Guest Posting Tips For Therapists
This is a guest post from Wyatt Denton. Enjoy!
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Below we will be diving into what guest posting is and a few tips you can follow to build high quality backlinks for your site.
In 2022, link building is still a very important ranking factor for SEO. Getting links to our websites is like getting a “vote” in the eyes of Google.
The more votes we get, the more Google will want to “choose” our site to rank higher for keywords we are targeting.
When it comes to getting links for our website, this can be done in many ways. Some different types of links are:
Directory links,
Sponsorship links,
Social profile links,
Guest posts, etc.
While all these link building tactics work, guest posting can truly take your link profile and rankings to a higher level. Let’s jump in!
What is Guest Posting?
Guest posting is when you write a “post” for another person, or company’s website. Once you write the post and send it to them, they then publish the post to their website.
This can help drive more “referral” traffic to your website, but most often people guest post in order to get a backlink back to their site. To get a backlink back to your website, you need to place a link in the post you wrote before you send it for publishing.
Adding your website link allows you to get more backlinks for your business and potentially drive referral traffic at the same time.
In this article, we’ll be focusing more on acquiring quality backlinks and which pages to build backlinks to.
Tip #1 Find Relevant Websites
Before you start writing a guest post, you need to find potential websites you could contribute a post to. You don’t want to write these for any and every website on the internet. Blogs are businesses in your niche, or relevant to your niche are the targets here.
If you’re a therapist, you’ll want to target blogs writing about mental health, or even post on fellow therapist sites.
You don’t want to be posting articles on sites that have nothing to do with therapy. An example here would be a blog about cars.
You might be thinking why would I do that? But far too often, people start guest posting to get whatever backlinks they can. This is what we want to avoid.
Stick to blogs and websites that are related to your niche and sites that you can provide serious value to. Relevant backlinks carry more weight than irrelevant ones.
Tip #2 Go Local
When finding potential guest post opportunities, always try to find a few local businesses or bloggers you could contribute a topic and valuable insight to. A few examples are:
Local news outlets,
High schools,
Colleges or universities,
Small businesses,
Local bloggers,
Etc.
Local links can seriously help your organic and local rankings. Outside of rankings they have the possibility to drive referral traffic and build brand awareness. But keep in mind that referral traffic tends to only happen when you write for a website with heavy amounts of traffic.
Tip #3 Build Links for Targeted Keywords That Truly Need it
When you’re guest posting you will be placing a link back to your website. This link could be to your homepage, or to a service offering of yours. Whatever content on your site you’re linking to, it will most likely be targeting a specific keyword you want to rank for.
When it comes to keywords, some are easier to rank for than others. Keywords that are harder to rank for generally need more links to achieve desirable rankings. Knowing this, you’ll want to pick and choose the pages you build links to wisely.
Keywords that are easier to rank for might not need any links built to them. Simply writing quality content and content that is “better” than your competitors can give you the ranking edge.
Tip #4 Keeping it Real with Email Outreach
In order to get a guest post placed on another website you’ll have to pitch your topic. This process can become boring and draining at times.
In order for your email to not end up in the trash can, or junk folder, your outreach needs to be genuine and friendly. Template emails are easy to see through and usually get marked as spam after sending them to multiple people.
To avoid the trash can, you’ll want to do your research on the site you’re reaching out to and explain why you can provide the most value on the topic you are proposing. This will show the other person you did your research, you care, and you’re qualified to write for their site.
Tip #5 Keep Your Anchor Text Natural
What is anchor text? Anchor text is visible and clickable text within a piece of content. In this tip we’ll be focusing on anchor text that links back to the content you are trying to rank on your website.
Years ago, many people made their anchor text the exact keyword they were trying to target. This tactic did work for a while, but Google caught on and devalued it.
Now when you create anchor text you’ll want to make it as “natural” as possible. Write your content first then figure out a way to add your link in where it seems natural to a reader.
If you can’t find something that works, you can always use branded anchor text. Branded anchor text is generally your name or your business name. Branded text is almost always fair game when it comes to guest posting.
Final Thoughts
While there are many different tips and tricks on the internet when it comes to guest posting, I think these are the most relevant in 2022 and they can help you build a strong link profile.
When it comes to all kinds of link building tactics, we always want to go for quality over quantity. There are many services out there that promise you guest post links for a cheap price.
This is almost never worth it and can hurt your site in the long run. As with all things SEO, it takes time to see results and it is no different when it comes to guest posting.
If you take the time to develop a strong guest posting strategy with high quality prospects, those efforts will pay off in the long run. Cutting corners seems like a good idea when it comes to link building, but when it’s too good to be true, it usually is.
