How to Find the Perfect Blog to Guest Post On
(This is Part 2 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)
In Part 1 of this series, I explained the purpose, benefits and overall basics of guest posting. And, assuming your reading comprehension is up to par, you probably realized it’s a really good thing to do and are now considering doing it.
Smart move.
The very next step is finding the perfect blog(s) to guest post on, and that’s exactly what this part of the series is all about.
However, before we can get to very best ways of finding these perfect blogs, we must first go over a certain criteria that all blogs you consider guest posting on MUST meet.
This is a key step in the guest posting process that a lot of people miss, and it’s one of the main reasons these people tend to get very little out of their guest post.
So, you know, pay attention.
The Criteria
When you understand that the purpose of guest posting is self promotion, it should then be pretty obvious that the blog you guest post on should have already reached some significant level of traffic and popularity. This of course is to ensure that you actually get some significant amount of promotion out of doing this in the first place.
As obvious as this seems it should be, it’s apparently not.
I’m always amazed (in between pointing and laughing) when I see guest posts on C and D-list level blogs (or worse). Seriously, what the hell are these people thinking?
Guest posting on a blog that’s barely a blip on the radar in its own niche will accomplish virtually nothing. The benefits will range from tiny to nonexistent, and more often than not it will be a complete waste of both your time and a perfectly good guest post.
Think about it. You’re guest posting for the purpose of getting significant traffic and exposure (among other things), so step 1 in your quest to making this happen needs to be guest posting on a blog that is actually capable of making this happen.
Does that mean you should only try to guest post on the biggest, most popular A-list level blogs on the planet? No, not at all.
It just means that the blogs you consider guest posting on MUST have an at least somewhat high level of traffic and popularity. If they don’t, fuck ‘em, because they will rarely ever be worth your time and effort.
And another thing to consider, what do you have to lose by setting your sights super high anyway? You definitely don’t have to (and the newer you are at this, the more you shouldn’t), but why the hell shouldn’t you?
I say swing for the fences and hope for the best. The worst thing that can happen is they turn you down and you just take that post to some slightly lesser (but still popular) blog.
If they turn you down too, take it to a slightly lesser blog. And if they turn you down, your post probably sucks… so start over and try again.
But really, the big point here is this: understand what you want to get out of this guest post, and then make sure you guest post somewhere capable of making it happen.
How? Good question…
Determining A Blog’s Level Of Popularity And Traffic
So now that you know how important it is to ensure that you only guest post on blogs that have already reached some significant level of popularity and traffic, the next thing you should be wondering is how to tell if a blog actually is (or is not) at such a level.
Here now are the best methods for determining how popular a blog is:
- Subscribers
Keep an eye out for those little Feedburner chicklets that show you a blog’s subscriber count. There’s no simpler, more accurate way of telling how popular a blog is than by its number of subscribers, so this is definitely the first thing to look for. (If a blog doesn’t have one, you can get a semi-rough idea of its subscriber count by clicking “Add a subscription” in Google Reader and then searching for the name of the blog. This will only show you how many people are subscribed via Google Reader/iGoogle, of course. Still better than nothing.) - Comments
How active are their comments? This is usually a pretty good indicator of a blog’s level of traffic and popularity. And maybe even more importantly, what kind of comments are they? Are they bullshit “good post, thanks!” type comments written by a useless audience that only comments in hopes of getting traffic from the 2 people who may click their link, or are they comments from a real loyal audience that actually reads and cares about this blog? There’s a huge difference there, so don’t get caught up in quantity alone. Pay attention to quality. I’d much rather guest post on a blog that gets 10 super high quality comments than a blog that gets 100 low quality pieces of crap. The blog’s traffic/popularity is the #1 thing we’re looking for here, but #2 is audience quality. Comments are really the only way we have of gauging the quality of a blog’s readers, so definitely pay attention. - Backlinks
Popular, high traffic blogs tend to have lots and lots of links. Unpopular blogs with little traffic don’t. Use Yahoo Site Explorer to get an idea of where a blog is at in terms of backlinks. - Age
Sure, the age of a blog really doesn’t do anything to guarantee how much traffic and popularity it has, but it’s very safe to assume that there’s more of a chance that a 4 year old blog has more traffic/popularity than a 4 month old blog. More often than not, the longer a blog has been around, the more guest post worthy it is. (In case it’s not obvious enough, you can tell how old a blog is by looking through its archives. Duh.) - Compete, Alexa, etc.
Of everything on this list, this is by far the most useless way of estimating a blog’s traffic and popularity. I put very little stock in the Competes and Alexas of the world due to how laughably inaccurate they are the majority of the time. But, some people find them to be semi-useful for certain things, so I figured I’d throw it on the list just to please these people. Happy, people?
As for what specific number of subscribers, comments, backlinks, etc. you should be looking for to know whether a blog is truly guest post worthy, that will vary greatly from niche to niche. I can’t just say “only guest post on blogs with X subscribers” because in one niche 20,000 subscribers might be a lot, and in another 800 might be a lot.
You’ll have to use your own judgment (you know your niche better than I do) and common sense.
If a blog has little to no comments (or a bunch of really shitty ones) on most of its posts, or if it has less than a few hundred subscribers, or if it barely has 100 backlinks, or if it has only been around for a couple of months… you should probably keep on looking.
Similarly, if you see a blog that has a few thousand subscribers (or more), a nice amount of high quality comments on all of its posts, thousands of backlinks from quality sites and has been around for years, this is probably a good blog to consider guest posting on.
Where To Find Guest Post Worthy Blogs
Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for, you probably want to know where to look. This should get you going:
1. Brainstorm
The perfect place to start is in your own head. This is your niche, after all, so if anyone should know what some of the most popular blogs in this niche are… it’s you.
Make a list of the first bunch of blogs that come to mind and put them in order of how popular you think they are.
2. Technorati’s Top 100 & Technorati’s Blog Directory
From there, take a peek at the Technorati Top 100. This of course is a fairly accurate ranking of the 100 most popular blogs in the world. Makes sense to look there when you’re looking for popular blogs, doesn’t it?
Look it over for blogs in your niche (or a related niche) and add them to your list.
An added benefit of finding a relevant blog on this list is that it will give you a good idea of how popular “popular” actually is in your niche. Meaning, you’ll know what the upper limit of popularity is in your niche, and you can compare every other blog you find to it.
Sort of like blog popularity calibration. (I enjoy inventing new marketing terms that have no chance of catching on.)
After that, go through Technorati’s blog directory, which is basically a listing of some of the most popular blogs around broken down into categories and sorted by “Technorati Authority” (just their fancy way of saying “popularity”).
Check out your niche’s category and any other closely related category, and add some more blogs to that list of yours.
4. Research
Now do some research using the blogs you found so far. Chances are they talk about or link out to other blogs, usually popular ones. Add those blogs to your list too.
Then do some other simple/obvious research. For example, search for search terms related to your niche and see what blogs rank well for them. Blogs that rank well on search engines tend to be the blogs with the most traffic and popularity. Throw those blogs on your list as well.
Now what?
Your goal is to end up with a long list of relevant blogs that appear to be at least kind of popular and get some significant amount of traffic.
The next step is to narrow down this list by going through each blog to see if they truly do meet our guest post worthiness criteria using the methods and guidelines mentioned earlier.
The ones that appear to meet the criteria we’re looking for, keep. The ones that don’t, kick off the list (or save them somewhere else in case you suck at guest posting so much that only crappy blogs will let you guest post. I kid, I kid. 
)
The next step is to go through this updated list to see which of these blogs actually accept guest posts (more on that in a second).
In the end, you’ll have yourself a list of the perfect blogs to guest post on. Hooray!
Look Beyond Your Niche, Too
Remember that genius link building method I told you about a couple of weeks ago? You know, The Niche Crossover. Well, that exact same concept applies beautifully to guest posts.
I’m not going to explain the whole thing all over again here (read the post you lazy bastard), but you just need to come up with some sort of way of connecting your niche to some other niche, and then taaadaaa, you are now able to guest post on any blog in any niche you want.
The potential here is unlimited. Keep that in mind when making your list of guest post worthy blogs.
How To Tell If A Blog Accepts Guest Posts
So now you know how to find blogs to guest post on. Now you need to know whether they actually accept guest posts. Here’s how you do that:
- First and most obvious, look for some kind of “write for us” or “guest post” type link somewhere in their navigation. Check the header, sidebar and footer.
- Check the “About” and “Contact” pages. Lots of times blogs that accept guest posts will include a little mention of this fact somewhere on these types of pages. For example, the “Contact” page may say something along the lines “If you have any questions, feedback or would like to guest post, fill out the form below and blah blah blah.” Also check any sort of “FAQ” page for something similar.
- Search the blog (via their own search or Google or both) for phrases like “guest post” or “guest blog” or “guest blogging” or stuff like that.
- Go through the archives and look for posts that end (or begin) with something like “this post was written by Blah Blah from blahblahblah.com.”
- Email them and ask.
The End Of Part 2
And that wraps up Part 2.
At this point you know every single thing you’d need to know about guest posting up until the point where you actually contact a blog about doing a guest post, come up with the perfect idea for a post on that specific blog, create the perfect post, submit it, actually get it accepted and published, and go on to get as much out of it as you possibly can.
Hey, what a coincidence… that’s exactly what Part 3 covers: How to Write a Guest Post and Get it Published
(This is Part 2 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)
Thanx, you definitely have covered all the basics. But personally I have to disagree about not guest posting on smaller blog. Who knows maybe that small blog will explode a bit later and you will get visits later instead of now. Of course, it might not happen, but it’s still good experience of actually doing it, writing a post itself and contacting people.
Looking forward to Part 3!
Cheers
I love the idea of using the niche crossover for guest posting. Good stuff!
Great post! I will soon be a guest blogging ninja. I can feel it!
Adrian: It really depends on what your definition of “small blog” is. Even still, the issue with the “guest post on a smaller blog now because it might become big” is that, even if it that does happen (rare in most cases), you miss out on that initial burst of traffic and exposure, and this is really where 99% of the benefits of guest posting lie.
I don’t disagree about the experience part, though. Like I said in the post, the newer you are at this, the more you should start a bit smaller just to get an idea about what the hell you’re doing.
Then again, as long as you don’t screw it up completely, you have little (or nothing) to lose by starting with big blogs. The worst thing that can happen is they turn you down and THEN you go try a smaller (but still popular) blog.
The best thing that can happen is they accept the post and you’re a huge guest posting success right from day 1.
Matt: Yeah, it’s also extra perfect for people in smaller, more obscure niches who want to get out in front of bigger more mainstream audiences.
Danny: Hell yeah! By now you gotta be coming close to green belt status.
hell, I am just glad you said “fuck ‘em” in this post. that gives me teh lulz.
Crazy Ass Redneck: Come for the content, stay for the profanity.