How to Guarantee a Continuous Flow of Traffic with Your Guest Posts!

{This is a continuation of our guest blogging tips series. Please read the previous entries to better understand the flow of the topic.}

Ok, so let's get on with it!

We have previously established that the primary reason why you want to starve your blog of one of your most promising posts is because you desire to funnel some traffic to your own blog/site from the host blog.

If that is so, which one will you rather go for, a momentary burst of traffic or a continuous flow that will continue over the years?

Can you imagine a situation where you submit a guest post for publication and 3 years on that guest post is still bringing you traffic?

Now, it will interest you to know that a few guest posts I did some 3 years ago are still driving traffic to this blog today! That indeed is reaping the fruits of a good seed sown in the past! 🙂

The truth is anyone can do it.  The only secret is in optimizing your guest posts for the search engines!

Not new right?

But you will be surprised how many guest bloggers care to do it. In fact, one of the most frequent questions I’ve heard asked about guest blogging is: Is it the responsibility of the guest blogger to optimize the post or that of the host blogger?

This is actually what has prompted this post as part of these guest blogging tips series. As much as I don’t want to be drawn into any form of controversy, I want to quickly give you just two reasons why you should optimize your guest posts.

Why Guest Bloggers Should Optimize Their Guest Posts

Guest Blogging Tips Graphic

Optimized Your Guest Posts to Drive Organic Free Traffic!

1. If your guest post is optimized and receives a good ranking on the search engines, it will receive more traffic beyond the regular blog readers and the more people who get to read the post the more people that will be funneled to your site!

2. Without optimizing your guest post it will soon become a forgotten piece of content weeks after publication. This is because, a few weeks after the post is published, it will soon be buried under newer content. When this happens, no one would know if it ever existed!  However, if it is optimized, there is the tendency of it ranking high in the SERPs thereby bringing in traffic, years after it is published!

Not satisfied with these reasons? No problem. Go on and submit your guest post. Add some activity to the host blog. Let the readers rave and cheer as they post their comments. But never complain if after a few days or weeks nobody cares to remember if you ever made any post there because you've succeeded only in adding value to the host blog!

But if you’ve seen reason from the above why guest bloggers should optimize their guest posts then I know definitely that you are not just shadow boxing as a guest blogger.

So, here is a simple guide on how to do it.

How to Optimize Your Guest Posts For an Endless Gush of Traffic

Note this, optimizing your guest posts can be as complicated as you want it to be.  However, there are simple yet effective techniques. What you need is to simply determine what keyword phrases to use and then implement them correctly in your post.

Here’s a simple guide to determine what Keyword phrases to target

1. Decide on your post’s subject. What are you going to write about? What pain will it heal? Is it going to answer a pressing question or will it satisfy a desire for the reader. Decide on this just as we have mentioned before every guest post you write must have a purpose.

2. With the above in mind, open Google’s free keyword tool to get a picture of how real people are searching for that subject online. This is called keyword research. This is essential.

3. From the various options that the keyword tool presents you, choose 3 to 5 to use in your post. It’s important that you get into your target audience’s frame of mind when choosing. That is, think like your target audience. Keyword tools only suggest potential keywords but the actual choosing is done by you. So you’ll need to evaluate the various suggestions.

Here are 3 elements that will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your target keyword:

1. Popularity – This is the easiest to evaluate. In fact, Google’s keyword tool simply tells you the popularity of a keyword phrase by the number of times it was searched for in the previous month.

2. Specificity – The keyword phrase you choose must be specific to your potential readers need.  This is best way that those who are ready to help you achieve your purpose, will find you. For example, if your guest post is to drive traffic to your site where you offer automobile bodywork services, obtaining a high ranking for the keyword “automobile companies” will get a torrent of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters.

But these are not targeted.  But a keyword phrase like “automobile body shops” will definitely serve you much better since only those with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders will be directed to your site.

So be specific with your target keywords.

3. Consumer Motivation – What motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase in the search engines? Another example here. Let’s say you want to write a guest post about recruiting new staff and someone out there is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. Which do you think will be of benefit to this person, “Seattle job listings” or “Seattle IT recruiters”?  Now, put yourself in this person’s shoes, which will you type in? The second one right? And that is because this person is differently motivated than someone who is just out of school and is casually trying to figure out what to do with their life.

Once you have determined what keywords to target with your guest post the next question will be, how do you use them?

Not to worry I have that covered also! So, let’s spill it 🙂

1. The Post Title – Always have your target keyword phrase in the title. If possible the exact phrase should appear at the beginning of the title. Please note that in a wordpress blog, your post title is by default the title tag which is the code that is enclosed within the <h1> and </h1> tags. This is important as it tells the search engines what your page is about.  Try as much as possible to restrict your title to between 65 and 70 characters.  This is both important for both the search engines and social bookmarking sites.

2. The Description Meta Tag – This is very important as it is what, most times, compel searchers to click on your article when they see it on the SERPs. Of the different pages on the search results, your page should be able, with the description, to convince the searcher beyond any doubt that it’s the one with the right information. So your page description should be something enticing. Note that if you do not write the description for your page, the search engines will simply grab the first few lines on your page as the description. Restrict your description to about 156 characters. This is to make room for some search engines like Google who will also include the date snippets before the description in the SERPs!

3. Make Good Use Of Your Target Keywords And its Variations In Your Post – Within your content make sure you sprinkle your target keyword phrase whenever possible. The frequent occurrence of that phrase in your blog will hint the search engines that your blog is really relevant to that topic. Ensure the phrase appears in the first and last paragraph.

Be careful of keyword stuffing. Rather than stuffing your article with your target keyword phrase, use variations or related terms instead.  A simple way of getting related terms to use is to do a search with your keyword phrase on Google.com; scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see related search phrases to the one you're searching for. Here is an example of a search for “guest blogging seo”:

related searches keywords

Pick from these related searches and then use them in your post. This is a simple way of taking advantage of Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) – a concept that Google began to champion some time ago.

Guest Blogging Tips Takeaway

Except you want your guest posts to lose relevance a few weeks after it is published, you definitely want to optimize your guest post. This is the surest way of guaranteeing that it will continue to drive traffic to your site over the years.  Nevertheless, how much of optimization you decide to do depends greatly on you but if you will implement this simple guide you are sure to succeed.

If these tips for optimizing your guest post appear intimidating you may want to read my simple guide on keyword research. Combine the knowledge from these two articles and you would be prepared to craft monumental guest post that will promote your brand and business with ease.

Over to you: Let’s make this interactive as usual. Do you agree that guest bloggers should optimize their guest posts? Let’s have your views in the comment section.

37 Comments
  1. Hi Chadrack,
    Its all keyword game to achieve high traffic with guest postings.It is necessary for a blogger to learn keyword strategy before start blogging on wider space.

    • @Syeda Mehwish,

      Knowing and properly utilizing the right keywords is definitely important when it comes to driving traffic through seo. But should you really learn keywords before you become a big time blogger? I think that will come with different arguments. However, a blogger who really want to drive traffic through the search engines MUST learn the essentials.

      Thanks for joining the conversation.

  2. Hi Chadrack,
    I search alot about how we use keywords in our blogging and found that the right usage of keyword always work for me.You have shared key tips to generate traffic with guest posts and I liked the way you explain the post.Thanks

    • @Pete Goumas,

      It’s glad to know that this post resonate with you. What I’ve done here is to make things a little simple for everyone to understand. I know not everyone who will be reading this have the deep understanding about keyword usage. As someone who is familiar with keywords, getting this wasn’t really hard for you. I do hope it did for others.

      Thanks for the comment.

  3. Congratulations on writing guest posts that endure! Amazing that you still get traffic after three years. Thanks for sharing your secrets with us.

    • @Charleen Larson,

      Frankly, I must say every time I noticed a new visit in my site stats and discover that the visit is from one of my guest post from the past, I never stop being amazed! However, because those guest posts were well planned out when I wrote them, I’m not too surprised.

      Nevertheless, I’ll be dealing with another aspect that is really crucial to their success in the next post. Of course, you know even if the post rank high in the search engines and people click on the link, they will only be directed to the host blog. But how do they get directed to my blog?

      That will be the angle we will be handling in the next post. I hope you read that also.

      Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation!

  4. Hi Chadrack,
    Love the post. Thanks for the inputs.:)

  5. It seems that you are providing the good series of guest blogging tips. A complete guidance on what keyword phrases should be used and for what people were looking for.

    Full marks to this post in the series of guest blogging tips.

  6. My main issue with guest posts is time Chadrack. I would love to guest post on so many sites, but I just never seem to get around to it, as when one thing finished, another starts grabbing my time!

  7. Such a great article! I totally agree, guest posting is the most efficient tool for generate a continuous traffic to a blog!

    • @Julie,

      Frankly, it’s really funny that only a few bloggers who knows this are really doing it correctly. Many are still applying the dead article marketing strategies when they guest blog.

      I truly hope this series will help a few to get better results with their labor. Thanks for the comment.

  8. Great post, the idea of optimizing guest posts for search engines makes a lot of sense. Traditionally I have felt that strong content that could rank well in search is best used on my own website, not a guest blog, but the reasons you give for optimizing guest posts are certainly valid.

    Writing it in hopes of ranking could boost the links to that post as well, increasing the link juice passed back to your website. Plus you build goodwill with the site you posted on because you’re helping them drive traffic. They’ll definitely want you back after that.

    • @Melanie,

      First, pardon me for replying this late. On your comment, I must say you actually get it very right. Many bloggers have the wrong notion of just putting together any thing without really caring about optimization.

      Personally, I believe in quality over quantity and I’m really glad that apart from the benefits I mentioned, you were able to add some very good ones! I truly look forward to seeing more quality guest posts on the blogosphere!

      Thanks for your comment.

  9. Hi Chadrack,
    Thanks for bringing this up.I have seen many blogmasters not making best use of old content. Optimizing the post surely leads to more genuine traffic.People just want to see relevant information about a topic. If the post gives them some valuable data, they hardly cares on which date it was written. Nice post.

    • @Venus,

      You’re definitely right Venus. It is no the date but what you receive from an article that really matters. And the only way you can really make your articles to stay relevant is optimizing them for the search engines. This way they can always get the attention of searchers.

      Thanks for joining the conversation.

  10. Main purpose of guest posting is to attract traffic, plus you need to extra efforts so that it gets more exposure. You can do link building so that it can rank on search engines for your preferred keywords and get targeted traffic.

    • @Aasma,

      You’re right Aasma. If you really want your guest posts to achieve your goals you must go the extra mile. Many do not realize this. Some do not even promote the post once it is live. They are content with having a link back to their site. I sincerely believe that building links to the guest post is a good way of ensuring that it rank high in the search engines.

      Thanks for this wonderful contribution.

  11. I am a huge fan of guest posts. I think they are the best way to get traffic that is going to stay. Or at least come back frequently enough to receive what you are trying to sell.

    • @Elena Anne,

      That really sound great. More and more people are turning to guest posting for the better SEO results. You truly sound enthusiastic about this. Would you mind doing a guest post for this blog? Will love to have it published!

  12. Sigh. Almost everything you need to do needs optimization. Is there a place where you could just post everything you want? hehe. I haven’t done any guest post yet. I’m looking into it. And I think it’s hard. Writing quality content makes it even harder.

    • @Mark,

      “Writing quality content makes it even harder!” I sincerely think this is why many shy away from it and those who want to use it really want to put in the effort.

      I quite agree with you about quality content. In fact SEO tactics without the necessary good content will amount to nothing because ultimately it is the content that will engage the reader. But you cannot shy away from the search engine optimization.

      Thanks for the comment.

  13. The ideas you’ve shared here are fantastic and no doubt very useful for every visitor that read your post.thanks for the share.

  14. Use a quality content on your guest post,if you want to increase traffic in your guest post.carefully optimize your guest post.

  15. amazing post, the concept of optimizing guest posts for search engines makes a lot of sense. Traditionally I have felt that strong content that could rank well in search is best used on my own web site, not a guest blog, but the reasons you give for optimizing guest posts are certainly valid.

    • @buy seo services,

      I can understand your point. I was once there! But it’s good thing that you can resonate with my points. I hope you will do better by implementing them in the future!

  16. Hi Chadrack,

    I got a few out on the web that still bring traffic but a bunch do indeed get buried. The post has to be compelling enough so it gets some natural links too otherwise it is becoming increasingly hard to keep a post ranking up there. Unless you choose something uncompetitive but then traffic will often be low too. Guest posting is becoming increasingly tricky when you add the relevancy requirements etc.

    How do you suggest you deal with the relevancy requirements and the increasing reluctance of blog owners to post guest content?

    • @Nik,

      Yea, I can understand that. It’s definite that not all will stay afloat! However, if they are truly well optimized the traffic will continue over the years. This is why I personally appreciate what Google is going with their regular updates. Good content will continue to remain relevant no matter when it was published.

      I also agree with you that the post should be compelling enough. When this happens some of the readers may want to reference it in their posts or share it with their friends on the social media sites. These promotions can work great for the article.

      I’ve also seen some very good bloggers who will go as far as promoting their guest posts building backlinks to them so as to give the post some more seo power! I think this is really a good way of strengthening the post for the search engines.

      Really don’t want to agree that guest blogging is becoming tricky. What is happening rather is that many bloggers want to submit substandard articles in the name of guest blogging. Besides, others go for niches that are not related to their niches. But I think this is not the way to go. Just today I have refused 2 requests from the emails I understand that their articles are focused on something quite different from my blog target niche.

      I’ve mentioned this in the course of this series but my suggestion is always to research the blog you want to publish your guest post on to ensure it is related to your target niche. The benefits of doing this include:

      1. Your request will be received more ease.
      2. The traffic generated by your post will be relevant to your blog.
      3. Your backlinks will be relevant (think of Pengium Google update!) and so the benefit of ranking.

      There should be nothing tricky about guest blogging at all if your content is good. In fact if your content is good every blogger out there will be willing to publish the post.

      Or, did you have any experience where you were refused even when your article was ok?

  17. Chadrack,

    I noticed I am refusing a lot of them these days myself. There is a clear pattern why I refuse. Great subject related article but an author line that indicates John writes also about “irrelevant link + irrelevant anchor text”

    Nik

    • @Nik,

      I understand your point there. May be you need understand that most guest bloggers are guest blogging as service providers. The article may be a paid guest post in which case the blogger is expected to provide those links to the paying site!

      I’ve published a few of these before knowing fully well what they are. But refusing them outright because of the “irrelevant link” is not good enough. That is by my judgement any way. Those links are definitely in the resource box and not the body of the article. So if the content is okay the practice have always been, the writer promoting himself or business in the resource box.

      Of course, you have your own reasons for refusing this type of guest posts. But for me, I’ll rather judge the article by the content and the topic. Once the topic is in my target niche and the content ok, I’ll publish the article.

      You may want to give some reasons why you are so concerned about the links in the resource box.

  18. Nice update This tool is mainly useful for seo services thank you
    nice sharing

  19. Thanks for sharing the information,it is very nice post.The search volume for a specific keyword has no effect on your website’s ranking. If you rank well for a phrase with high search volume, your are likely to generate a good amount of traffic from that ranking. Trying to game the number of times a phrase is searched will not have any impact on your friend’s rankings.

  20. You can either stay with traffic and hope you aren’t caught, or drive a bit slower. In the grand scheme of things, going 5 mph less than traffic, will let you catch up to the speeders at the stop light. Its usually a short distance and the extra speed won’t really give you more time.Thanks for sharing the information.

    Leave a Reply to Nik Cancel reply

    Empowering You to Make Money Online
    Logo