The goal is to overtake your competitors with the quantity and quality of your guest post backlinks, and it’s a long-distance race that requires much time and effort. To win this race, you have to get published on A+ websites. Easier said than done, right? When Twitter says your competitor got published on a badass website that has declined your offer several times, you get a chip on your shoulder about not being published on that blog. There are steps to getting your guest post pitch accepted on A+ Websites with ease.

But instead of blaming others for your situation, you’d better identify and learn from your mistakes you may be making.

Guest posting is like a marathon: you may be holding back one minute, sprinting the next one.

And today, I’m going to prepare you for that long-distance race to finally get high-quality backlinks from authority websites.

Guest Posting for SEO

Let’s be honest: we all crave for higher Google rankings. SEO is not magic. To get better positions, you need to know and use different SEO techniques — and guest posting is one of them. According to Google, one of the most essential factors for positioning websites in the top spots is the number of links from trustworthy websites. The more prominent websites link to your site, the better your Google position is.

There’s no wonder marketers lay a bet on guest posting: 64% of bloggers write for more than one blog; companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website; guest contributors post about 6.6 articles per month. Guest posting allows you to get backlinks, expand your audience, build an online reputation, and blow your blog up with traffic. All in all, it means better search engine visibility over the long haul.

Guest posting isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to getting backlinks, but it’s an excellent opportunity to get a good chunk of your link juice, primarily when you get published on A+ websites.

What is an A+ Website?

If you’re ready to write for a top-notch website, that’s great. But, are you sure the website is credible?

Here’s the checklist:

• Site authority metrics: measure the impact of a website with Domain Authority (DA), Page Rank, organic traffic, backlinks, bounce rate – all these metrics can hint at the quality of the site.

• The number of linking domains: the more referring domains the website has, the better.

• User-friendly design: a trustworthy website puts its visitors first, so they do their best to keep their design simple, eye-catching and up-to-date.

• Fresh, unique and useful content: reputable websites put much effort into creating helpful blog posts that can solve their readers’ problems and give insight.

• High engagement: if the website is credible, it has many readers who trust the information on the blog. Thus, look whether its posts get many likes, comments and shares.

The more reputable a website is, the more potential contributors it has. To stand out from the crowd, ask yourself one simple question: what makes you any different from the hundreds of other blogger hoping for attention?

To get your high-quality backlink, you need to surpass your competitors, and here’s how to do it.

3 Steps to Get Your Guest Post Pitch Accepted on A+ Websites

1. Become an Influencer in Your Niche

When significant websites like Entrepreneur or the Huffington Post publish content on their websites, they are vouching for the authors. The quality of their articles is their reputation, so they are picky about the guest authors who want to contribute to the websites. Before approving your pitch, top-notch bloggers wish to ensure you can meet their standards. The best way to be vetted is to provide social proof. For a chance to be featured on a top-notch blog, you need to become an influencer in your niche. You can prove that you are a great writer and influencer by writing posts on the topics that are wanted and needed. The more websites that share your articles, the better for your reputation.

Plus, many influential websites require writing samples as proof of your expertise.

To avoid being rejected by the high-quality sites, you need to take care of your reputation before pitching.

Here’s how you can do it:

• share useful articles on your blog

• contribute to other websites

• write a case study

• grow a following on social media channels
  

• collaborate with niche influencers

Credible resources work with opinion leaders who have theoretical and practical knowledge, and therefore can provide their readers with valuable and useful information. Thus, put much effort into becoming an influencer in your niche.

2. Build a Connection with a Blog Owner

The brutal truth: top-notch bloggers are overwhelmed with the number of emails they receive daily, and it’s impossible for them to reply to all letters in the inbox.

As a site grows in popularity, more people want to connect with the blog owner to ask for an opinion, feedback, advertising opportunities, etc. Just look at the infographic by Neil Patel. Before providing visitors with the contact info, he shows the incoming mail statistics.

The bottom line? There’s no need to turn to math helpers to understand that Neil Patel receives too many emails to reply to all of them. And the situation is the same for all favorite bloggers. What can we learn? To stand out from the crowd of competitors who want to get published on A+ websites, it’s better to have a card up your sleeve. If you’ve established a connection with a blog owner before sending your guest post request, that’s great: it can help you get noticed among other writers.

Once you’re able to build a connection with a blog owner, you’ll stand out from the mass.

The main idea is to get noticed by an influencer. Here’s how you can establish a connection:

• Comment on a recent blog post

• Share a publication on Twitter and tag a blog owner

• Ask for feedback

• Cite a blog owner in your guest post

3. Do a Favor

To draw someone’s attention, you should put this person’s needs first. If you want to get noticed by top bloggers, help them grow their blog and become more influential before asking for backlinks. Moreover, it’s scientifically proven that people want to return the favor when someone does something nice.

According to a psychologist Robert Cialdini, invoking the reciprocity norm is one of the best psychological tricks to convince people to do what you want. The idea is to help someone with something they need first so that they will feel obliged to return the favor.

When I want to collaborate with blog owners, I try to take care of them. Here’s a little case study of this strategy in action: If you help people, you’ll be rewarded. By doing favors, you can improve the odds that bloggers comply with your guest post requests.

Here’s how you can help bloggers:

• add a backlink to their website

• take part in a survey

• cause a buzz on their blog

• promote their articles on your social media

Bonus Tips

If you’re ready to use the tips as mentioned above to write your first guest post for authority sites, that’s great. If you want to learn from bloggers who succeed, that’s even better. Over the years of writing guest posts for badass websites, bloggers have come up with unique tips and tricks that help to collaborate with influential blog owners.

Here comes a list of tips from bloggers who published their articles on authority sites like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Adweek, Social Media Examiner, CrazyEgg and much more:

1. Lilach Bullock, LilachBullock Blog

2. Robert Katai, RobertKatai Blog

3. Stefan Debois, SurveyAnyplace

In a Word

It’s not a secret that guest posting is always an exchange. Getting your guest post accepted on top-notch blogs isn’t difficult when you think about the blog owners, not yourself. Top bloggers have spent much time growing their communities and websites. Now it’s your turn to consider how to appreciate their efforts: put blog owners first, value their time, and be always beneficial — and you will be able to grab their attention.

Hugh Beaulac

With over 6 years experience in digital marketing, Hugh Beaulac is a content strategist behind MC2 Bid4Papers blog who also works as an SMM manager and writes for top-notch websites to share his tips. You can see his articles at WordStream, CrazyEgg, SmartInsights, Foundr, LiveChatInc, and more.