Using AI to Create Guest Posts for SEO
Artificial Intelligence

Using AI to Create Guest Posts for SEO

Mandi D 19 November 2023

Publishing guest posts on high authority websites related to your industry is an incredibly effective tactic for increasing your website’s visibility and authority in search engine rankings. By contributing content to reputable sites that your target audience already knows and trusts, you can earn high-quality backlinks, referral traffic, and raise awareness for your brand.

However, manual outreach, writing custom articles, and going through the submission process for each website is extremely time consuming and does not scale well. This makes guest posting an ideal application for AI content generation tools to maximize efficiency.

Introduction

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic to your website through unpaid search results. One of the most important ranking factors is backlinks from authoritative websites related to your niche. This signals to Google that your content is high-quality and trustworthy. Guest posting allows you to proactively build these backlinks by contributing content to industry websites your target audience cares about.

However, the process of identifying relevant sites, crafting unique articles for each, and getting posts approved is very manual. This severely limits the quantity and frequency at which you can submit guest posts. AI copywriting tools can help automate the creation of custom articles tailored to different websites at scale.

In this guide, we will cover:

  • The benefits of guest posting for SEO
  • How to use AI writing tools to efficiently create quality guest posts
  • Best practices for getting guest posts approved and published
  • How to scale your outreach with AI to maximize SEO results

Properly leveraging AI generation can significantly accelerate your ability to build high-value backlinks, increase referral traffic, and boost your website’s authority and rankings over time.

The Benefits of Guest Posting for SEO

Guest posting can be an incredibly effective SEO strategy when done right. Here are some of the major benefits and tips for successfully using guest posts to improve your website’s search rankings and traffic:

Build High-Quality Backlinks

One of the biggest perks of guest blogging is acquiring backlinks from authoritative sites related to your niche. These backlinks signal trust and authority to search engines like Google, helping boost your domain authority and keyword rankings.

  • Research and make a list of reputable websites that are regularly updated and allow guest contributions in your niche. Prioritize ones with high domain authority and traffic.
  • When reaching out to site owners, pitch relevant article ideas tailored to their audience and guidelines. Provide actual value for readers.
  • In your author bio, link back to your site using varied anchor text including your brand name, core keywords, and generic phrases like “visit site”.
  • Follow up to ensure your post is published and the backlink is properly integrated.

Increase Referral Traffic

Guest posts allow you to tap into new audiences and gain direct referrals through links within the articles themselves.

  • Strategically place 1-2 relevant internal links in your post body to pages you want to drive traffic to. Don’t overdo it.
  • Make sure anchor text for internal links includes target keywords you want to rank for. Vary it up between branded and generic phrases.
  • Add the URL to your site within the body text so readers can easily visit your site.

Improve Brand Awareness & Trust

Contributing high-quality articles on authority sites shows you are a subject matter expert, building brand awareness and trust with publishers and readers.

  • Stick to your niche and provide truly useful, engaging content their audience would appreciate. Don’t overly self-promote.
  • Use your author bio to briefly describe your expertise and link to credible company information.
  • Promote your guest posts through your own marketing channels to maximize reach.

Show Expertise Through Content Promotion

The valuable content you contribute demonstrates your knowledge while also promoting your own site and resources.

  • Repurpose guest posts on your blog or as visual content for social media.
  • Make sure to fully optimize any repurposed content for SEO with target keywords.
  • Consider promoting your posts through your email newsletter or sharing with industry colleagues.

Gain Organic Rankings

By consistently publishing high-quality content on authoritative sites, you can steadily build reputation and organic search visibility.

  • Stick to a regular guest posting schedule to maintain momentum – aim for at least 1-2 each month.
  • Analyze traffic and rankings monthly to identify positive trends from your efforts.
  • Continue developing relationships with publishers and be a reliable contributor.

Using AI to Efficiently Create Custom Guest Posts

Manually researching potential websites, crafting unique articles tailored to each, and submitting guest posts can be extremely time and labor intensive. This process does not scale well as it requires manually customizing every single post. However, AI writing assistants can help streamline and automate much of the busy work involved in guest posting outreach.

When leveraging AI to create custom guest posts, the first step is thoroughly researching each potential website you want to pitch articles to. Spend time upfront reading several of their existing blog articles to fully understand their style, tone, target audience, and content focus areas. Look for any posted submission guidelines for guest contributors that outline article length, formatting, focus topics, and so on. The goal is to immerse yourself in the publisher’s content style so you can properly brief the AI.

Once you have a firm handle on the website’s preferences, tone, and readership – you can customize the AI article generation accordingly. Many AI writing tools allow you to specify a proficiency level, tone of voice, audience persona, and more. Adjust these settings for each publisher to match your research findings. This will allow the AI to output posts better tailored to each individual website right from the start.

When providing the AI with a content topic prompt, always focus on creating something genuinely useful and interesting for the publisher’s readers. Avoid overly promotional posts that only benefit you. Instead, come up with educational, insightful articles that align with the website’s own content style and focus. This increases the chances your guest post will be approved.

While the AI can automatically generate the body of the article, it is a good idea to manually compose custom introductions and conclusions for each post. These are critical elements that create flow and seamless transitions. Tweaking them yourself can make the articles feel less AI-produced.

Also manually work in a few relevant links to other helpful articles published on the same website within the AI-generated article body. This makes the guest post seem well-integrated rather than disconnected.

To increase chances of approval, use the AI to generate multiple different variations of each prospective article. Then you can pick the one that best aligns with each publisher. Creating several versions allows you to quality control the output.

Always carefully review every website’s published guidelines for guest contributors. Follow their policies precisely in terms of word count, outline, formatting, topic restrictions, and so on. This demonstrates respect for their brand standards.

Best Practices for Getting Your Guest Posts Approved

Here are some tips for increasing your odds of getting guest posts approved and published by website editors:

  • Thoroughly polish each post before submitting. Double check for proper grammar, spelling, formatting, and overall quality.
  • Make sure the article is evergreen rather than focused on outdated trends or info. Evergreen content has a longer shelf life.
  • Where relevant, localize content with references and examples from the publisher’s country or region.
  • Review the writer’s guidelines again right before submitting to ensure conformance. Don’t give them reasons to reject.
  • Keep introductions short and compelling. Summarize key points and what the reader will learn to hook them.
  • Structure posts well with subheads, bullet points, and bold text to facilitate scanning. Break up dense text.
  • Support main points with credible data, expert opinions, relevant links, and real-world examples for authority.
  • Close with actionable takeaways or next steps the reader can implement right away to provide value.
  • Express enthusiasm and interest in contributing more regularly if the initial articles go well. Offer related guest post topic ideas.
  • After a post is published, promote it through your social channels and link to it from relevant website content.
  • Periodically check back that your author bio, links, and content remain intact after publication.

Developing strong relationships and consistently providing high-value guest posts tailored to each publisher are key to getting your content approved and featured. Let me know if you need any other tips!

Scaling Outreach With AI to Maximize SEO Results

One of the biggest advantages of using AI writing tools for guest posting is the ability to research, create, and submit completely customized articles at scale. Rather than manually writing each individual post, you can leverage AI to significantly increase the number of guest articles you produce and websites you can pitch to. This allows you to cast a much wider net and maximize your SEO results through scaled outreach.

When developing your outreach strategy, you should always prioritize securing placements on websites with the highest domain authority scores first. Sort your target website list by DA and start at the top. Landing just one quality backlink from an authority site can make a big impact vs dozens from lower-tier sites. Over time, work your way down the list to lower DA sites.

Closely analyze your own website’s current domain authority and make it a goal through guest posting to steadily expand into earning backlinks from sites with higher scores. This will incrementally but consistently increase your average DA over the long-term.

Additionally, diversify the types of websites you contribute guest articles to – including blogs, news sites, magazines, directories, review sites etc. Link diversity is a positive ranking factor, as it looks natural vs just getting links from the same site or site type.

Make sure to regularly monitor your target websites for changes and new opportunities. Scan their blogs, contact pages, and guidelines sections for additions like submission forms, calls for contributors, or openings in new verticals or content sections relevant to your niche.

Rather than doing all your guest post outreach in large batches, maintain a steady consistent cadence of 2-4 article pitches per week. This creates ongoing momentum while avoiding overly spammy bulk submissions.

Use a calendar to organize and plan your target website outreach in advance. This ensures you maintain a regular pace and don’t miss pitching opportunities while scaling volume.

Lastly, closely track traffic and rank improvements from each guest post using analytics. Identify trends in which articles and links drive the most results to optimize your outreach approach and AI content over time.

Key Takeaways

  • Guest posting allows you to earn high quality backlinks, referral traffic, and raise brand awareness by contributing content to authority sites related to your niche.
  • Manually identifying sites, writing custom articles, and submitting posts does not scale well and limits your SEO benefits.
  • Using AI copywriting tools enables creating unlimited customized guest posts tailored to different websites.
  • Ensure content provides value for publishers’ audiences rather than being overly promotional.
  • Build relationships with editors over time, provide exclusive content, and respect editorial guidelines for higher approval rates.
  • Consistently reach out to new opportunities and track ROI to maximize your SEO results through scaled outreach powered by AI.

Further Resources

Here are some helpful resources to learn more about leveraging AI for guest posting:

  • Broken Link Building Guide – Ahrefs’ guide to broken link building, a guest posting approach to replace broken links on sites.