Guest Blogging
How to Choose Publications Worth Pitching
Domain authority is the most used metric for choosing targets and among the least useful.
Most target lists are built by sorting sites by domain authority and working down. It is quick, it is measurable, and it selects for exactly the wrong thing — because DA is a third-party estimate that can be inflated deliberately, and the sites that game it are the ones selling placements.
What to Check Instead
- Do your buyers read it: The only question that matters and the one least often asked.
- Does anyone engage: Comments, shares, discussion. A site with high DA and no readers is a link farm with good numbers.
- Is there an actual editor: A named person with a byline history, rather than a submissions form.
- What else do they publish: Read the last twenty pieces. If half are thinly disguised adverts, yours will sit among them.
- Do they sell posts: A public price list for contributions answers the question completely.
A niche publication with 3,000 readers who are all your buyers beats a general site with 300,000 who are not.
Signals to Walk Away From
Some are obvious once you look for them, and all of them mean the same thing: this is not a publication.
- A "write for us" page that mentions fees, packages or turnaround times.
- Categories with no relationship to each other — finance, pets, casino, health on one site.
- Author names with no history anywhere else on the internet.
- Posts published several times a day with no editorial pattern.
- No visible ownership, address, or masthead.
Appearing on a site that sells placements associates your brand with it. That cost lands whether or not the link is ever discounted.
Building a List That Is Short
A realistic target list for most businesses is ten to twenty publications, not two hundred. There are only so many places worth appearing in for any niche, and the list gets shorter the more specific your market is.
That is a feature. A short list means you can read each one properly, pitch it specifically, and build a relationship rather than sending the same idea everywhere.
Where to Find Them
The publications your own team already reads. The ones your customers mention. The trade press for your sector, which is usually underused because it is unglamorous. The places your competitors have appeared, which are visible in their backlink profile.
We build the list first and you approve it before anything is approached — that is the first step in our guest blogging service.