Yes, if you want to find guest post opportunities that are safe, you need to be ready for a tedious process!
Nowadays, an agency can charge you a $100-$200 per link for one DA30 or DA50 website, and they can use that same site and sell that exact link to 100 people like you and me.
At the end of it all, we can end up with something that can hurt our blog.
Disclaimer: I want you to know that this is not a free and easy way to get a backlink. But it might be, for sure, one of the best ways you can go for.
So, I personally think doing it by yourself is a better idea, even though it might end up as time wasted.
Here is why.
Find Guest Post Opportunities Manually – Advantages
Firstly, if you succeed in this, you will sleep well knowing that these backlinks are healthy for your blog.
Secondly, you will spend less money if you do it yourself.
Thirdly, you will not have link farms or shady websites pointing to your site and have to worry about Google noticing that down the road.
Finally, it doesn’t matter if you want to run your blog for the next five years or sell it in a year or two (after all, even buyers will check links pointing to you).
You need healthy websites pointing that vital link to you.
Find Guest Post Opportunities Manually – Disadvantages
You will fall asleep from boredom if you’re not fully into getting backlinks to your website.
If you are not annoyed enough by everything you have heard so far on YouTube from gurus, and if you are not desperate (like me), you won’t be able to get through this.
Also, this is not a fast, cheap way to get a hit on your golden guest post opportunities.
If you find a website that looks like a good one, there is also the chance that it will have a few bad links.
But at least the probability is lower, and it ranks for that keyword you search for earlier.
Anyways, after you spend hours finding good websites, you will also need to write a guest post and communicate back and forth with website owners.
I know, this is far from perfect.
While hiring a guest post agency seems like a faster way to get your link, I hated the idea of going to sleep wondering if all these articles, content, and hundreds of other things I worked hard on were at risk because of the possibility of getting harmful links that way.
For that reason, I suggest you hire a VA for this manual work.
However, try it out yourself for the first couple of times so that you know how to explain the process better to your VA.
Alternatively, you can give them this blog post where I describe my process in detail.
What Will You Need for Finding Guest Post Opportunities?
You don’t need to buy Ahrefs, tools for searching e-mails, or e-mail marketing tools for sending e-mails.
You only need to spend time on your computer, common sense, and a good understanding of your niche.
And I know that you have those things!
The only aspect I’m not certain you have is time, but you can find a VA on UpWork for that.
Here is what you need:
- Google Spreadsheet
- Working business email (your website brand mail)
- Tweaking few settings
- 5-6 hours of work
Let me show you my process.
It’s simple, time-consuming, and sometimes doesn’t work, but the best part is, if it starts working, you will earn pretty good links!
Make a List to Easily Find Guest Post Opportunities
Just so you know, I did this for my small parenting blog, and it worked.
But for this example, I did it on a fishing niche.
I like fishing and wanted to see how much time I will need to spend for this niche, which I’m not into that well.
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I searched “best fishing rods for beginners” in Google and tweaked the settings to show 100 results per page.
This made my work easier.
It showed me three pages with around 250 results.
Then, I started manually going through the results and looking for sites from which I would like to get a backlink.
I skimmed through a lot of websites and just handpicked the ones that seemed worth sending an email to.
After 37 minutes, I had 85 sites in my Google spreadsheet.
Remember, I only spent 10 seconds per website to see if it is good or not.
If you are into SEO, you know how shady sites look.
Of course, I also skipped many of the sites because they were too powerful, and there wasn’t a chance (at least in this life) of getting a backlink from them (e.g. nymag.com, tripsavvy.com, fatherly.com, and businessinsider.com).
If you are wondering, all these sites had an article about the best fishing rods for beginners.
Find Guest Post Opportunities and Contact Details
I worked manually to find everything that is relevant, including website owners’ emails, contact forms, names, and editors.
From my list of 85, I found a way to reach out to 80 websites.
These remaining 5 were mission impossible.
Remember, these 80 sites were great.
I found everything I could.
Even if I found an email, I also copied the link of the contact form.
You want to reach out through email, contact form, or on Facebook or Instagram—wherever you can.
Here is how the spreadsheet looks like:
- Website domain
- Email (sometimes 2 or 3)
- Contact form URL
- Name or [Their Domain + Team]
If you can’t find the person behind the website, use the word “Team” (or something similar) so you can start an email with “Hello [Their] Website Team,” for example.
I don’t show you their contact details here, but these are all sites about fishing that you can find simply by searching on Google.
Remember, you must reach out somehow when you find that list of great websites you want to get links from (pure gold).
Do not give up! Find the contact details of these guest post opportunities.
All right, I don’t want you to go crazy.
So, just remember that I only invest 1-2 minutes per site.
Plus, I found all I needed.
Sometimes you will find exactly what you’re looking for in 30 seconds, sometimes in 10 seconds, sometimes in 2 minutes.
For these 80 websites, I spent 2 hours and 10 minutes in total collecting emails (sometimes 2 or 3), contact pages, and the names of people.
Sneaky Ways to Find Contact Details
Some website owners put their email on the homepage so that you can find it easily, but this is rare.
Some people try to hide their contact details as if they are celebrities.
But they do it simply because people like you and me are boring to them.
Still, we don’t care. We have a genuine message.
We are not spammers like 90% of the people out there.
Here are ways you can find their emails:
- Search their Privacy policy and terms of use.
- Go to their YouTube channel, click on their “About” tab, look for “Contact,” and click “I’m not a robot.”
- Go to their Facebook “About” section.
- Read through profile descriptions on Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
- Look for the envelope icon on the website and hover over it. Then, click “copy.”
- Click “message” in the live chat and ask for it.
- Apply for the newsletter and wait for their email.
And yes, if you can’t find a name, just put their domain and word “Team” in the spreadsheet.
You don’t want to start your email with “Hello” or “Hi there.”
Create a Nice Message if You Want to Find Guest Post Opportunities
The thing with this approach is that these people may not even like guest posting.
Perhaps they don’t even know what it is.
You would be surprised!
Anyways, at this point, we are only politely reaching out to ask if they accept guest posts.
Please do not push it.
Yes, we are doing this to find guest post opportunities.
Though, right now, we only want to get an answer.
Don’t forget: Send this message to their email, contact form, and even Instagram or Facebook if you can’t find any contact.
You can even leave a comment at the bottom of the blog post if you can’t find anything else.
Here is how I’m sending an email at this point: Just set your website like this “ninkovmedia (dot) com” because you don’t want to appear like a spammer.
Subject line: Just wondering if you are interested…
Message:
Hey [Their Name],
[Your Name] here from yourwebsite (dot) com
I just noticed your website on Google when I was searching for the best fishing rods for beginners.
Honestly, your website caught my eye! I was just wondering if you accept guest posts on your website?
I’m seriously into fishing, and I’m happy to create a high-quality piece for your audience.
Is this something you might be interested in?
Thanks
[Your Name]
After I contacted all the website owners on my list, I wrote down the dates in the spreadsheet, and after ten days, I sent a follow-up like this:
Subject line: Quick Follow up
Message:
Hi [Their Name],
[Your Name] here from yourwebsite (dot) com
Just wondering if you got my last e-mail.
Feel free to tell me what you think.
Thanks
[Your Name]
For sending around 80 messages, you will need approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
Send one by one.
After you have that spreadsheet ready, you need 1 minute per website.
After that, you will wait.
Some people will answer in a month or two.
The majority will ignore your email.
Some will respond in 2 days, some in 2 weeks.
After this, you negotiate, and please be polite and patient.
Important to know: You need a warmed-up email account. You can’t create your email account today and send 100 emails.
Also, it’s good to schedule emails.
For example, send 20 emails in one day and schedule others to go out tomorrow or the day after.
After my email warmed up, I sent 50 emails a day and haven’t had problems.
Final Words on Finding Guest Post Opportunities
I did it for several different keywords for my website, and I found hundreds of great websites this way.
Although I didn’t get hundreds of guest post opportunities, at least the ones I did were not shady.
Who knows?
Maybe this is one of the few safe ways to find guest post opportunities and get a safe backlink nowadays.
An easier way is hiring “professionals.”
But I’m going the manual route.
This takes time, but if you take this path, you can hire a VA, a writer for your guest posts, and so on.
So, this is not a free and easy way.
But it might be one of the best ones for sure.
If you try this method, let me know how it went after a few months!