Free Guest Posting: Is It Effective for SEO in 2022?

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Free guest posting remains one of the main link building methods, which is suitable for projects in any niche. It can be used with a minimum budget, but if you do not build a strategy for working with sites, it will be difficult to get the desired result.

Free Guest Posting: Is It Effective for SEO in 2022?



Content

Not all resources accept articles from external projects and post content for free. If the material is not thematic and is not of interest to the target audience, it may not be posted, and the money spent on creating the article will be wasted.



The effectiveness of link building content writing service  with guest posting depends on the approach to interaction with potential donors. It is important to show them the benefits of cooperation and fulfill all the conditions for preparing the content.



1. Popular ways to get free links for your website

There are dozens of ways to get links that can be used to pump up the project's link mass. Not every backlink will be high-quality and trusted in the eyes of search engines, but this is not necessary.



To create a natural link profile and protect yourself from possible sanctions from search engines, you need to use different sources of links. Webmasters often ignore forums and Q&A sites, although backlinks from such projects are also useful in the profile.











Focusing on free guest posts is beneficial, since along with the donor's trust, part of the audience may also move to the promoted resource. But only if there is a thematic connection between the projects and high-quality published content .



1.1 Submissions

This method of link building involves posting information about the site on platforms of different formats where users can publish content. Such resources include social networks, video hosting sites, forums and other platforms.



The main advantage of submissions is the minimum time investment. For example, to post on a forum, it will take 5-10 minutes. Although if the profile is not pumped up, the link can be deleted along with the account.



Submissions transfer link weight, but the authority of donors is highly questionable. Everything depends on the quality of the site and the approach to content moderation. If the domain is spammed with external links, it is suitable only for diluting the profile.



1.2. Outreach

Outreach includes free guest blogging, post exchange, media outreach, and other content placement methods. The main feature of all outreach approaches is a focus on the quality of publications.



Good content allows you to get mentions from trusted projects whose rating is beyond doubt. Such backlinks pump up link weight well and help increase visibility in organic search.



Outreach is based on interaction between the webmaster and representatives of external sites. For communication to be effective, it is important to analyze the specifics of each project and create a personalized offer.



Outreach is considered the safest method of link building. Of course, if you don’t get carried away with commercial anchors and put the needs of the audience first. Later in the article, we will talk in detail about a popular outreach format — guest posting.







1.3. Links from forums (crowd marketing)

Crowd marketing was at the peak of popularity a few years ago, but now the interest in it has slightly decreased. Although the link building method still provides an opportunity to get quality links.



Crowd marketing can be considered free guest blogging, but only in a micro format. Guest posts usually involve a large amount of content, while for crowd marketing, 2-3 paragraphs of useful text are enough.



In order for links from forums, Q&A sites and specialized media to be useful, the text around the link should be interesting to the target audience. It is desirable that each backlink gives transitions, and then search engines will definitely notice the links.



1.4. Question and Answer Services

Question and answer services are very popular in the foreign segment of the Internet. Quora and Reddit allow you not only to receive dozens of links from specialized discussions, but also to attract the target audience to the site.



There are also a small number of sites with traffic in the CIS, but you can't safely post links everywhere. For example, in Yandex.Q and Mail.ru Answers, moderators often clean out references to external resources.



Posting on Q&A sites is considered one of the main crowd marketing tools. Users ask questions on various topics, and if you integrate products or services into the content correctly, you can even get single sales.



1.5. Press Release Posting Sites

Commercial projects use press releases to announce changes within the company, share details about the release of a new product line, or announce global plans.



Press releases are considered an outdated method of link building, but if used correctly, you can get not only a few links from spammed directories from the placements, but also link weight.



The link building method is suitable mainly for promoting projects on the Western market. In the CIS, press releases are rarely read, but they can still be used as a tool for obtaining links.



1.6. Video and audio resources

Many webmasters ignore video hosting and podcast hosting. Although these platforms provide the opportunity to create an unlimited number of links and distribute anchors at your discretion.



It is worth considering that links from such sites have a minimal impact on the ranking of project pages in search results. However, placements can become excellent advertising and increase resource traffic.



Regularly creating videos and podcasts gets your audience used to interacting with your brand. Users may click through to your blog if you place the right call to action.







1.7. Replacing broken links (404)

The method of link building using broken links is outdated. In 2022, there is no point in wasting time searching for broken links and creating content to offer the site owner to replace the backlink.



It is much easier to get backlinks through free guest articles and build long-term relationships with trusted projects. Such cooperation will allow you to regularly receive new backlinks.



1.8. Job sites, portfolios

Job sites and portfolio publishing platforms can be used to build links. Mentions from such resources are unlikely to affect the visibility of the project in search results, but will be a good addition to the profile.



One of the advantages of using job sites is that they are not tied to a region. You can post remote work vacancies and receive dozens of mentions from subdomains of large job search projects.



If necessary, you can use foreign resources like Fiverr and Upwork, but moderators there closely monitor outgoing links, and if there is no portfolio on the site, the profile can be blocked.



1.9. Social networks and other

Optimizers believe that backlinks from social networks have virtually no effect on ranking, and this is true. If you want, you can generate thousands of such links, but visibility will not increase by 2 times.



Although mentions in social networks are useful for promoting the resource. Search engines take them into account as part of the brand image. Despite the problems with indexing content due to the limitations of social networks, each positive mention benefits the project.



The more different types of sites in the site profile, the less likely it is to fall under sanctions from the Yandex and Google algorithms . The link mass should not be 100% incoming links from Forbes-level projects.



Mentions from forums, Q&A sites, corporate portals, social networks and other resources will come in handy in the profile. It is important not to get hung up on one type of site, but to diversify the link profile as much as possible.







2. Free guest posting for website promotion

Free guest posts are often considered a magic tool that will easily increase the link mass and get mentions from sites of any level.



In practice, cooperation with large projects is sometimes not as easy as we would like. You have to spend a lot of time adapting content to editorial policy, coordinating anchors, enhancing the text with expert opinions and solving other problems.



For guest blogging to be effective, it is necessary to develop a work strategy and adapt it to each platform. This is the only way to count on the maximum benefit from cooperation with all projects.



2.1 What is a free guest post?

A free guest post is a publication that is posted on an external platform. Many projects in different niches allow users and companies to add their content if it complies with the rules of the resource.



Unlike paid guest posting, articles are posted for free, but the guarantee of retaining links is lost. Even if the material is high-quality and corresponds to the site's theme, backlinks may disappear over time.



If you follow editorial policy and don't focus only on commercial anchors , links can last for a long time and even generate clicks if the page receives search traffic.



Many information and commercial projects use guest posting as the main method of link building, but in some cases the costs of paying for the services of a content maker and other specialists are too expensive. Therefore, it is worth calculating the costs in advance and making sure that the budget will be enough for cooperation with large sites. If funds are limited, you can start with small projects and gradually increase the bar.



2.2. Labor intensity and required skills

The financial costs and number of hours spent per month on guest posting depend on your goals. If you need to get at least 10 backlinks from articles per month, even $1,000 may not be enough to cover the costs.



The labor intensity of guest posts is tied to the level of the project. If it is a platform like MC.today , then preparing the material can take several weeks or even months.



Such projects do not accept regular articles in which the company talks about ordinary events, such as changes in the financial model. And in order for the material to get to the main page and be seen by users, it must be of excellent quality.







2.3. Pros and Cons

Like any link building method, guest blogging has its drawbacks. One of the main disadvantages is that there is no guarantee that the links will be saved. If the site representatives did not provide it in the email correspondence, you should not count on it.



Benefits of guest posting:



suitable for various projects;

provides the opportunity to collaborate with sites of any level;

eliminates the need to pay for placement;

helps to increase the permanent audience of the site;

You can blog on external platforms .

There are also plenty of downsides:



large expenditures in terms of money and time are possible;

it is difficult to predict the outcome;

there is no guarantee that links will be saved;

content may be removed if posting was not agreed upon;

It is difficult to scale positive results.

The last drawback greatly affects the effectiveness of using guest posting. Often, it takes too much time to prepare one piece of material, and to increase content production, several highly paid authors are needed.