What Is a Guest Post? A Short and Simple Guide in 2021

Business Insights
20/01/2021

If you want your website to rank high in search engines, then one of the things you need to do is to increase the number of external links that lead to it.

If you want your website to rank high in search engines, then one of the things you need to do is to increase the number of external links that lead to it. A paid guest post is a quick, effective, but somewhat tricky solution to increase the number of external links.

The best link building strategies change in accordance with the development of the search engine mechanisms. Google aims to give its users high-quality relevant content and develops its algorithms to protect users from spam and advertising. With the current Penguin algorithm, it analyses both website content and the links that lead to it.

You can write an article or a post with a couple of links to your website and agree to place it on a popular website with high traffic. A strong backlink profile is absolutely required for a website to perform well, according to Forbes magazine.

Why Guest Posting Can Let You Down

Guest posting can be tricky because it could be seen as manipulation, according to Google Webmaster Guidance. Google doesn’t actually know if the link is paid or not, but it examines the quality of information.


To let a user find your link, you’d rather make the content engaging; otherwise, the search engine won’t rank it high. Create content for users, not for search engines as Google advises.

Your text doesn’t have to look like advertising. A little hint or a piece of information about yourself is enough. If a user thinks the text is an advertisement, he/she stops reading the text and doesn’t follow the link. This is not what you need. You don’t have to describe all product features and qualities. Remember the Franklin Covey principle when writing your post: seek first to understand rather than be understood. If you don’t understand your audience’s needs, they won’t bother with what you are trying to say about yourself.


Violation of Google webmaster guidance and manipulation of ranking mechanism might not only lead to loss of a reader’s interest but also cause severe Google penalties.


What You Need to Remember to Make a Guest Post Successful

  1. State what you are trying to achieve clearly. Backlinks increase your website rating, but you can also aim at:
    • reaching out to the new audience
    • showing your expertise on a certain topic
    • connecting your brand with a strongly appealing brand in the public’s eyes
    • reminding your audience about yourself
    • informing the wider audience about the new product or latest success of yours
  2. Consider your current resources. It implies how your website looks now; whether it is informative enough to get more attention and properly updated. Consider the amount of money you want to spend and whether you have people in your team who know how to handle guest posting.
  3. Carefully study the website on which you plan to place your information. Check its content, rating, traffic, search engine visibility, and authority. Possible websites to cooperate with might be thematic, news, or educational websites. You want your link to look natural; so, reach out to the owners of the website on the same topic or similar field of interest. A link you are adding should look like a friendly recommendation. Consider possible local websites for guest posting.
  4. If you order a text from a copywriter, always have it proofread by the expert. Enhance the quality and clarity of the information with charts, lists, pictures, and videos. Have the text written in clear language. Check the general requirements of the website where you place your information before writing the article.
  5. Use your social media and share a link to the post when it’s published and comment on it. Invite your audience to share the link to the guest post.
  6. With special online tools, you can study what links your competitors managed to get and to what sites they link themselves. Have an eye on their strategy and adapt yours accordingly.

Short Summary: Your Focus When Guest Posting

  • Relevance of content
  • Quality of content: a good writer is everything
  • The powerful and trustful guest domain
  • The guest post is not about how great you are


A guest post will work for you if a well-written relevant article is placed on a popular domain. At PRPposting, we know how to do it well, and we are happy to do it for you.