GUEST POSTS VS. NICHE EDITS: WHICH IS MORE EFFECTIVE?

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When it comes to ranking a website, people have tried different tactics. However, when talking of methods that bring best results, SEO experts often have conflicting views on the subject with a heated debate surrounding guest posts and niche edits.

So, if you own a website or work for a startup that is looking into boosting the ranking of their website, which will improve their online presence, you’ve found the right place.

In this guide, I’m not only going to define what the two terms mean but also explain in detail the meaning of other related terminologies and how to go about each of these link building strategies.

For instance, you will get to learn how to do guest posting and niche edits like a pro, understand the benefits of guest posting, how to find websites that accept guest posts, how to get niche edits and more.

Before we dig deeper into the topic, let’s look at many people’s (newbies and pros) concern.

Why Care About Link Building?

When Google ranks a site, it considers a number of factors. Of course, this too, has elicited much talk among SEO experts for many years. One of those factors Google looks at is the number of quality backlinks pointing to a site.

Speaking of links, Google does not rate all links equally. As mentioned, for the search engine to rank your site based on links, they should be quality – coming from authority and reputable sites. Besides, these links should come from sites that are within the same industry.

Therefore, if you really care about your site’s performance on the search engine, then there is no shortcut. You must be interested in learning how guest posts and niche edits work.

However, the million-dollar question still is, between guest posts and niche edits, which is more effective?

What Are Guest Posts?

Guest posts are articles that’re written by guest authors and posted on other websites. What you write and publish on your website is called a post.

However, it is referred as a guest post because you wrote it but published on another person’s or company’s website.

Benefits of Guest Posting

Without a doubt, guest posting comes with many benefits. Regardless of the niche you are in, you can get authority and reputable websites to publish your content as a guest. As you continue to publish quality content on your site, you are also building your reputation as well.

Having said that, here are some of the main benefits of guest posting:

Instant Exposure to Relevant Traffic

The foremost benefit of doing guest posting is you gain traction.

Yes, by writing an impeccable piece of copy and publishing it on a reputable website, you make it possible for the already-established audience to read your thoughts.

Remember, if you are just starting out, you do not have an established audience but the other website has. As such, by publishing your post on the other website, you are actually publishing for the website’s readers thus relevant traffic.

Expand Your Network

The second benefit guest posting offers small business is it helps them compete in the same platform with already established businesses.

Even with one guest post, chances of getting additional networks are imminent.

What is more, when friends of your friend see you playing on the same level ground, you also become their friend thus, you get to participate with them in their community. In fact, many small websites have infiltrated the market through guest posting.

Improve Online Authority & Expand Your Brand Awareness

Clients are always on the lookout to associate themselves not with losers but achievers. They consider a business that goes out of its way to reach to them as the best. As such, when you go out of your comfort zone (just publishing on your site), you are simply telling your new clients that you too can offer them solutions to their pressing problems.

It is true. If a client gets to read your article on a website he or she has bookmarked and finds your article on another website the following day, be sure that the client will bookmark your site too.

You will be sending a message that you too can be trusted. That way, you will create authority and brand awareness just like the other members within your community.

How to Acquire Guest Posts?

Everything is a process and it is the same with acquiring guest posts. Let’s see some of the steps you need to take when you are trying to find websites that can accept you to be one of their authors.

Go For Appropriate Sites

Even if you are dying to be a contributor in an authority website, you are not going to look for any site. Look for websites that are within your niche or belong to an industry you are familiar with. Most of the people that have excelled in finding sites where they can publish their posts often go for those fields they are experts. However, expertise or preference is not the only thing that should dictate your search.

You need to remember that one of the aims of doing guest posting is to create brand awareness and gain online authority. In the end, people will get to know your site thus visit it instead of just reading your thoughts in other people’s sites. Therefore,

It’d be prudent to look for websites that are in the same niche as yours. That way, readers will not see you as a stranger in a foreign field.

Alternatively, you can use audience overlap tools to check for sites that attract similar or related audience. That way, even if you do not belong to the exact niche, you would be in a related industry, which ultimately share the same audience. In fact, there is no limit to the number of ways of finding guest post positions.

I’ve just remembered another simple and conventional approach. With this way, head to your Google search tab and type:

‘The author’s name’, ‘webmaster’, or ‘company’s name’ then ‘guest post’

You’ll be surprised by the results you’ll get.

Analyze Your Competitors’ Referring Websites

Using premium tools that analyze referring domains (RD) report can go a long way in helping you identify sites that point to your competitors. The good thing about this report is it does not only show the referring domains but also the exact page your competitor is getting a backlink from.

With a list of websites pointing to your competitors, it becomes easy to identify which of the sites is directly linked to your industry.

That way, you can now embark on the process of reaching out to those sites for guest posting positions.

Identify Popular Guest Posts and Follow the Authors

It is believed that watching the legends and following closely what they did/do can help one become like them. There is some truth in that. Unless it’s a relatively new site, chances are you will not be the first one to do a guest post in the website you intend to pitch.

In most cases, you will find other website owners have seized the opportunity. If so, you can learn from those experts. While there is no harm in trying a new strategy such as a writing angle or style, be careful not to distract your ‘new client’s with a foreign writing format.

Besides, these webmasters often share their guest posts on their social media handles. Follow closely what they do and how they do it. Before long, if you don’t quit, you will know where they do their regular guest posts, something that will open a wide door of opportunities before you.

Compile a Small List of Potential Guest Post Sites

After conducting your initial research (whether manually or with the help of a tool), you need to come up with a small list that you will deal with.

The list will comprise of websites you feel are directly related to your niche or publish content you are comfortable blogging about.

However, before you keep the list, make sure the websites accept guest posts. You can tell this from their Privacy Policy or Terms and Conditions pages. Some sites indicate whether they accept guest posts or not.

The other thing you need to probe is if the sites receive decent amount of traffic. It would be useless to do a guest post for a site that does not have enough traffic. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, the websites must be reputable, publish high-quality content, and stand out in the industry they represent.

Look for Content Gaps in Those Sites

Now that you have a list of sites, you believe, match your guest posting goals, dig deeper to identify content gaps in those sites. You can only identify the gaps by reviewing each site individually.

When probing for content gaps, assume it was your website. Ask yourself what is missing. Upon identifying a content gap, see what you can do to fill it.

Come up With Content Ideas

By now, you have identified loopholes that need to be sealed. Now, it is time to brainstorm some specific topics.

Craft a Guest Post Pitch

With several content ideas in your head, now it is time to formally reach out to the website owner requesting them for a chance to do a guest post. Trust me; this is one of the toughest segments because many website owners, especially established sites do not want guest posts.

At this point, it is necessary to learn how to do a professional guest post pitch. The pitch doesn’t need to be sophisticated. However, among other things,

It must convey value, capture the attention of the intended reader, and of course explain your intentions clearly.

It’s advisable that when doing your pitch, you address it to the blog manager, editor, or the webmaster. In addition, it’d be in order that before you send the pitch, you read and understand guest post guidelines if any.

Write Your Guest Post

Once you’ve identified the topic(s), it is time to write an impeccable piece. Remember, you intend to use this post to draw people to your site.

You should not be in a hurry to write your post. Take your quality time. If anything, make it 10x or even 100x better than the website’s posts.

When creating content ideas, do not overstretch. The blog post should be relevant to the audience of the website you intend to do your guest posting. Besides, the blog must add value to the audience.

Points to Remember When Writing a Guest Post

  • The article must not have any grammar issues and should be very informative.
  • A good guest post article should be between 500 and 3000 words.
  • It should be properly structured
  • Niche-relevant.
  • Shareable.

What Are Niche Edits?

Niche edits, formerly referred to as contextual links is another prominent link building strategy.

Unlike guest posting, niche edits is where you place a link in an already published article.

Niche edits come in different versions but they serve almost the same purpose.

If you are not sure which niche edits you want, you’d better hire a professional to help you.

The main aim of using niche edits as a link building strategy is to target relevant articles (those that have gained enough traction due to their relevancy, topicality, and age) on established and high-authority websites.

Benefits of Niche Edits

If you use niche edits as your preferred link building strategy, you’d expect the following benefits:

Faster Results & Better Scalability

Compared to guest posting, niche edits seem to offer results much faster. Besides, they are more scalable because readers can quickly identify a link inside an article they are reading, click on it and land on your site.

Affordable and Does not Take Your Time

Unlike guest posting that may take weeks or even months to complete, because of the whole process, niche edits does not take any of your time. You only need to find potential sites for a pitch.

In addition, it is a lot more easier to convince a webmaster to allow you insert a juice link in his/her website than to do a guest post thus a great way to get to high DA pages.

How to Acquire Niche Edits?

This is how you acquire niche edits:

  • Do your research on sites you share similar niche or industry. Make sure the site has decent traffic.
  • Pick the article you want to request a link to (the article must be similar or talk of something that is already published on your site).
  • Start building relationships with your prospect by writing a pitch requesting for a link juice.
  • Once the webmaster accepts, you can then agree on what word or phrase of word you can place as a juicer on the other website, which once clicked, will point to your site.

Some websites owners will ask you to pay for placing a link on their sites while other will settle for a win-win situation (they allow you to insert a link on their site as you also insert a link in one of your other pages pointing to their site).

The Big Question: Which One to Choose?

This is indeed the big question. After looking at the two, which one should you go for? Would you choose the time-consuming guest posting as your preferred link building strategy or you’d settle for a much lesser time-consuming niche edits?

Well, your choice depends on your budget, time, and preference. However, this comparison table will prove to be of help to you in making the right choice.

Comparison Table Between Guest Posts and Niche Edits

Guest Posting

Niche Edits

a) Allows you to key in the main keyword on the title, first paragraph, body, and in the conclusion.

b) You embed links inside a freshly-written content.

c) You may acquire traffic only if your copy is relevant and gives value to the readers.

d) Results (if any) are not immediate. Google takes time to index an article and depending on many things, the post’s performance in the SERPs will determine whether you will get the expected results or not.

e) Many authority sites are likely to turn down your request for guest posting.

f) It’s not easy to create new content. It requires time and sometimes money.

a) You cannot influence the title of the article looks like or its format.

b) Links are embedded inside existing articles that have already gained traction (some of the articles could be published several years ago thus with decent traffic).

c) High chances of acquiring immediate traffic since the links are put inside indexed pages that have traffic.

d) Almost guaranteed return over investment (ROI).

e) Do not require any of your time because you are not writing an article – just providing a link.

f) Most webmasters are likely to accept niche edits than guest posts.

 

Conclusion

From what we’ve seen, there is no doubt that link building is one of the prominent ways of ensuring your site reaches as many people as possible. Because link building is involving, some webmasters decide that they are not going to do it anyway.

True, their sites may gain traction but that would take time.

If you want your site to reach far and wide for a short time, you definitely need to use guest posing or niche edits. In fact, others have tried both of these tactics and have since tabulated good results.

What are you waiting for? At SamBlogs, we can help you make the right decision. We offer consultancy and can help you come up with that awe-provoking pitch or one hot guest post that will inform and entertain your readers.

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