Guest posting on genuinely authoritative, relevant websites remains one of the most effective link-building strategies available. But the internet is littered with low-quality guest post farms that can hurt rather than help your rankings. This lesson teaches you to tell the difference and do it correctly.
Finding Quality Guest Post Opportunities
How to find legitimate guest posting opportunities
- 1Search Google for "[your niche] write for us" or "[your niche] guest post guidelines"
- 2Identify websites that regularly publish content in your niche, read them, assess quality
- 3Check the site's Domain Rating in Ahrefs (aim for DR 30+) and organic traffic (aim for 1,000+ monthly visits)
- 4Look at existing guest posts, are they genuinely well-written by identifiable authors?
- 5Check if the published posts include a real author bio with a link
- 6Verify the site is not part of a private blog network (check if all content is exclusively guest posts, a red flag)
Writing a Guest Post Pitch That Gets Accepted
The most common reason guest post pitches are rejected is because they are clearly template emails. Personalise every pitch: mention a specific article on their site you enjoyed, explain why your proposed topic is relevant to their audience, and provide a brief outline or a headline and three bullet points summarising your angle.
What to Avoid at All Costs
- Paid guest posts with followed links, Google explicitly targets these as link spam
- Private blog networks (PBNs), sites that exist solely to pass links, often identifiable by thin content, multiple authors with no real online presence
- Guest posting on sites completely unrelated to your niche
- Exact-match anchor text in your guest post links, use branded or natural anchor text
- Mass outreach to dozens of sites at once with the same templated email
Complete How-To Guide: Running a Successful Guest Posting Campaign
Guest posting on authoritative, relevant websites builds high-quality backlinks and positions you as an industry expert. This step-by-step guide walks you through the entire guest posting process, from finding legitimate opportunities to building long-term publishing relationships that consistently drive links to your Wix site.
Follow these steps to run a successful guest posting campaign
- 1Step 1: Search Google for "[your niche] write for us", "[your niche] guest post guidelines", and "[your niche] contribute" to build an initial list of at least 30 potential target sites that accept guest contributions
- 2Step 2: Vet each target site by checking its Domain Rating in Ahrefs free tool (aim for DR 30 or higher) and confirming it receives at least 1,000 monthly organic visits so your link has real value
- 3Step 3: Review the site's existing content to confirm it publishes genuinely high-quality articles from identifiable authors with real bios, not a content farm full of anonymous low-quality posts
- 4Step 4: Check whether published guest posts include a followed author bio link by right-clicking the link in any existing guest author bio and inspecting the HTML for rel="nofollow"
- 5Step 5: Create a spreadsheet tracking each target site with columns for Domain, DR, Monthly Traffic, Contact Email, Pitch Status, Topic Pitched, and Publication Date
- 6Step 6: Read at least 3 recent articles on each target site so you can reference specific content in your pitch and demonstrate genuine familiarity with their audience and editorial style
- 7Step 7: Craft a personalised pitch email for each site that opens with a specific compliment about a recent article, proposes 2-3 unique topic ideas with brief outlines, and includes links to your best published writing as samples
- 8Step 8: Send no more than 5 pitches per day to avoid appearing spammy and to ensure each pitch receives the personalisation it needs to stand out from template outreach
- 9Step 9: When a pitch is accepted write a genuinely excellent article that exceeds the quality of existing content on that site, because the editor's willingness to publish you again depends entirely on this first impression
- 10Step 10: Include 1-2 natural contextual links to relevant pages on your Wix site within the body of the article using branded or descriptive anchor text rather than exact-match keyword anchors
- 11Step 11: Follow up with the editor after publication to thank them and propose your next topic idea, as building an ongoing relationship means you can earn multiple links from the same high-authority domain
- 12Step 12: Track every published guest post in your spreadsheet noting the publication date, URL, anchor text used, and any referral traffic the link generates in Google Analytics so you can measure the ROI of your campaign
Final Checkpoint
After completing this campaign you should have a vetted list of target publications, personalised pitch templates, at least 2-3 published guest posts with quality backlinks, and ongoing relationships with editors for future opportunities. Quality always beats quantity in guest posting so focus on earning links from a small number of genuinely authoritative sites rather than mass-producing low-quality content.
Essential Resources
Ahrefs
Industry-leading SEO tool for keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitor research
SEMrush
Keyword research, position tracking, site audit, and competitor analysis tool
HARO / Connectively
Connect with journalists who need expert sources for articles to earn authority backlinks
Google Alerts
Monitor mentions of your brand, name, or industry topics across the web
Google Looker Studio
Create custom SEO dashboards and reports
Google Analytics 4
Track website traffic, user behaviour and conversions
Google Search Console
Monitor search performance and technical issues
Google PageSpeed Insights
Test page speed and Core Web Vitals
