Transcript
Hi guys. Welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk and Tea.
Today's conversation is about how to tell if a guest post or a publication is worth guest posting for in SEO terms. This is really important because link building and providing value and contributing on other people's websites is a really important way to drive links to your website. But there are about infinite amounts of websites out there. So it's really hard to determine that science for some businesses, who's actually worth it.
But before we dive in, of course, this is Zupo's SEO Talk and Tea. So today we have a Kirkland Chocolates of the World. I'm just kidding. It's not. It's a Pu'Er tea that is just boxed in a Kirkland Chocolates of the World box. Pu'Er tea is a fermented tea that is one of my more favorite ones.
It's a fermented tea that I don't think is very known in the US or in the West, but it's a really ... I think it's the closest tea you can think of to black tea. It's a pretty dark tea. It's pretty strong. I actually pretty much like it because it's pretty much a kick in the morning that you might need at times.
But let's go ahead and get brewing and talking. So anyways, like I mentioned, it is very important to link build and drive referring domains to a website and guest posting or contributing is often one of the more important ways, one of the valuable ways to do so.
So saying that, how can you determine if a site's worth it? Well, the first thing that we generally like to do first is, does the site even allow guest posts. That should be filter number one. I feel like a lot of SEOs who start out don't realize that, or a lot of businesses who start out don't realize that.
And then they go down a cold outreach, almost like cold calling method of link building that ultimately goes nowhere. So filter number one, do they even accept guest posts? That's number one, right? Number two, are they relevant to your industry? Is there any relation to that publication or website to your business? Is there any way that they have talked about your topic or have kind of met the industry or the general relevancy of your topic or area at any point in their publication? Because that's number two. Nobody likes getting ... if I run a healthcare blog, nobody needs a recipe on our healthcare blog, unless it's very catered and specific to a certain health trend that we've discussed before. But you probably know what I'm talking about when you've gotten those emails saying, "Hey, would you guys like a guest post?" And your business is a restaurant, but they want to guest post about IT.
That wouldn't work either. So anyways, number one and two, do they accept guest posts and two, are they relevant.
Now let's get to the SEO side of things. Number three, for us generally internally is the domain rating. How is the domain rating of the website? Generally a good rule of thumb that a lot of SEOs use, I use it not too straight edge. I do follow it I would say 90% of the time, but I do sometimes make exceptions, is you should probably only be writing for other publications that have a higher domain rating and domain authority than yourself. Generally, because you want to drive links from more powerful websites into your own website. So that's generally one rule of thumb. We gauge it based on domain authority and domain rating.
And then fourth, for another purpose of SEO, is do they allow inline links?
So some publications ... a lot of publications used to not allow any links inside the body of the text. But I think a lot of people have reverted away from that now. A lot of publications now allow you to have links going in the body of your texts, and they usually just slot two or three that can go back to your own website. That is really important. If they do not allow in-body links to your website, that's generally another filter for us. And if they don't, we still will post for them, but if there are other sites we have in queue that do allow it, we will slot those first.
Now there's one more layer to it. Some sites do allow in-body links in the guest post that you have, but they no-follow all of them. No-follow link I have made a video about before, but just as a quick 10 second reminder, a no-follow link is a hyperlink that does send people to your website if you click it, but it assigns zero link equity value.
So then that means in SEO term, Google is treating the link as passing no actual endorsement or value to you. Right, so those are the filters again. So let me walk through them just as a summary and then we'll talk about them in tandem.
Number one, do they even allow guest posts? Obvious. Two, is it relevant? Another obvious one. Third, what's the domain rating and domain authority? Generally they should be higher than yours. If they're not higher than yours, they should be somewhere close to yours. Second, do they allow in-body links to your website? And then lastly, are they follow links or are they no-follow links?
For us, the highest priority in SEO is to write from the locations that help us drive strategic links to strategic part of our websites. I have filmed another video talking about how to drive links to blog posts that will ultimately internally link to service and product pages.
So in that case, if you're guest posting for a blog and they don't allow you to drive internal links, it almost negates a lot of the value that we're trying to get. So what I would encourage you is, the really golden egg that you want to find is a publication that has a high domain authority, who will allow in-line links and they follow all of them.
Again, like I mentioned, a lot of publications are different. There're different variations, but I would say if the five filters or the five decision making criteria are hard to remember, what I just generally use in my own team, or when I talk to clients is, do they allow followed in-line links to specific pages of our site, not just the homepage, and that will generally guide if it's worth it. But I must say, if you are engaging in SEO and you have never built a writing portfolio or a guest blogging portfolio, you have less ability to hold that five criteria so strictly.
I have many clients who, they have zero writing portfolio, zero authority in the industry. Well, in that case, they need to write for anybody and everyone to build up that writing portfolio, and then as we build over time, we can then look at that five criteria.
But in that case, that's less an SEO game than you're more just trying to build your reputation, ultimately to play in the SEO game. But unless you are a business that has built that reputation and authority, then that five criteria is how I would run the decision making if you're going to guest post somewhere.
So again, I hope that will help you in your own guest posting scoping and deciding where to go. It's generally something that we use in our own Zupo internal discussions and how to decide who we write for, and that will probably help you in trying to figure out if you're actually writing for the highest, valuable SEO opportunities.
But if you guys found that valuable, please like and subscribe. I'm going to pour my Pu'Er tea out. I'm really looking forward to this. I don't know, today I just feel like I need this one. I'm going to go and enjoy my tea, and I hope to see you guys again soon. Thanks everybody.
That is hot. Ow.
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