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14 Blogger Outreach Tools for Productive Marketers (2023 Edition)

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 19:09:58 GMT

14 Blogger Outreach Tools for Productive Marketers (2023 Edition)

Finding the balance between automation and human touch in your outreach campaigns can be hard. With a mix of the right tools, though, you could improve your results.

But with so many options out there, finding the right solution for your organization becomes excruciatingly time-consuming.

The good news?

We’ve done the legwork for you and put together a list of some of the most popular outreach tools in the market. Better yet, we categorized the list based on the different activities involved in the outreach process.

You can head straight to the section which interests you most by clicking below:

What is a blogger outreach tool?
Research and intelligence
Outreach automation
Outreach campaign management
Tracking and reporting

But before we get into the actual list of tools, let’s answer a crucial question…

What is a blogger outreach tool?

Blogger outreach is the process of finding relevant influencers in your industry and building valuable relationships with them with a clear objective in mind (i.e., landing guest post opportunities, building partnerships, building backlinks, etc.).

A few years ago, companies had to approach this process manually, which was counterproductive and expensive.

Blogger outreach tools came to make the process easier (and simpler).

For instance, instead of manually collating a list of target emails, now you can tap into automation to build that list automatically.

Or instead of contacting prospects one by one, some platforms help you scale your blogger outreach campaign while adding a personal touch to each email.

The right platform mixed with the right blogger outreach strategy can drive great results to your business.

That said, let’s break down the main categories involved in the blogger outreach process, as well as relevant platforms for each category.

Research and intelligence

Everything starts with analysis and research. That is, building a list of the right bloggers.

This is crucial. If you’re going to spend your time and resources on blogger outreach, you better make sure you’re contacting the right people.

Some helpful tools in this category include:

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content discovery tool that helps you find relevant content, social media influencers, and trends based on specific keywords or domain names.

Simply enter a keyword into the search bar, select “Influencers,” and BuzzSumo will show you a list of key influencers in your industry..

BuzzSumo lets you filter influencers by platform, location, influencer activity, and even keywords. This is especially helpful to find influential bloggers that are highly relevant to your niche.

Some of the top features BuzzSumo offers:

Find influencers : Discover true influential bloggers and influencers in your industry based on solid metrics.
Monitoring : Track brand mentions and identify opportunities quickly.
Content research : Discover trending topics in your industry and figure out who’s producing the best content.

BuzzSumo offers four paid plans: Pro, Plus, Large, and Enterprise. Paid plans start at $99 per month .

2. VoilaNorbert.com

Finding your prospects’ email address is one of the most important yet tedious tasks of the blogger outreach process. No matter how targeted your list is, if you can’t find the right email addresses, you won’t get much response.

Here’s where VoilaNorbert comes in handy.

VoilaNorbert helps you find anyone’s email address. You can find email addresses one-by-one or in bulk. By entering the name and website of your prospects, VoilaNorbert will automatically find (and verify) your prospects’ email addresses.

VoilaNorbert’s features include:

Find leads : Find the email addresses of decision-makers at scale.
Verify emails : Validate email addresses in real-time.
Enrich contacts : Get valuable insights about your prospects to ensure a more personalized messaging.

VoilaNorbert offers four paid plans: Valet, Butler, Advisor, and Counselor. Paid plans start at $49 per month, for up to 1,000 leads .

3. LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is a social selling platform that helps you find and target the right people, understand your targets at a deeper level, and engage them with personalized outreach.

Even though Sales Navigator was designed with salespeople in mind, it can be pretty helpful to find niche bloggers and influencers. Thanks to Sales Navigator’s powerful filters, you can find bloggers in minutes (even within the smallest niches).

Sales Navigator’s top features include:

Better targeting : Get access to advanced filters to find the right people at the right time.
Outreach personalization : Get valuable information about your prospects to personalize your outreach campaigns.
Notes and tags : Organize your contacts based on specific tags and notes.

Sales Navigator offers three paid plans: Professional, Team, and Enterprise. Pricing starts at $64.99 per month (per user), billed annually .

4. Upfluence

Upfluence is an influencer outreach platform that helps you find key influencers in your industry, track the progress of your campaigns, monitor brand mentions, and develop more solid influencer partnerships.

Currently, Upfluence has over 4 million active influencers in their database and provides you with advanced filters to find the right ones for your organization.

Some of the top features Upfluence offers include:

Influencer search : Identify top brand ambassadors and influencers.
Influencer tracking : Measure the ROI of your outreach campaigns.
Influencer profiles : Get access to over 4 million influencer profiles to build your list.

Upfluence offers three paid plans: Growth, Scale, and Enterprise. Pricing isn’t publicly available .

Outreach automation

Outreach can be a tedious process.

First, you have to build a list of prospects. Then you need to contact those prospects in a way that feels personalized and relevant at the same time. Without automations that process becomes a true nightmare.

That’s one of the reasons roughly 75% of brands already use some kind of marketing automation.

If you don’t want to get left behind, here are some great tools to streamline your outreach process:

5. Pitchbox

Pitchbox is a blogger outreach software suitable for SEO agencies, brands, and publishers. It helps you customize your email outreach process to your target audience without any manual labor.

Besides, Pitchbox helps you find relevant influencers in your niche based on advanced search criteria and smart prospecting profiles.

Pitchbox’s top features include:

Prospecting : Get access to SERP-based prospecting features to discover relevant blogs.
Workflow : Build and automate your outreach workflow with ease.
Outreach and follow-up : Set up automatic outreach emails to increase your response rate.

Pitchbox doesn’t publicly state their pricing. To find out more about their plans, you’ve to book a personalized demo .

6. Reply.io

Reply.io is a sales automation software that helps you manage and automate multichannel outreach campaigns. It provides you with a Chrome extension to find verified leads on LinkedIn and engage your prospects across multiple channels, including SMS, email, and WhatsApp.

Besides, Reply.io helps you write more engaging outreach emails with the help of AI-backed quality scoring and gives you pre-built templates based on an intelligent algorithm.

Reply.io’s top features include:

Improve : Analyze task execution and get valuable feedback to improve your processes.
Engage : Connect and reach out to prospects on LinkedIn automatically.
Execute : Automate repetitive tasks and increase your productivity.

Reply.io offers three different pricing structures: Individual, Business, and Agency. Plans start at $70 per month, per user .

7. Outreach.io

Outreach.io is an enterprise-level sales engagement software that helps you get the most out of your outreach efforts. It provides you with insights and recommended actions to get the specific actions you want faster.

Even though Outreach.io is focused primarily on sales, you can use it to automate and manage large blogger outreach campaigns, as it provides you with advanced machine-learning tools to optimize your emails and measure your performance.

Outreach.io’s main features include:

Workflow governance : Manage your team and ensure organization-wide alignment.
User profiles : Build enhanced prospect profiles to send more personalized emails.
Integrations : Seamlessly integrate hundreds of the tools and apps your team already uses.

Outreach.io doesn’t publicly state their pricing. To find out more about their plans, you need to book a demo .

8. SalesHandy

SalesHandy is actually a small suite of five outreach tools: Email Tracking, Email Campaign, Auto Follow-up, Email Templates, and Email Scheduling.

Also, SalesHandy natively integrates with Gmail and Outlook so you can work straight from your favorite email provider.

Some of the top features SalesHandy offers include:

Email templates : Use shortcuts to access premade email templates for Gmail.
Auto follow-up : Set up automatic follow-up sequences.
Email tracking : Track the performance of your campaigns with ease.

SalesHandy offers a free plan and three paid ones: Regular, Plus, and Enterprise. Paid plans start at $9 per month (per user), billed annually.

Outreach campaign management

You should treat blogger outreach like any other project. Otherwise, the process can grow pretty chaotic, especially when dealing with large campaigns.

Some helpful tools in this category include:

9. monday.com

monday.com is a flexible Work OS (Work Operating System) that helps you build custom digital workspaces for different use cases, including CRM, marketing, project management, software development and, of course, blogger outreach.

monday.com helps you manage your team, assign tasks to specific team members, measure progress, and manage your entire campaign under one roof.

Some of the top features monday.com offers include:

Automations : Get access to 250,000+ automation recipes.
Customizations : Customize the entire platform to fit your exact needs.
Project management : Manage your projects from start to finish under one roof.

monday.com offers four paid plans: Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Paid plans start at $24 per month for 3 users.

10. BuzzStream

BuzzStream is an outreach campaign management platform suitable for link building, content marketing, and PR. It helps you build qualified lists of prospects, send emails at scale, and measure your progress all in the same place.

BuzzStream also provides you with personalization features to tailor your emails for each individual prospect without sacrificing productivity.

BuzzStream’s top features include:

Research : Browse prospect lists and find relevant information automatically.
Email : Send personalized emails at scale.
Manage : Manage each interaction and keep your team informed along the way.

BuzzStream offers four paid plans: Starter, Group, Professional, and Custom. Paid plans start at $24 per month, per user .

11. Hive

Hive is a project management platform you can use to streamline your blogger outreach processes and oversee your team’s productivity. It helps you manage contacts, automate workflows, and communicate with your team more efficiently.

Hive also integrates with 1,000+ of the most popular tools and platforms so you can centralize your work into a single place.

Some of the top Hive’s features include:

Assignee and comments : Assign specific tasks to team members and add relevant notes to each task.
Analytics : Monitor individual or team performance with the help of visual dashboards.
Forms and templates : Get access to pre-built templates to speed up your work.

Hive offers two paid plans: Base and Enterprise. Paid plans start at $12 per month (per user), billed annually .

Tracking and reporting

Finally, you need a system in place to monitor and measure your results. Without the right reporting features, you can’t possibly know whether your campaigns are working.

Here are some tools to track your progress effectively:

12. Yesware

Yesware is an all-in-one outreach tracking system that helps you monitor email opens, replies, clicks, and many other actions. It’s especially helpful to understand the overall performance of your campaigns and optimize your efforts.

Yesware also provides you with proven templates to get better results right off the bat and integrates with some of the tools your team may already use.

Some of the top features Yesware offers include:

Email tracking : Track important campaign actions in real-time.
Attachment tracking : Receive a notification whenever a prospect opens your attachments.
Gmail Chrome extension : Track and organize your outreach campaigns straight from your Gmail account.

Yesware offers three paid plans: Pro, Premium, and Enterprise. Paid plans start at $15 per month (per user), billed annually .

13. HubSpot’s email tracking

HubSpot’s email tracking platform lets you know every time a prospect opens your email or clicks on a specific link. It also provides you with desktop notification so you never miss an opportunity.

Besides, HubSpot’s email tracking lets you see a prospect’s entire history at a glance so you can better personalize your approach.

HubSpot’s email tracking features include:

Reporting : Get advanced reports on the performance of your campaigns.
Email tracking : Track email opens, replies, clicks, and attachments.
Lead scoring : Score your prospects based on individual actions.

HubSpot’s email tracking is completely free.

14. Mailtrack

As the name suggests, Mailtrack is an email tracking solution suitable for Gmail users. It helps you monitor email activity in a simple, visual way.

Mailtrack helps you know how many times a person has opened your emails so you can identify your most engaged prospects.

Mailtrack’s top features include:

Email activity : Get desktop notifications every time a prospect takes a relevant action.
Security : Keep your data secure with a platform that complies with top security standards.

Mailtrack offers a free option and two paid plans: Pro and Advanced. Paid plans start at $4.99 per month .

Final words

Blogger outreach works.

In fact, it’s still one of the most effective ways to build backlinks for SEO, land guest post opportunities, and build valuable relationships with influential bloggers in your industry.

Fortunately, with the right process and tools in place, the process becomes feasible for any type of organization.

Hopefully you now have enough information to select the right blogger outreach platform for your organization.

And if you need more personalized advice, feel free to schedule a free consultation with one of the experts at The Agency Guide. We’d be happy to advise you.

How to Craft the Ideal Outreach Email for SEO in 2023 (And Actually Get Backlinks)

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 03:07:59 GMT

How to Craft the Ideal Outreach Email for SEO in 2023 (And Actually Get Backlinks)

When you’re starting from zero with SEO, and you’re focusing on whitehat SEO, you can’t get anywhere without email outreach.

You need to reach a very targeted audience who manage or contribute to established websites that are relevant to your business.

But even getting cold emails opened is a challenge — much less having them read and getting positive responses.

On average, you’ll be lucky to get a 3% response rate response rate if you just send personalized emails at scale. And that’s just email responses, not necessarily a “yes.”

Obviously, you don’t want to send hundreds of emails for each backlink. In this article, we’ll break down the psychology of outreach emails, cover what works, and share 7 templates you can use to start building more links today.

The psychology behind writing outreach emails that work

When you’re creating an SEO outreach campaign, it’s easy to get lost in your own goals. “I need to get backlinks for my new site ASAP so I can start ranking on Google and make the big bucks!”

Me, me, me.

But that’s a perspective that won’t lead to successful outreach emails. You need to focus on the recipient. What value are you delivering to them?

Focus on your recipient, help them relate to you, and offer them value

Especially if you’re trying to reach a busy blogger or CEO, you need to give them a reason to even open your email.

It needs to be relevant to them. For example, this email landed the CEO of Gray not just a high DA backlink to his site, but a dedicated blog post talking about how awesome he is at writing emails, and a friend for life.

It might just be the happiest ending I’ve ever seen for a cold email — a sales outreach fairy tale.

( Image Source )

Noah Kagan (founder of Sumo, previously AppSumo) shared this on his official blog.

The appeal focuses on a psychological tendency in which we tend to treat people who are similar to ourselves more favorably.

Basically, there’s four layers to the pitch:

Relevant subject line that grabs Noah’s attention: it references actual events and close encounters with Noah.
“I’m just like you”: Not only is he Jewish, he’s also a successful business owner with his own insights to offer. (For SEO, this is all about doing your homework and finding websites that are directly related to your site and business. You can also get creative, like including a picture of your dog if you know the person is a dog lover.)
“What’s in it for you”: An app pitch from a successful entrepreneur. (For SEO, the most straightforward approach is pitching a high-quality guest post. It helps if you have a helpful resource, new interesting case study, or other incentive.)
Social proof: He isn’t just some “nobody.” He has 70 employees and operations in China.

While we don’t condone spending $600 on a pair of used shoes, you can learn from everything else in this email.

Personalized, well-targeted emails perform a lot better

So we’re not only relying on personal anecdotes, let’s examine some cold email data.

Cold emailing tool Woodpecker examined thousands of emails in a recent study. They found that small-batch personalized messages get a reply rate over 5 times higher than large-batch semi-spam emails.

( Image Source )

Cold email sequences sent to over 200 people had a reply rate of only 3% when not personalized. With a 16% reply rate versus 3%, you’d actually get more responses from 50 people than from 200.

How to apply these principles for SEO outreach

As a website owner (as long as you get any semblance of traffic and rankings), you’re bound to get asked for links eventually.

Some of these emails just blatantly ask for a backlink. Some offer to pay. While others take a more measured approach, offering something of value.

A recent email I received was pretty close to the mark, pitching a unique free resource that I could add to a recent blog post.

But the subject line wasn’t very attention-grabbing, and the message itself wasn’t personalized, either. It all felt a little too transactional.

The trick to doing link building right at scale is to use a reliable set of templates that force you to do some research before reaching out.

Make sure they already know of you

The final trick is to get your foot in the door before you ask for a favor. Make sure that the blogger knows who you are before you reach out.

If you’re in the same industry, this is as easy as following someone on Twitter (or their social platform of choice), and actively engaging with them in conversation.

You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to search for active influencers who have high domain authority blogs in your industry.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Be human. Interact naturally with people in your industry who also have websites, and even if you don’t pitch a guest post, you’ll land one eventually.

7 SEO outreach email templates you should start using today

In this section, we share 7 professionally written templates you can use to improve your SEO outreach campaigns.

Broken link template

Go beyond the typical mass cold emails with this broken link template.

Sometimes being straightforward can help. Many SEOs see success with some variation of the subject line “You have a broken link in X post.”

Subject: Quick question about [post] / Found a broken link in [post]

Hey Sarah,

While reading your blog, I noticed that your post about [post title] includes a broken link to an Acme marketing case study [link].

It looks like they moved the post to this url [link].

P.S. If you want a more up-to-date case study to add to the list, we just released a new one in February 2023: [link]

All the best,

Bob

Guest post suggestion template

Do a little research and find a way to pitch content that directly adds value to the audience. In an ideal world, you might be able to, for example, cover a conference that the blogger can’t make it to.

Subject: Interested in a post about ABC Martech Conference?

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. We’re big fans of your blog, especially your future of martech series. We saw that you won’t be able to make it to the ABC Martech conference this year — how about we write a roundup post for you instead?

Here’s what last year’s post looked like: [link]

All the best,

Bob

To get a head start, check out our list of 40+ high DA sites that accept guest posts.

“We featured you” template

Quid pro quo.

Subject: We loved your latest video so much, we shared it on our company blog

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. We loved your latest video explaining analytics so much that we decided to feature it on our company blog.

Here’s the link: [link]

P.S: We agree that analytics platforms are typically hard to set up, but ours is different. It only takes three clicks on most major CMS. If you want to see how it works, I’d love to set you up with a demo.

All the best,

Bob

You can also use the opportunity to start small and take advantage of the Ben Franklin effect. Ask for a Twitter shoutout rather than a dofollow link on their site. From there, you can start a mutually beneficial relationship.

Content collaboration template

For this approach, up-front research is everything. Find an outdated post that needs a revamp, something you can contribute a case study or data to, or a series you’d love to join.

Subject: Want some help updating [article]? We have a 2023 case study lined up

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. We’re big fans of your blog (especially your future of martech series), but noticed your post about the power of analytics is a bit outdated.

We write about analytics on our own blog, and just finished a case study, but figured it might reach a bigger audience and help more people on your blog.

We’d love to help you update your post with the latest data and trends.

All the best,

Bob

Asking for an opinion/interview template

In many industries, the best way to get a backlink is to offer to feature them on your own blog. Popular website owners get inundated with guest post pitches and broken-link emails.

Switch it up by giving the influencer a platform, instead of asking for theirs.

Subject: Quick interview about martech?

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. We’re big fans of your blog (especially your future of martech series), and would love to get your input on the new trend of AI-powered personalization.

We’re featuring industry expert opinions about the latest developments and we’d love to have you on board.

If you prefer to do it by email, I can send the interview questions over ASAP, or we can schedule a quick 5-minute call next week.

All the best,

Bob

Resource/data/case study template

Original research and case studies are one of the absolute best ways to generate authentic backlinks and buzz online.

But if you go about it the wrong way, your data could sit there, ignored for the foreseeable future.

Instead, use this template.

Subject: Exclusive: First look at cutting-edge Martech data

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. I love your series on the future of Martech, and thought that as a fellow Martech geek, you’d appreciate an exclusive first look at some data I’ve compiled on over 273 Martech companies.

It includes revenue growth numbers, most common pricing models, and more.

Best regards,

Bob

Essentially, it boils down to this:

Highlight a recent piece of content relevant to your new data or case study.
Offer an exclusive first look at your research.
Explain why it’s a great asset (highlight a few geeky details that a fellow industry writer will appreciate).

Roundup/list post outreach

One of the most effective cold outreach tactics is contacting blogs that already finished list posts (that don’t have you on them).

Find them by searching for “best PRODUCT CATEGORY – YOUR BRAND.”

Not only can this land you high-quality backlinks, you can earn a lot of trickle-down traffic. The original post ranks highly for a popular search term, after all.

But you have to do this in the right way. The last thing the blogger wants is another email shamelessly asking for a link.

Instead, use some humor and creativity to stand out.

Subject: Why didn’t we make the cut?

Hey Sarah,

Bob from XYZ Analytics here. Our whole team has followed your blog for a long time, so when you posted your “top 20 Martech tools for 2023” post, we were pretty psyched at maybe getting a mention.

With the release of [new features] and our dedication to customer success, and since you covered 20 tools rather than 10, this year we thought we finally had a shot. Looks like we didn’t make the list (again). Why didn’t we make the cut?

If you’re not familiar with our platform, I’d love to get you set up with a demo so you can play around with our new features.

Best regards,

Bob

How to find the right email addresses in the first place

The biggest mistake you can make with a blogger outreach campaign is to just use contact forms. (Unless they have a dedicated form for guest posts.)

For smaller sites and businesses, they mostly have the forms for one purpose, and anything that’s not about an appointment gets ignored outright.

In a worst-case scenario, you may even go straight to the spam folder. So don’t do that.

Find the right person on LinkedIn (or in the company profile)

With larger publications, you’ll struggle to reach the right by just targeting a general company email or contact form.

Instead, you can find the right person on LinkedIn, like an editor or content manager.

You could then try a combination of LinkedIn messages and emails to get in touch with them.

Use an email address finding tool like Hunter

If LinkedIn comes up short, you can instead try an email finder like hunter.io. You can just type in the domain name, and it will give you the email addresses you need.

(You can find the editor’s name on the website or blog you want to guest post for.)

3 common email outreach mistakes to avoid at all costs

Even if you take advantage of all the psychological principles and use our templates, you can still go wrong.

Here are 3 common mistakes you need to avoid.

Droning on and on

Editors and owners of popular blogs are busy. Get to the point. Avoid droning on and on. Keep things short and sweet.

Not following up

Sending a single follow-up email increases the reply rate by 44%. So if you only send a single email, you’re leaving almost half of all potential backlinks on the table.

Don’t be afraid to follow up, especially if you’ve done your research and know you can provide something of value.

Sticking too close to the templates and sending boring emails

There’s a reason we showed you real full-fledged examples, and not just a basic [first name], [company name], [topic] example.

Your emails need to be relevant, appeal to the person directly, and attention-grabbing. They must be worth reading.

Don’t be afraid to use some creative flair if you notice a common interest.

Conclusion

To sum things up, outreach emails only work when they’re personalized, offer something of value, and help the person relate to you.

You can also use psychological “tricks” like making sure the person is familiar with your name and face, or starting by asking for a smaller favor.

Of course, to get good results, you need to repeat this process dozens or even hundreds of times.

If that sounds like way too much work, we’ll happily connect you with a professional SEO agency that can handle it all for you. Our matching service is 100% free.

40+ High DA Sites That Accept Guest Posts (In Multiple Industries)

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 17:28:28 GMT

40+ High DA Sites That Accept Guest Posts (In Multiple Industries)

To a beginner in SEO, nothing sounds more mouthwatering than a list of easily attainable high DA (shorthand for Domain Authority) sites that accept guest posts.

But a lot of these lists are painfully outdated or feature mostly worthless inclusions like Facebook and Twitter — as if you’re not already sharing your business on social media.

That’s why we’ve decided to create this comprehensive list — not of Web 2.0 sites, but legitimate industry blogs and websites that accept guest posts with dofollow links.

Read on to check out 40+ high DA sites in different industries, learn how to actually land guest posts there, and how to find even more options in your own niche.

A Caveat: Domain Authority Isn’t Everything

It’s not just about domain authority. You also need to get links from pages and websites that are relevant to your content.

For example, just paying for a high DA backlink from a cooking blog won’t do you much good if you’re trying to rank a page about large-scale manufacturing.

40+ High DA Sites That Accept Guest Posts (by Industry)

Here’s a list of 40+ high domain authority sites that accept guest posts. We’ve categorized them by industry, so you can create high-quality, relevant links.

Personal Finance

Personal finance is an industry where there’s an almost endless amount of high-quality link building opportunities.

If you can land a guest post on any of the nine sites below, you’ll be well on your way to establishing your authority in the niche.

Tech

Tech is another industry where there’s a wealth of sites that are openly looking for more guest writers to help out.

Below, we’ve highlighted a few especially high DA sites that accept guest post submissions and include dofollow links.

SaaS

Although SaaS might seem like it belongs under tech, many of these publications are completely different from sites that cover consumer tech and basic web services like Google Docs.

Sports & Hobbies

If you are working on launching a new sports brand, or creating a new fantasy sports site, this list should be right up your alley.

Travel

Are you trying to create the next big travel blog or online travel agency? You’re in luck. We’ve included several high DA travel blogs and online magazines that accept guest posts and include dofollow links.

Marketing & SEO

If you’re googling a term like “high da sites” or otherwise just reading our blog, chances are you’re interested in, or perhaps already writing about marketing and SEO yourself.

We’ve rounded up 7 extremely high DA marketing & SEO websites that accept guest posts and include dofollow links.

But we warned, getting your links on any of these sites is not easy. The higher the authority, the harder it gets.

So next up, we share a few tips on how you can actually get your guest post published on these sites, and how you can find even more opportunities yourself.

How to actually land these guest posting opportunities

If you want to actually land guest posts, don’t tunnel vision on getting a dofollow backlink. If that’s all you think about, you’ll alienate all the website owners and editors, and you won’t be able to land a single guest posting opportunity.

Don’t spam every site on this list

The last thing you want to do is go out and spam the sites on this list with the same message. You can’t pitch the same blog posts and ideas to online publications in completely different categories.

You must also change how you frame yourself and your expertise to even pique the editor (or website owner’s) interest in the first place.

It may sound obvious, but trust us when we say; it really isn’t. Most of the outreach emails we get are virtually indistinguishable from actual spam.

That’s no way to start a mutually beneficial business relationship. These bloggers aren’t foaming at the mouth waiting for your article submission.

They’re busy. You need to respect that, or you have no chance.

Send personalized messages that highlight the value you can bring to each site/blog

Heavily personalized outreach emails get an average response rate over 142% higher than unpersonalized outreach emails.

The effective level of personalization is well beyond “Hi [Firstname],” so don’t get lazy. You need to help the person who reads the email relate to you, and respect you enough to value what you have to offer.

“Hi Bob, here’s a guest post idea.”

Imagine getting this email as a website owner yourself. Does the subject line offer any value? Are you convinced that it’s worth your time to open, read, and reply to the email?

Instead, take time to explore the blog/publication and get to know the type of person that the content manager/website owner is.

Include one or two sentences about who you are (that resonates with them) and why your expertise means that you can deliver unique value to them.

Note: If the websites are very openly advertising for guest post submissions, this all goes out the window. You may be better off simply putting your guest post idea front and center.

But be warned — even sites that happily accept guest posts aren’t looking for link spam. On almost every single guest post submission page we read during the compiling of this list, they specifically mention this.

For example, the writer’s guidelines for Go Nomad puts it this way, “we don’t accept guest posts that are simply ways to get links on our website.”

The best strategy is to find a relevant site where you have some authentic value to deliver. Don’t rely on blog submission sites. Get personal.

For more on how this, check out our article “How to Craft the Ideal Outreach Email for SEO.”

Take time to make relevant content suggestions

Make sure you read the content on the blog or website first. You can’t just suggest an idea if it sounds related to their overall niche. You have to understand the site’s positioning and what kind of content the readers prefer.

You should also do a quick search for posts covering the topics you are suggesting. The last thing website owners want is duplicate content or content that isn’t relevant to their audience.

If you can prove that you’ve put in the work and actually suggest a guest post that piques the interest of the site owner or editor, you’re halfway there.

If you want to land a guest post on sites that don’t actively promote that they accept them, you need to get creative.

Use blog commenting and social media to get to know the blogger in question. If you focus on building meaningful relationships in your niche, and you’ll get guest blogging opportunities without even trying.

How to identify more sites like these in your industry

This is where we reveal the secret sauce of how we actually found all these sites. We used an easy trick called “boolean search” on Google.

Essentially, it means that you search for a combination of terms and phrases to find what you’re looking for.

For example, you can search for “write for us” + industry.

In this example, we searched for finance sites. You can also use it to find sites that accept guest posts in your industry.

Other phrases you can search for:

“Guest author” + industry
“Guest writer” + industry
“Guest post by” + industry
“Guest posts” + industry

This simple boolean search technique will dramatically increase the relevance of your search results compared to just typing the full sentence out.

From there on, you need to check the rank of all the relevant results. Typically, any results on the first place for these searches will have really strong domain authority or domain rating, but it’s good to be sure.

You can either scrape the results (we won’t get into how to do this here, but here’s a good post on how to scrape search results ), or manually copy and paste the URLs into an excel sheet.

Then, using an SEO tool like Ahrefs, you can quickly explore the various results and confirm that the domain rating is high enough to make it worth it for you to target.

Finally, you need to find a guest post and see whether it includes dofollow links or not.

It’s a time-consuming process, so you may be better off getting started by just trying the sites already in our list.

Conclusion

Now that you have the list, the ball is in your court. Don’t just quickly spam them all with the same message.

Pick your targets carefully, based on the relevance to your site, and the relevant expertise you (or your client) have to offer them in return.

If this all sounds overwhelming, and you’d rather leave it to a professional, The Agency Guide can help match you with the perfect agency for your company, 100% free of charge.