You should read this post if you are an SEO marketer or building backlinks for your website. You have to always find new websites for guest posts to get backlinks for your blog or website. When choosing a website for a guest post you must have thought if it is the right website for backlinking. Let me tell you that you are scratching your head with the right question.
There are billions of websites on the internet today, so choosing the right one for guest posting can also be a challenging task. The following are some reasons why you should invest time in finding the right website:
1) You are seeking SEO results with these guest post backlinks for your website.
2) Writing a guest post content requires a lot of research and effort.
3) You are dedicating a lot of time researching and collecting these guest posting sites.
4) You don’t want to backfire your website SEO by creating a backlink on the wrong site.
Here are some methods that you can use to judge whether a website is legitimate for guest posting.
Method: 1
Using an SEO analysis tool like Ahref or SEMRush:
SEO professionals understand the importance of tools like Ahref and SEMRush while researching. To determine a site’s authenticity, follow these steps in Ahref. (Whatever tool you use, you have to follow the same steps based on its interface.)
Step 1: Copy the URL and paste it to the Ahrefs search bar to get an overview of the site/domain.
Step 2: Check the website Domain Rating and URL Rating (DR and UR). Generally, a website is considered a good website for guest posting if DR and UR are high. But it is not always the right metric to consider the authenticity of a website for guest posting. In the overview, check the Organic Keywords, Organic Traffic, and Traffic Value metrics as well. These metrics determine whether a site is worth guest posting or not.
In the below screenshot, the website increased UR and DR stats but failed to increase other metrics.
Learning: Many times DR and UR metrics are not the best indicators of a website’s quality, you should also consider other metrics as well.
Step 3: Let’s go one step further and refine our deciding factors even more. On the left side of the Ahref dashboard, you can find the “backlinks” tab option. Click on that to see what types of websites are linked to the website where you plan to write a guest post.
Tip: Avoid guest posting on websites with strange backlinks created by redirections. It is also possible to redirect links from Google’s different domains to trick the website DR and DA (Moz). You can see how these backlinks look in the screenshot below.
Step 4: If you want to dig deeper into the deciding factors, you can follow this step. In this step, you can check the “organic keywords” tab and find what are the top-ranked keywords of the website. Generally, spammy or PBN sites don’t rank for many keywords and if they do, the keywords are very random.
Method: 2
A manual analysis of a website is the second method for determining if it is suitable for guest posting.
Find out if the website is Adsense approved
A blogger or website owner would always want to get the website approved by Google Adsense to monetize it. To maintain the earnings from display ads CPC, bloggers must publish quality content to attract more visitors. It means they track and emphasize what they post on the website.
Tip: Hover your cursor over the top right corner of the display ad to see which ad network is running these ads.
What is the turnaround time to publish content on these blogs?
The turnaround time to make a guest post live is a great signal to judge the credibility of a website. A legitimate blog always seeks out quality guest post content. Publishers on these websites might take a while to schedule your guest post. Sometimes the editing team will want to tweak your content a bit to make it more engaging. The whole process of publishing an article can take anywhere from 7 to 15 days.
PBN bloggers offer you a quick turnaround and are only concerned about money instead of content quality. They are even ready to publish your guest post within a day. In 90% of cases, these quick publishers are PBN site owners.
This screenshot shows a response to my guest posting request. After submitting the content, I followed up with the editor on the 10th day for the live link. I got the reply that the content is being assessed and scheduled. This shows the publisher’s concern for the content and the publishing process.
Secret Revealed: This was a good website for a guest post and writes about marriage and relationship tips. After getting a backlink from this guest post, I observed a huge increase in SEO for my client. Interestingly, the publisher did not charge me for this post, although he only demanded high-quality content.
Check the writing style of 3 to 4 random articles on the website
The best way to determine whether a website is suitable for guest posting is to scan its previously published articles. When you read these blogs, you can determine if the content is dull and shared to insert backlinks. The publisher may ask you to create a backlink either on generic keywords or provide a naked link. Some publishers only allow backlinks in the author bio section, not in the body of the content.
Review the author bio under previous articles
An author bio talks about the credibility of the writers and authors who write content for a website. You can check the author bio on previously published articles. Authentic websites have links to the author’s social media profiles and website. A website without an author bio or having a short and very common introduction is suspected to be a PBN website.
Observe how readers engage with blog posts
Check the comments section under the previously published blogs. By doing this, you can determine how real the website traffic is. Readers’ comments are a good sign that the site is a good place to post a guest article.
Check the social media channel links on the website
Social media channel links on a website are a great sign to determine if a website is legitimate to publish guest posts. Most PBNs that accept guest posts don’t have social media links. If you find any social media links, ensure they are active on their social media channels.
You can use the Wayback machine to see the history of the blog design
The Wayback Machine is a great tool to check a website’s authenticity while researching guest posting sites. Many PBN website owners buy high Domain Authority expired domains and build a website with a common blog theme. By using the Wayback machine, you can see how the website used to look in the past. If the current website content theme and niche are different from its past version then avoid guest posting on this website.
The ultimate Takeaways
The conclusion is that you should carefully select a website for guest posting. As your SEO success depends on your backlink strategy. There are a lot of guest post scammers on the internet with PBN sites. You should spend your backlinking budget on real blogs instead of PBNs. Bloggers with real websites and real audiences can request a processing fee. It’s worth paying the publisher fees as long as you know how to find the right website for guest posting. With time you will be able to identify the right websites for guest posting. It takes a little research and experience to figure it out. Happy guest posting!!
Naveen Sharma specializes in SEO and organic growth marketing. He has extensive experience working with startups and established companies. As an SEO expert, he has helped businesses increase organic traffic and conversions.