies. Still aren’t getting positive results.

I know the feeling.

It’s frustrating.

You started believing that guest posting is dead.

But today, I want to share with you some brilliant ideas I learned over the years of doing link building to increase guest post acceptance rate. And the best bit about these ideas is that they’re made for those who want long term effects. It’s focused on quality guest blogging.

But before we dig in, let’s first take a look at the benefits.

Why Should You Guest Blog?

• To increase visibility
• To gain new followers
• To attract more readers to your blog
• To capture new audience
• To increase backlinks and referring domains

Ways to Increase Guest Post Acceptance Rate

If your process is to prospect, pitch, and submit articles then believe me, you’re in the right track.

The secret to success is not entirely within the process, but more of on how you present yourself, and what you’re offering to your prospects.

1. Offer a round-up post. Round-up posts are usually published on your own blog for the reason that this kind of post gains more visitors than an ordinary article. But if your prospect is better than your website, and has a significant number of audience, then do not hesitate to pitch a round-up post.

This will take time for sure, that’s why you have to let your prospect know your topic in mind, the questions that you will ask, the people that you’re planning to include, and the possible timeline.

This is a great example of a round-up guest post.

I don’t think this kind of offer will be ignored, not just because of the fact that it’s a quality post, but also because you’re definitely helping your prospect get more shares and traffic.

2. Mention your prospect. I’m pretty sure you have your own blog. Why not mention your prospect or his website in one of your blogs before you send a pitch?

That’s doing a favor before you actually ask one from them.

I remember including Rick Eliason in a round-up post that I published months ago. We exchanged a few good emails. I asked him questions, he answered them, and I was very grateful to him. And it happened a few times over because I usually include him in my posts, until he asked if I can guest post on his blog.

You see, I didn’t even asked for it. He reached out.

What more if I’m the first one who asks if I could guest post on his blog?

3. Offer infographics. It doesn’t always have to be the typical 800+ words. You can also send infographics, videos and other forms of content that you think is relevant.

We all want to offer our audience new types of content, I’m pretty sure your prospect does too.

4. Update your guest blogs. The usual guest blogging process ends with amplifying your guest posts. Very few take time to review the articles they have contributed in other blogs, and actually check if those are still relevant, updated, or needs revising.

We love evergreen content – we need this to keep our readers. It would be great if you can apply this to your guest posts as well.

There are three things that you can do:

a. Update the existing one, which means updating the exact article you submitted and re-publishing it.
b. Create a new version of your existing article and ask the site owner if he’s willing to publish it. Don’t forget to link the first version.
c. Review your prospect’s website, look for outdated content, and offer to update it.

It’s like broken link building, but you’re not just focused on the links, but the actual post.

5. Build your portfolio. Because I’ve been link building for many years now, I know when guest authors are real people, and when they are just personas created by link builders.

How do you know which ones are fake?

a. They don’t have social media accounts
b. He/she is using the same profile picture in all of his/her accounts
c. They don’t have a website, a blog or portfolio

If you want to be trusted, you have to look trustworthy. With 2.5 millions blogs being published everyday by thousands, if not millions of writers, you need to start building your identity – you need to be seen as a thought leader.

When I receive guest post requests for SEO Hacker, and these include topics and links to their contributions to other sites, I seldom check the contributions; rather, I check out who they are.

What I really want to see is a portfolio. A page just like this…

And, lastly…

6. Play by the rules. There are websites that have specific guest posting rules. Follow it.

If you want to increase your chance of being accepted, then comply with the guidelines – no matter how silly it may be. Just follow it.

Final thought

Of all other link building strategies, guest blogging is still the most effective, and I believe the most enjoying and fulfilling. This is especially true if you’re not just after links, but also the fact that you get to share relevant ideas to a new and broader audience.

But if you don’t try different ways of presenting yourself, as well as presenting your ideas, your chances of being accepted will diminish over time.

Tips for keeps: If your intention for guest blogging is more than just building backlinks, then don’t just focus on websites with “write a guest post” or “write for us” page. Feel free to reach out to other quality blogs too (even to your favourite websites) even if they’re not publicly announcing that they’re accepting guest posts, unless they’ve stated that they don’t. You may use Ninja Outreach to help you with your outreach – this is one of my favourite outreach tools, and what we’re using for many months now.

Happy guest blogging!