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Guest posting is arguably the best way to grow your online legal business. And it’s not as easy as writing up an article and spam mailing it to hundreds of niche-related websites. That strategy, while common, never yields meaningful results.

Like any other marketing method, guest posting requires careful planning and research. As unusual as it may seem, guest posting requires very little writing effort. Of course, you will need to write up an article that will be posted on your target website, but that is typically the easiest part of the job.

The hardest part of guest posting is what comes before it – tons and tons of research.

Research all guest posting opportunities

To find the best guest posting opportunities, you will need to utilize the power of Google and be creative. You can begin your research by typing in “guest post by” + law/legal/relevant niche topic in Google.

It’s essential that you include the part “guest post by”, because it helps you filter out unnecessary results. This way, Google will return only websites that allow guests posts.

The creativity comes in when you start looking into the specific topics that your guest post could cover. You may have to play around with keywords and search terms to find interesting legal topics that people want to read about. Here, you can try targeting your clients or your colleagues. Put yourself in their shoes and think what law topics they could be looking up on Google.

After you have found a few attractive guest posting opportunities, you will need to check whether or not they are worth your effort.

Examine guest posting opportunities

If you’ve invested in Ahrefs, you can use their software to quickly check up on relevant topics and useful websites without any Google research. You can do this by simply exploring online content with their tools. Of course, this will greatly reduce the amount of time necessary for your guest posting research.

In case you prefer to work with free tools, you can check each potential guest posting website with DA PA Checker. This tool allows you to enter URLs and examine each website’s metrics.

Whatever tool you use, it’s important that you closely inspect the following stats: Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA) and Alexa Rank (AR).

Domain Authority refers to the reliability of the entire website, while Page Authority determines the popularity of a specific page on the given website. If the DA is considerably higher than PA, it may mean that the website is reliable, but that the topic or the article that you entered does not generate interest or traffic. If this is the case, you may want to consider choosing another subject for your piece.

In general, you should only look to post on websites that have both DA and PA metrics above 10. Anything less is generally not worth the effort, although such websites may prove useful if you’re only starting out.

Alexa Rank helps you because it determines the overall popularity of the target website. If you notice that the Alexa Rank is on a downward spiral, you may want to avoid publishing a guest post on it. In most cases, websites with a decreasing Alexa Rank will only help you in the short term.

Prepare yourself for rejections

When you wrap up the research, you will need to start pitching your ideas to webmasters and blog owners. This means you need to prepare yourself for countless rejections and silent treatments.

Your guest post idea may get rejected for a number of reasons, regardless of your writing skills. You may not be presenting your idea in the optimal way. The topic may not fit in with the website owner’s plans. The guest post section may be booked for months in advance.

This is why it’s important that you never start writing a guest post until an editor has replied to you and confirmed your subject.

You may be tempted to start writing as soon as possible to avoid wasting time. However, that tactic rarely works out for the best. In most cases, editors will ask you to adjust your topic to fit the editorial guidelines of the specific website. This might mean you will need to rewrite parts of the text or even the entire article.

In any case, remember not to get discouraged by the rejections. If you’re only starting with guest posting, you may only get 1 positive reply from 10 inquiries. Unresponsive website owners and rejections are a normal part of the guest posting process.

Don’t focus on links

Guest posting does not come down to generating backlinks for your law firm website. Sure, a backlink will help you rank up in the search engines and it’s always smart to include a link in your guest posts.

However, the main purpose of guest posting is not link building – it’s brand visibility and positioning. Even if you cannot acquire a backlink from the website owner, a guest post can be beneficial in a number of different ways.

For example, regular guest posts on popular blogs will allow people to start associating your law business with reputable individuals and brands. Over time, this helps position your law firm within your niche and it results in a natural, organic increase of inbound traffic.

So, don’t hesitate to write unpaid posts, because guest posting is a long-term strategy. It’s proven to work and your effort will be rewarded, although it may take more than you expect.