Writing articles for other websites can help drive traffic and increase revenue for your brand or business. It is an effective form of inbound marketing, popularly known as guest blogging, where third-party website publications invite seasoned individuals and experts to write content for their website or blog.
But not all articles are created equal, with some being more compelling than others. This is why many professionals and businesses opt to hire guest blog writing services to generate meaningful and relevant content for them.
Today, we will help you understand how to write articles for third-party publications, so you can create content that drives traffic and revenue for both you and the website in question.
Write for Their Audience
The aim is to provide value for the third-party website publication, which means writing for their target audience. You should understand who they want to attract, and write for those people.
The website may tell you who comprises their target audience, or you may have to go through their web pages and articles to get a sense of who they target.
● Line Up with Their Brand & Format
Popular guest posting websites have a particular brand voice and specific categories and subjects that they post about. Learn what they are and align your content with their requirements.
Of course, you should not transition too far from your own brand and message, as this is likely to impact you negatively in the long run.
Try to find common ground and align your brand and message accordingly. Speak to their audience in a similar tone as they do. Remember: they will gauge your content in terms of how it will add value to their website.
you also need to make sure that the format and structure of your article matches the benchmark set by them. In most cases, the website will provide you with a format or some guidelines.
Follow them to the tee, because the publication knows their audience better than you do. If a format or particular guideline works for their audience, you must comply with their wishes. If there are no guidelines, study other published articles to get a sense of what works. Alternatively, you could consider getting in touch with the website so they can facilitate you.
● Provide Genuine Value
Articles for third-party website publications are an opportunity for you to provide genuine value to a relevant audience. Refrain from giving generic information and opt for something meaningful, tangible, and practical they can actually use.
Even a few nuggets of wisdom can leave the audience with a lasting, memorable impression of you. If you can impact their work, life, relationships, or pain points in a meaningful way, they will be more likely to find and follow you.
● Don’t Sell
These articles are not a place to promote and sell your brand, products, or services, not explicitly at least. They are meant to educate, engage, entice, and retain readers in a way that they would want to click through the backlinks and learn more.
Once they do this, only then should you consider selling your products and services. Professional article writing services understand this better than anyone, which is why they are experts at eliciting this kind of response from audiences.
Good content doesn’t feel like marketing. It feels natural, practical, and pushes the audience to take action. There is no place for spam or self-promotion in articles on third-party websites.
● Use Internal Links
Third-party website publications will appreciate your posts even more if you can help them improve their Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A great way to do this is to use internal links in your article that lead to other web pages and blogs on their website.
This helps readers dive deeper into their content/blog, spend more time on their website, and become more likely to subscribe to their brand, blog, or website. Internal links also help search engines uncover the structure of the third-party’s website, which improves their SEO and helps them rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Internal links are perhaps one of the simplest, yet highly-effective ways for you to provide value to a third-party website publication.
● Include a Compelling CTA
You may get one chance to plug in a call-to-action (CTA), typically at the end of the article. Make sure it’s a compelling one.
There are two parts to a compelling CTA. The first is an attractive nugget about you, and the second is where to reach you or “learn more” (the CTA). Consider your target audience for the first part.
Which piece of information about you will engage them the most? Is it your qualification, status, an achievement, your success rate, or something else?
The second part includes a link where audiences can discover more about you, your products and/or services. For this part, consider where you want to lead this audience; your blog, website, or social media page?
Often, it is wiser to send the audience to a relevant landing page on your website, where you can hook them with some kind of “special offer” or lead magnet.
● Provide a Complete Package
Your article should be a complete package, where the third-party doesn’t need to do anything except post it on their website. This means including high-quality, compressed images, keywords and meta details for SEO. These things provide convenience and added value for third-party websites.
Key Takeaways
Writing articles or guest blogs for third-party websites is an excellent strategy to improve brand awareness, online traffic, following, and ultimately, revenue. Follow the aforementioned insights and you should be able to produce a stellar article.
While your writing should align with the third-party website’s brand, you shouldn’t lose your own voice or yourself in the process.
You want to make an impression on the audience by providing valuable and actionable content so they seek you out, and being yourself is crucial for this. Just remember to follow the website’s prerequisites and provide added value to the third-party, so they want you back again.
Hire Professional Content Writers
Writing an engaging article with extensive research, original quality content, SEO, an engaging CTA, and all the bells and whistles to draw audiences is not an easy task.
It requires technical skill, experience, subject expertise, and most importantly, time. Sometimes, simply being an expert in your field is not enough. You must also know how to write memorable content that communicates ideas to your target audience in effective, succinct fashion.
A faster, more convenient and effective option is to hire a dedicated team of professional content writers to write quality guest blogs for your brand or business.
