How Interior Designers Can Use Guest Blogging to Attract More Clients

Many interior designers struggle with grabbing potential leads attention through digital marketing channels. Essentially, you are competing with not only other designers but also all the other online “noise.” It can feel like an overwhelming task to reach the right audience. An option to consider is guest blogging, which allows you to reach more people within your target audience through influencers channels.

Guest posts are content that you write for websites within your industry, usually with a complimentary product or service. It is an incredible way to reach new prospects, and it can work like no other marketing strategy if done right. It’s a win-win situation for both parties as it shows credibility to your potential clients.

Guest blogging has grown to be one of the best SEO practices for websites, and it can help any business get its message in front of a lot more people. Furthermore, guest blogging is a great way to get backlinks and attract more visitors. So how do you get started? We are giving you a step-by-step guide on how to use guest blogging to grow your reach. 

Benefits of Guest Blogging

Perhaps you are wondering if guest posting still works? The answer is yes. You should consider writing guest posts for a variety of reasons. Check out the list below.

• Increased Traffic: Readers of guest posts tend to be more interested in the topic than random search engine visitors. It gives them variety within the content they are absorbing.
• Free Backlinks: To strengthen your blog's authority, you need as many credible backlinks as possible. Backlinks can be acquired for free by guest posting, while most bloggers purchase them
• Increased Brand Awareness and Authority: You will gain the trust of readers by writing for well-known bloggers. Your blog will eventually gain more exposure through guest posts, and people will begin to visit it because they've heard your name before. Keep in mind, the goal is for you to be seen as far and wide as possible.
• Expanded Social Media Following: Traffic will increase your chances of people following you on social media or subscribing to your blog. You must get subscribers as early as possible to monetize your blog in the future.

Step-by-Step Guide To Guest Blogging

The key to a successful guest posting strategy is setting clear goals, expectations, and standards for deciding which opportunities are best. The following eight steps will help you set an excellent foundation for your plan to be executed properly without any hiccups along the way!

Step 1: Identify Your Guest Posting Goals

Determine two or three marketing objectives that you can achieve through guest blogging.

• Boost brand awareness
• Promote your projects and services
• Demonstrate your expertise
• Increase your social media presence
• Increase your rankings with SEO
• Establish industry authority
• Boost traffic
• Generate leads

Step 2: Find guest-posting opportunities

The next step is to identify websites that welcome guest posts and align with your objectives. Research sites that check these boxes as you do your research:

• They have content that fits your expertise and niche.
• The guest post you write will add value to the site
• There is an active audience of readers who are interested in you and your brand
• The owner on social media frequently promotes guest posts

You can find sites that correspond to these criteria in several ways. Here are some of the tactics to research websites for guest blogging:

CREATE A LIST OF GUEST POST-ACCEPTING WEBSITES

Due to guest blogging's popularity and great reach, there are many blogs out there with lists of guest bloggers. You can also find them sorted by topic and place them in order of their domain authority, making it easier for you to identify the best opportunities for you.

Performing an online search for "list of blogs that accept guest posts," as well as "list of - your keyword - blogs that accept guest posts," will most likely yield numerous results.

Although some of these types of lists can be quite old, it is worth noting that you will still have to research them and ensure they are still accepting guest posts. You should also check the DA (to see if it's still as high as you'd like) and whether the blog is still publishing new content. 

FIND GUEST BLOGGING WEBSITES BY SEARCHING YOUR SEARCH TERMS

Searching on Google for your search terms is a straightforward way to locate guest blogging websites. To find numerous websites, you can try a variety of search terms. However, you should start with your keywords.

For example, if you are searching for an interior design blog that accepts guest posts, you would use various keywords related to interior design. Such as “interior design,” "residential design," "interior design tips," "home improvement," "home decor," "home remodel products," and so on.

Afterward, use your keywords paired with one of the following search terms:

+ "guest blog"/" guest post"

+ "write for us."

+ "submit an article"/" submit a guest post."

+ "contribute guest post."

+ "contribute to our blog."

+ "become a guest blogger."

+ "guest blogging guidelines."

+ "contributor guidelines"

+ "send a tip."

+ "guest post by"

+ "guest author."

Additionally, it's worth looking at multiple pages of results rather than just the first two; in many cases, great opportunities can be found as far down as the 5th or 10th page.

REVERSE SEARCH FOR GUEST BLOGGING WEBSITES

Looking at your competitors, finding where they have authored guest posts in the past and what high-quality blogs they have contributed to are an alternative way of locating relevant guest posting websites. Again, this can be done in many ways.

Finding bloggers in the same niche as yours who are already guest blogging often is one way to start. If you follow popular blogs in your niche, you'll notice that certain names will appear repeatedly. You can also find who guest blogs on some of the popular blogs in your niche and then check out their websites to see if that is a strategy they often employ.

Try searching for the following terms:

Site: domain.com "guest post by"

Site: domain.com "a guest contribution by"

A backlink tool can help you figure out what other backlinks they have - not all of them will be guest blogs. Still, you could likely find quite a few gems in the list of people who guest post a lot. So first, you can use a backlink checking tool to find their main website (the one linked in their guest post and/or the author bio of their guest post). Next, look through their list of backlinks to find the ones where they guest posted.

Step 3: Find Suitable Guest Posting Sites

Begin qualifying potential guest posting sites once you have a list. Initial, find blogs that accept guest posts while also fitting your strategy and goals. Next, establish criteria for guest blogging that are aligned with your goals.

You can find metrics that will help you qualify and measure sites using Alexa's Site Overview tool. By entering the URL of the target site, you can see website metrics, Alexa rankings, number of linking sites, traffic sources, audience demographics, and more.

Use Alexa's Site Comparison tool to compare multiple guest blogging sites simultaneously. You can enter up to ten sites for comparison. This report allows you to identify the most promising guest posting opportunities out of a group of sites.

Step 4: Research Blog Topics

After discovering a site that fits your guest posting criterion, it is time to brainstorm blog topics. First, prepare a few posts that will serve both the publisher and their readers while supporting your goals.

Here are a few tried and tested successful methods for topic research:

TOP REFERRAL CONTENT OF COMPETITORS AND PROSPECTS

Acquiring or earning links that drive real traffic is the best strategy. Analyze the topics that constantly send traffic to your prospects/competitors. The top referring content feature of Ahrefs is used here.

With this information, you can find out what content topics your target audience is interested in. Your chosen topics are usually within categories that your target audience is most likely to be interested in.

Create a more effective version of those high-traffic referring pages. It would also be good to utilize the user activity from your competitors' sites to prove the topic's value when pitching to editors.

Different topic ideas may also be found by digging into the top-performing content pages of your prospects' most known competitors (Ahrefs > Pages > Top Content).

DETERMINING CONTENT GAPS

Using content gap analysis is another surefire way to pitch topics your prospects (and their audience) need. This ideation process is conducted through Ahrefs, an online resource for SEO tools. (Organic Search > Content Gap). [link: https://ahrefs.com/] This is quite an expensive resource for non-marketing professionals, i.e., interior designers. I recommend exhausting the other recommendations first.

Explore topics not covered by your target publisher, and check to see if they have trouble optimizing them for search visibility. Then, using keyword data, you can easily compare their site's content to that of top competitors.

Offer to create better content than their competitors. You can give them the chance to compete in those spaces (this is the right time to use your search engine optimization skills).

RENEW THEIR OUTDATED CONTENT

On the web, there are many outdated pages with outdated information or lack depth and substance. You can also increase your content pitch's success rate by selecting topics your prospects have already discussed in the past.

You can check their post archives or posts from a few years ago. Can you add something new and valuable to those posts? To find outdated content you can revive, you can also use Google search (Tools > Custom Time).

PLATFORMS AND TOOLS

Let's start with the simplest. Utilizing tools to generate hundreds of topic ideas almost instantly can make your content ideation process almost automated.

Here are some of the ones you may find useful:

Reddit (subreddits)

Finally, subreddits are devoted to a specific industry or niche and offer a wealth of information about genuinely discussed subjects without admin mediation. You should make it a daily habit to check your industry's website to see what's new and what's hot.

Quora

There is no better way to ask questions about the web than through Quora (basically a 2nd generation of Yahoo! Answers).

Simply browse through all the questions related to your site's business/industry on Quora to gather content ideas. Look for topics/questions that get a lot of activity and engagement (as they are more likely to get searched).

Answer The Public

AnswerthePublic.com is a free tool for generating content ideas based on frequently searched questions by web users.

You can visualize data visualizations derived from stemmed topics/questions derived from primary keywords and topic areas you select on their site. Warning though, you can only do three searches per day without paying for the upgrade.

Buzzsumo

To help find out what content is most shared in your space, use Buzzsumo's social listening capabilities. One feature of this tool alone can provide a great deal of insight into which headlines, topics, and content formats will perform well in shareability and virality. You can also access this tool for free.

Google Search Suggest

As Google has refined its technology over the past couple of years, it has become increasingly effective and accurate at suggesting search queries.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts can be set up to monitor your campaign's keywords. Through monitoring what content is being published in your field and understanding what types of content topics are of value to them, you will be able to generate more secondary topics to write about.

Google Trends

Using Google Trends, you can verify the longevity and demand of content ideas based on search volume growth. 

Step 5: Write a Guest Post Pitch

The process of guest blogging involves more than just submitting a guest post to a publisher and having them publish it on their site. A pitch is required before your content can be considered for publication. Consider this a proposal for a new client; it may be a long-term arrangement.

• Don't copy and paste the same message in every pitch
• Write a compelling subject line
• Highlight the benefits of publishing your post, including sharing what their readers will gain from reading it on their site or blog, along with how this particular article might help out everyone.

Step 6: Write an Article Worth Publishing

Upon acceptance of your pitch, you will need to write a post that the publisher will publish on their website. Thus, your post will most likely be published and increase the probability of working with the same publisher again if the content meets expectations.

The way to get guest posts accepted by the publishing house is simple: follow their guidelines. First things first, ask for those pesky editorial standards, and then do your best not to be overly promotional! Instead, focus on adding value with unique content that promotes yourself as an expert/business owner.

Incorporate a link to your website into the blog post. Your site will benefit from relevant traffic driving back to your site and from off-page SEO.

Make the bio welcoming and invite visitors to learn more. Your author bio can also help keep readers on your website. You may want to include a link back to your website (if permitted) and a call-to-action to motivate readers to click for more information.

Step 7: Keep in Touch

The work doesn't end after you submit a guest post. Once your post has been published, follow up with the publisher if you would like to build a good relationship. Promote the article and help the publisher manage it by following practices:

• Use social media to promote your post
• Engage with comments
• Include a link to the post on your site

Step 8: Track The Results Of Your Guest Posting

It is impossible to fully understand the value of guest posting unless you track the results. Utilize metrics to measure your work's marketing for each guest post. Organize your posts by listing the name of the website, a live link, and relevant marketing metrics. For example, you may specify:

• How much traffic was generated by referrals
• % of new visitors to the website
• Shares on social media
• Total comments
• Changes in search engine rankings
• Leads generated
• Number of links or mentions of the brand

You can use these metrics to identify which sites helped you reach your goals and which ones did not. You can then decide which sites you should try guest posting on again and which should be removed from your guest posting plan for the future.

Final Thoughts on Guest Blogging

There's no doubt that developing and implementing an effective guest posting strategy is time-consuming. Still, the benefits of guest blogging are endless if you're willing to put a little effort into it. A good approach would be to identify a few outlets with a large audience relevant to your niche. Then, continue to submit valuable content that meets their guidelines so that you become a part of their community. A guest blogging campaign will yield its rewards over time, patience, and persistence.

Lastly, if you haven’t downloaded your copy of “150 Blog Post Topics” be sure to here. This great resource gives you 30 blog topics to get you started. We broke out 30 topics for residential designers and 30 more topics for commercial designers.