What Is Guest Posting? The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Guest Blogging (2025 Edition)

What is guest posting?

Or what is guest blogging?

These are two different questions asked about the same thing.

Guest posting is a way to get backlinks.

You approach other websites to get a link for yours.

Simple, right?

Guest posting is one of the best and worst ways to get backlinks.

Your pages can either go straight to the No. 1 position or get buried on the 10th page of Google.

In this guide, I will walk you through the art of “guest posting” or “guest blogging.”

This one guide will be enough for you to learn a lot about guest posts in a short time.

So let’s start from the basics.

What is a guest post?

Okay, so I’ll start by explaining the meaning of guest posting.

A guest post is basically an article on a website that is published on behalf of someone else.

For example, Emily is doing SEO for a micro-niche SaaS tool.

Her website requires backlinks — votes of confidence for ranking higher!

Although she can go after niche edit links, her website is new, so she decides to build guest post links first.

She goes on Google and searches for websites that allow guest posts using keywords like:

“submit a guest post”

“guest post”

“guest post by”

“accepting guest posts”

“guest post guidelines”

These search operators show Emily the sites in her niche that accept guest post articles.

She quickly audits those websites and sends an email pitch.

Now, here are some possible outcomes:

1. Many websites will not reply to Emily’s email.
2. Many websites may ask for money to post Emily’s article.
3. Some will ask for links in return.
4. And a few will agree.

Emily will share her guest blog posts with those who agree.

She’ll include a link to her website.

When the articles go live and get indexed by Google, these links will become assets for Emily’s website.

They’ll pass link juice and authority.

And the result?

Google will start seeing Emily’s website as trustworthy — and it will begin rewarding her with higher rankings!

Good for Emily!

So, I just explained guest posts in the easiest way possible.

How does guest blogging work in simple terms?

Guest blogging is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to start building backlinks.

It isn’t just one-way traffic that helps only the website getting the links.

The website that accepts the article provides its own guidelines.

So, the guest blog needs to be relevant to that website and its published content.

This way, the website that accepted Emily’s guest article gets unique and engaging content,

and Emily, in return, gets the links she was looking for.

A win-win situation for both.

What is the difference between guest posting and link exchange?

Not all websites are looking for guest articles.

Some webmasters simply won’t accept articles written by others — they prefer their own writers to create content for their websites.

When you reach out to such a website for a guest post, they’ll either ignore your email or ask for something in return.

Now, I’ll include Clark in an example along with Emily to explain this.

Emily sent an email to a website managed by Clark.

Clark prefers having only his writers publish content on his website.

Initially, he ignored Emily’s email, but since he also needed backlinks, he found Emily’s pitch to be an interesting guest post opportunity.

He replied to Emily:

“Your topic is good, and it will bring value to my existing content.

But I’d rather have my writer create the article.

However, I’m interested in getting a link from your website too. So here’s my topic.

What if you write an article on your website and I do the same, and we exchange links?

One reciprocal link won’t hurt us.”

If Emily agrees and both give a link back to each other, that’s what you call a link exchange.

Why does guest posting matter for SEO and brand growth?

If you’re utilizing guest blogging opportunities effectively, you’re building some of the cleanest and most powerful backlinks for your brand.

SEO is a slow process, and Google takes time to evaluate a website before ranking it higher.

If you’re building comment backlinks, Web 2.0 backlinks, or relying solely on forum backlinks, you’re not doing your website much favor.

But if you’re mixing different backlink types together, you’re building a strong foundation for your website.

You’re essentially diversifying your website’s link-building profile — and this is exactly what Google wants.

Clean, relevant, and numerous references in the form of backlinks help your site rank higher.

Since other link-building methods aren’t very effective and mostly provide nofollow backlinks, guest posting remains one of the best ways to secure quality links.

And with guest posts, you almost always get dofollow backlinks.

How do guest posts improve website authority (DA/DR)?

It all started with Rand Fishkin when he introduced Domain Authority.

At that time, Moz was the only source for determining a website’s domain authority.

Google denied using any kind of authority metric for ranking web pages, claiming these metrics were all made up.

However, Google’s algorithm leak in 2024 proved that they do, in fact, use “Site Authority” as a ranking metric.

Of course, Google’s Site Authority is quite different from Domain Authority or Domain Rating.

But still, they have this metric — and it primarily revolves around links.

That algorithm leak also revealed that Google prioritizes links found in fresh content or in top-tier ranking content.

This makes guest posts even more significant since they’re one of the most credible sources for acquiring links in fresh content.

When a website continuously earns authoritative backlinks, its Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) naturally increases.

Websites with higher DA/DR usually outperform those with lower scores.

ReputePost’s white-label backlinks are an excellent way to secure backlinks from top-tier, high-ranking content.

What is the main purpose of guest blogging?

The main purpose of guest posting is to secure backlinks from unique websites.

Besides that, guest posts can also bring referral traffic to your website.

Let’s understand this through an example.

Emily did keyword research, found trending topics, and prepared an SEO-optimized guest blog.

She sent that article to Clark, and he published it on his website.

Clark’s website was already performing well, and Emily’s guest blog started ranking higher.

Now, many visitors read that article on Clark’s website and clicked the link to visit Emily’s website.

That’s called referral traffic.

Google gives significant value to websites that receive high referral traffic.

So, the main purpose of guest posting isn’t just to get backlinks.

It’s to provide value, build trust, and attract referral traffic from other sources.

Types of guest posts (and which one you should do)

In the beginning of this article I said that guest posts are the best and the worst ways to build backlinks.

The reason?

You have to look into so many things.

Let’s understand some popular guest posting types.

Free vs paid guest posts

First, I’ll explain the free guest posting link.

Emily did guest post outreach and sent an email to Clark.

Clark liked Emily’s topic and content, so he published her article on his website.

That is the perfect example of a free guest post link.

Now, here’s the explanation for paid guest posts.

Emily did guest post outreach and sent an email to Clark.

Clark liked Emily’s topic and content, but he said that he charges $20 as an editorial fee.

Emily agreed to his proposal and paid the fee.

Clark then published her article on his website.

This counts as a paid guest post.

Editorial guest posts vs promotional guest posts

Editorial Guest Posts are articles written by external contributors.

Their purpose is to provide valuable, informative, or thought-provoking content.

The goal is to offer useful insights or share expertise on a particular subject.

These posts usually align with the website’s editorial standards and audience interests, without directly promoting any products or services.

Promotional Guest Posts, on the other hand, are designed primarily to promote a product, service, brand, or individual.

They are more marketing-focused and often include calls to action, affiliate links, or company mentions.

While they can still provide value, their main intent is to promote rather than to inform.

High-authority vs low-quality guest posting sites

Guest posting helps you build real, highly authoritative backlinks.

But very few people know that guest post links can also be risky and even lead to a Google penalty.

The reason?

The spammy nature of certain websites.

Since most people aren’t very technical, they’re often unaware of link-building metrics.

This makes them believe that every backlink will help their website — but that’s not true.

Let’s understand this through an example:

Emily used search operators to find 50+ websites that allowed guest posting.

Out of those 50, only 5 shared proper guest posting guidelines.

The other 45 asked for money to publish Emily’s article.

Emily didn’t know why, so she paid all 45 and followed the guidelines of the remaining 5.

It took her two months to get all 50 guest posts published.

But after a few months, her traffic and impressions started to drop.

She consulted a senior SEO expert, who ran a site-wide backlink audit.

He found that out of those 50 links, 39 websites had zero visitors!

Google had already tanked their traffic long ago.

The remaining websites weren’t great either.

Without realizing it, Emily had wasted months of effort.

A poor-quality guest posting website will always ask for money to publish your article — and that’s not an editorial fee.

Usually, such websites are part of a Private Blog Network (PBN) and are built solely to sell backlinks.

In contrast, a decent website always has organic visitors and provides complete guidelines for content, links, and SEO.

If you don’t follow their rules, they won’t publish your article — even if you offer money.

So, as an SEO specialist, your goal shouldn’t be to build links on every site that allows guest blogging.

Instead, audit the website and ask yourself:

“Will my guest blog post bring any value to this website or its audience?”

If the answer is yes, share your article.

If the answer is no, skip it and look for better opportunities.

How to find guest posting opportunities?

There are different ways through which you can find guest blogging opportunities.

Using Google search operators

You can simply search on Google by applying search operators.

Let’s say I want to search for websites in the finance niche that accept guest blog posts.

Here are some examples of search operators you can use to find them easily and effectively.

Search Operators:

finance "write for us"

finance intitle:"guest post"

finance inurl:"guest-post"

"submit a guest post" + finance

finance "contribute to this site"

"finance blog" + "accepting guest posts"

site:.org "finance" "guest post"

"finance tips" + "write for us"

finance "become a contributor"

"finance article" + "submit post"

Finding guest post blogs via Ahrefs or Semrush

Another exciting and more effective way to find guest post opportunities is by using top-notch SEO tools.

Ahrefs and Semrush are two of the most trusted options.

You can use either tool to find guest blogging opportunities.

Simply enter your competitor’s URL and analyze the backlinks they’ve secured.

Then, export the data to a sheet and remove all low-quality links.

Now, you’ll have a refined list of decent websites where your competitors have already earned backlinks.

Open each website one by one, extract their contact email, and send your email pitch.

Tip: Avoid sending emails to generic addresses like info@, support@, or similar.

Always look for a relevant person to contact for guest posting opportunities.

Or simply visit the guest posting marketplace by Reputepost.com and find relevant websites and publishers in your niche.

Offer them high quality content that can help their website as well as yours.

How to spot real vs fake guest posting sites?

If you can’t distinguish between a real vs fake guest posting site, read this carefully.

You don’t need expensive SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz etc.

You only need vision and some common sense.

If a website has so many categories like health, finance, crypto, etc. It is definitely a fake guest posting site.

Or you can quickly look into the sitemap of the website.

If it has thousands of published pages, avoid this site by all means.

A real website doesn’t often have thousands of pages.

A real website will always be cool by its user interface, and elegant overall with quality content.

You should always be looking at this type of guest blogging sites, and not the PBNs.

Wrapping Up

Guest blogging or guest posting is still among the top ways to secure juicy and highly authoritative backlinks.

But, if you ignore the key points or the main things, these links will become toxic links.

And, they’ll be very bad for your website and its organic growth.

I hope this explanation helped you learn “what is guest posting”.

For more SEO tips and tricks, visit our blog section.

Learn SEO the way it works.

Frequently asked questions

What does a guest post mean?

Guest post means when you publish an article on somebody else’s website with a link that points to your website.

Are guest posts paid?

Yes, guest posts can be paid. Generally low quality spammy websites ask money to publish your guest blog post. But there are lots of high authority websites that ask you to pay for the editorial fee for publishing a guest posting article.

Can we earn from guest posting?

Yes, you can learn the basics of guest posting and how to find and evaluate good guest posting websites. After this, you can sell your services to those who are struggling to find good websites for link building.

What are the benefits of guest posting?

Guest blog posting is one of the most safest ways to secure high authority backlinks. Besides this, it is also a way for having quality content easily without involving your writing team.