Last Updated on by Artem K.
If you spent at least 15 seconds searching, you know that there are maaaany companies offering guest posting service.
True – guest posting is a legitimate link building technique and we use it a lot as a part of our link building service.
Also true – it is massively abused by spammers to a point where Google actually issued an official warning:
Lately we’ve seen an increase in spammy links contained in articles referred to as contributor posts, guest posts, partner posts, or syndicated posts.
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However, what does violate Google’s guidelines on link schemes is when the main intent is to build links in a large-scale way back to the author’s site.
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For websites creating articles made for links, Google takes action on this behavior because it’s bad for the Web as a whole.
So if you don’t want to be penalized for your efforts, read on – I will show you exactly how we do things at Linkshero.
What Makes Linkshero Different?
My name is Artem and I founded Linkshero because I needed a link building service I could trust myself (you can read my full story here).
There are many problems with link building these days, but when it comes to guest posting these 3 stand out the most.
- Sh*tty Websites. A vast amount of websites you’d find your link on come from really crappy websites. And I mean really crappy. Private Blog Networks (PBNs) is a typical example of these.
- Paid Links. When you see a service claiming to have developed “ReLaTionShiPs” with bloggers it means just one thing – they buy links. Link buying is OK if you want to get smacked by Google in the long-run.
- DR/DA Claim. Every amateur SEO knows that Domain Rating (Ahrefs) and Domain Authority (Moz) are estimates and can easily be manipulated. Given that, it’s just absurd to see all the services charging a higher price for a higher DR/DA!
Since I, just like you, was on the other side paying to get links, I wanted to make a legit HONEST guest posting service that good people (with legit businesses) could trust.
It means that…
Linkshero Doesn’t Work With Sh*tty Websites
My team is trained to search for quality relevant websites that are not PBNs, not Web 2.0s, not scammy or shady-looking.
Anything that’s even slightly concerning doesn’t cut it for us and our clients.
Linkshero Doesn’t Pay for Links
Almost every day I get emails like this:
And every single time my response is the same:
We don’t pay people for backlinks so to resell them to you…we are the real deal.
Linkshero Really Cares About Relevance and Traffic
If you have a shoe website, then getting a link from a DR 70 website that’s dedicated to cement doesn’t help you at all.
Whereas a link from a style blog does.
We are also focused on traffic that the website has.
If it’s a DR 70 website which only gets 300 visitors a month, it’s fishy.
Google knows it, we know it – you should also know it.
Here is How Our Guest Posting Service Works for Real Businesses (& Gets Results)
Back in March 2018, my first client signed up for our service.
Surprisingly, the whole conversation took 15 minutes and he wired the money right away (it turned out he knew exactly what needs to be done just didn’t have the time for it).
Five months later he wakes up to this:
Fortunately, the results above are easy to replicate…thanks to our process and execution.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Our guest posting service is a part of our white hat link building service.
Generally, we mix guest posting with other types of link building (e.g. resource pages, broken links, link roundups etc).
Having said that, each case is unique and I will be happy to discuss what we could do for you.
Please get in touch (but only if you have a real business and commitment).
Our guest posting service consists of 4 stages and 7 steps:
Stage 1: Discovery
- Step 1: Onboarding Questionnaire
- Step 2: Google Search Console & Analytics Access
- Step 3: SEO Analysis
Stage 2: Planning
Stage 3: Prospecting
Stage 4: Outreach
Given that we are super transparent, let’s go over each of those in detail.
Stage 1: Discovery
Step 1: Onboarding Questionnaire
Just like with our core service, we want to learn about you and your business.
We want to make sure we use every single bit of information to maximize your ROI because we want to work with good people and help their businesses grow.
To do all that, we get you to complete our fancy questionnaire.
The more information you provide, the better.
Step 2: Google Search Console & Analytics Access
Ideally, we’d want both, access to your Google Analytics and Search Console accounts.
There are 2 real benefits in that:
- First, we can spot easy targets, the quick wins, that we could bump up with 1-2 quality guest posts.
- Second, we can spot problems that stop your website from flourishing (e.g. algorithmic penalties, indexing errors etc)
Step 3: SEO Analysis
Next comes our quick (and free) SEO analysis.
We use Ahrefs, which is the top tool for everything that a link builder needs (sorry, SEMRush), to identify:
- Your top performing pages.
- Your least performing pages.
- Toxic links coming from nasty websites.
- Anchor Text Analysis.
In essence, we want to make sure that the foundation is solid and clean before putting in any effort.
What do we do after you spend 10,000 and there is still no result?
This is why preparations are key – we care about your long-run success.
Stage 2: Planning
Once we have a solid understanding of who you are and what needs to be done, we begin with the planning stage.
This brings us to…
Step 4: Campaign Planning & Scheduling
“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”, – Lewis Carroll.
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my ax.”
This why we plan campaigns in advance – this is our map for future action.
It gives an estimate of our actions because link building is a dynamic process which constantly needs to be assessed and adjusted if necessary.
Here is what our plan for Month 1 looks like:
In essence, we want to make sure we find the right amount of leads and start outreaching to them as soon as possible but without any rush.
So, you WILL get your links – just be patient.
Once the campaign is scheduled, we move to the next stage…
Stage 3: Prospecting
Step 5: Prospecting for Guest Posts
Our goal here is to find websites that are relevant to your niche AND that accept guest posts (who would have thought?! Lol)
We find these opportunities by using Google’s search operators and keywords that are relevant to your niche.
It takes quite some time to build the database as all the prospecting that we do is done manually.
Our link prospectors hunt for good quality leads while filtering out all the rubbish and bullsh*t that you don’t want to have near you.
At this stage all kind of data is recorded, obviously including their contact details and names where possible.
Once we have a good number of solid leads, we start we move to…
Stage 4: Outreach
During this stage, we start to actually contact and pitch all those leads we collected previously.
Here is how we do it.
Step 6: Guest Post Outreach
The first email we send is very important.
This is our chance to get on the radar, explain who we are and what we want.
Depending on your profile, we can use social proof signals (e.g. “I was featured in Forbes”), unique characteristics (e.g. “I am the only person doing X”) or anything else that we think will increase our chances of securing a guest post for you.
Given that we send quite a few emails, we use personalized outreach templates.
If you were looking into link building before, you know that there is a ton of those available online.
The problem is that they are all abused by spammers.
I am proud to say that we develop a new template for each and every campaign we run.
That way we are less to get flagged as spam AND actually get a positive reply from people.
And here is what the replies we receive may look like:
The important thing, we always work to improve our conversion rates because that will benefit you as a client.
This translates into us tweaking the personalized template we use for outreach and maybe even choosing different targets for prospecting.
Step 7: Reply Management & Follow Ups
This is probably the most resourceful part of the process…as it’s all about working and communicating with people.
Pitching guest posts is like selling.
Some people don’t understand what we want, other people have doubts and there are those that just don’t accept guest posts anymore or simply don’t reply.
Our experienced team deals with all of these and gets you what you want – quality relevant guest contribution opportunities.
Oh, and they are all secured with 100% white hat blogger outreach. 😉
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Special Note
I mentioned that above, but I will mention it again.
We don’t pay people to get your links on their websites.
If we are quoted with a price, we move on to the next target.
We only care about legitimate work and take no shortcuts.
This is the Linkshero’s promise.
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Linkshero’s Pricing for Guest Posting
So, how much is all of this?
We charge a flat fee of €2000 which gets you 200 relevant leads and we guarantee a minimum of 10 agreed placements.
In reality, our clients routinely get 20, 30 and even 40+ placements as a result of us reaching out to the 200.
This makes your most expensive placement equal €200 euros (approx. $230), but it’s almost always a lot less than that.
Now, let’s clarify a couple of points.
F.A.Q.
Why Do You Charge That Amount?
For many, our pricing might seem weird (as people are used for paying “per placement”), but this is, in fact, the most honest pricing structure there is.
Our pricing is built upon on the work we do.
Here is how we charge our clients.
Finding, filtering and reaching out to the 200 leads takes around 45 hours, which makes it €44 per hour of work (with the €2000 budget).
This is a sweet deal if you know that getting at least 10 placements (out of 200 leads) is very easy (I am talking about the actual result regularly being a lot higher – 20, 30 and even 40+ placements are not rare).
Do You Create Content?
We don’t.
We found that content creation is best done from the client’s side via their writers.
If you don’t have a writer, I do recommend hiring one using one of the many freelance platforms or getting someone from myriads of Facebook groups (freelance writer jobs).
That way we can function like a well-oiled German machine – we find and forward link placements to you (or your writer) and they create the content.
It is also significantly cheaper that way (you can get an awesome writer for $20-40 per 1000 words; whereas agencies charge 2/3 times more than that).
If you have trouble finding a writer, get in touch and we might be able to figure something out.
What Kind of Sites Do You Find and Pitch to?
There are two things that we are mostly concerned with – traffic and relevance.
We gauge traffic estimates via Ahrefs.
Relevance is a bit more subjective – we use our best judgment here.
As of Domain Rating/Authority metrics (brought to us by Ahrefs and Moz respectively)…
These can still be manipulated easily, so we don’t follow them blindly.
Having said that, we aim for a range of approximately DR/DA 20-60.
This brings is a very diversified backlink portfolio (this is how it should be).
Can I See Any Websites from Your Database?
No, because…
We don’t have any databases with websites that you can just pick.
All link building is done in real time separately for every client.
We don’t pay webmasters for link placements, which means that we don’t break Google’s TOS (unlike a tooooon of other “white hat” link building services).
Can I get 1, 2, 3 or 5 Guest Posts?
No.
We are not interested in “once-off” type clients because they are the worst – zero patience and 100% anxiety induced by “I want results yesterday” mentality.
Link building in general (and guest posting in particular) is not quick to work.
It requires commitment and work.
And so do we.