Insider Tips from a Link Builder: How to Pitch Guest Posts Editors Will Accept

I will describe the successful path of the outreach guest posting campaign.
In this post, I’ll share:

• 💡my approach to finding sites that accept guest posts;
• 🦜samples of topic negotiation;
• ✌️successful cases of publishing posts;
• 😞fails in my guest posting campaigns.

How to find sites that accept guest posts?

Use Google Search operators

When you start searching for the information on how to find sites that accept guest posts, the first result you receive will be “use Google Search operators”.

Here are some examples of search operators:

“[Your niche] + write for us”
“[Your niche] + guest post guidelines”
“[Your topic] + become a contributor”
“[Your industry] + submit an article”

In my opinion, it’s a good way to search sites when starting a link-building campaign from scratch
👍Pros
+ easy approach
+ quickly compile a list of domains for pitch submissions
+ you don’t need to pay money for SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush

👎Cons
– non-relevant sites based on your niche
– outdated guest post guidelines (it means that sites don’t accept guest posts now)
– a small number of sites
– a lot of sites from the first Google search results can publish your post only with a nofollow link

Competitor analysis

This approach requires more time and resources; nevertheless, it allows for finding the most relevant and current sites that accept guest posts.
The main idea is to analyze a competitor’s backlink profile via Ahrefs or another SEO tool.

The first step is to set up the best links. For my project, I consider the following metrics:

• Follow status: dofollow
• Backlink type: in content
• DR from 40 to 89
• Traffic from 1000

Then, I select only do-follow links published last year. This means that sites still accept posts with required do-follow links.

The next step is to export links to an Excel file and analyze sites individually.

Google search operators
site: [domain] AND guest post
site: [domain] AND write for us
site: [domain] AND contribute
site: [domain] AND guidelines

When you didn’t find the page with the guest post guidelines, you can review the blog section of the site and check the authors.
If you can see “Contributed by”, “Guest author”, it means that the site accepts guest posts.

As a result, you receive the list of sites that accepted guest posts last year. It results in a higher reply rate compared to using Google Search operators to find such domains.

Understanding the Editor’s Mindset: What They’re Really Looking For in Guest Postings

Each site has its guidelines for guest posts.
The most common requirements:

• Relevant topic;
• Word count (from 500 to 2000 words);
• The number of links and requirements to anchor (mostly organic anchor, brand anchor, or anchor like “click here” and avoid commercial anchors like “buy…”, “cheap…”, “best…”);
• The text should be unique and not generated by AI tools like ChatGPT.

What is the most crucial in the guidelines? I believe it’s a topic suggestion because my task as a linkbulder is to find the most suitable topic that meets the site’s requirements and allows adding a client link to the blog or service page.

I work with MigWay (a logistics company) and submitted a guest post to Vunela (a digital platform dedicated to leadership, career development, and personal growth). For the MorningAgClips (the USA agriculture news site), I offer to publish the following topic: “The Role of Full Truckload Services in Modern Agriculture Logistics”.

Crafting an Irresistible Email: Subject Lines and Intros That Work

When I review guest post guidelines, I send the first email with a question about whether the site still accepts guest posts.
Here is a sample of the email to pitch a topic

My suggested topics are below

Is it necessary to pitch unique topics for each site? Yes, when you decided to send a low number of pitches, for instance 10 sites. Nevertheless, if you need to send 100 emails, the most time-effective approach is to first ask whether they currently accept guest posts, and then suggest relevant topics.

Back to subject line. My recommendations:

• Carefully read the guidelines and write the required subject line (editors ask to write a specific request to identify that this pitch is not spam).
• Use a basic form like “guest post request” or “guest post submission” when you write from a domain email.
• Try to write the short version of the email into a subject line, for instance, “I work with [client domain] and I am interested in the guest post on [site that accepts guest posts]” when your email doesn’t match the submitted site.

Personalization Techniques: Making Your Guest Postings Pitch

I believe that the relevant topic makes your pitch valuable for the editors. My approach is to use AI (Chat GPT) to generate the first version of the topic.

After that, a good practice is to review posts on the site to avoid duplicate posts. Why is it reasonable to use AI tools for generating a first pitch? You spend less time generating an article title using AI programs than you would if you came up with it yourself.

Scenarios after sending a pitch

You received the reply from the editor

Congratulations! Nevertheless, be ready for the negative replies like:

• We don’t accept guest posts right now
  

  

• Your site doesn’t meet guidelines when you can’t integrate your link to the required categories

  

• Not a relevant topic, but in this case, you have a chance to resubmit the topic

  

• When you receive the positive reply, the next step is to write the article based on the guidelines.
  In most cases, your article will be published, or at least you will receive a ready text for your next submission on a quality site.

You didn’t receive the reply from the editor

The reality is that the majority of submitted pitches will change their status to Unsuccessful – No Reply.

What are your steps?

• send follow-ups;
• consider reviewing the site once more and either submit your pitch through the contact form or send a personalized connection request to the editor via LinkedIn. In other words, make an effort to find an alternative contact method.

Summary

Guest posting is an effective way to earn backlinks to your site, and it works best when you follow these steps:

• Find sites that recently published guest posts with a dofollow link.
• Find contact emails/contact form/google Doc form to pitch your idea.
• Focus on a relevant topic, and only after the approval, start writing content.
• Keep in mind that the majority of pitches will stay without answers; even if you receive the answer, your topic and link can be rejected.

I believe that persistence and consistency are key to getting guest post backlinks.