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Guest posting is one of the strongest pillars for building a website with organic traffic and expansive reach. Posts by guest bloggers and writers let a website earn high-quality backlinks that increase the website’s credibility and topical authority in the eyes of search engines. This also leads to elevated ranks on results pages, making it easier for the target audience to get noticed. However, every website has some guidelines and standards that bloggers need to follow before publishing a guest post. These editorial standards allow writers to maintain a specific tone, uniformity and thematic thrust to their writings. Let us explore some commonly held editorial standards that writers need to follow while availing of link building services.
Common editorial standards that make an ideal guest post
Despite the rising popularity of infographics, image and video content in the realm of marketing, blogging still holds an important position when it comes to creating a regular audience for a website. Everyone likes to read about topics they are interested in, which makes blogging a strong marketing tool to convert readers into an enthusiastic audience for the website. When readers like the content you post, they are more likely to explore your services in detail. To ensure that you are getting the highest value out of every guest post, both the website publishing guest posts and writers need to be aware of certain quality standards. These standards will help writers shape the perfect guest blog.
- No grammatical or factual errors: This may sound very obvious and basic, but it is nevertheless the most important standard for publishing a guest post. Proofreading guest posts is very important to ensure there are no spelling or grammatical mistakes. On the other hand, ensuring factual accuracy, as found in stats, for example, is also important, through thorough research. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools available online to check for grammar and spelling errors, the most popular among which is Grammarly. Eliminating basic linguistic errors and factual discrepancies is the first step towards creating a blog good enough to be published.
- Unity of voice, style and format: A well-structured format for writing is necessary along with uniformity of voice and tone, for a guest post to appeal to the audience. Headings and subheadings should be segregated according to the topics and subtopics being discussed. Using bullet points or numbered lists for illustrations or short observations can keep the reader more engaged with the post. Aside from all this, maintaining a consistent perspective, whether from the first person or third person, is also important. Maintain a consistent verb tense and narrative voice throughout to make your post sound professional. Most importantly, there should be a specific thematic focus in your content, which gears all the headings, subheadings and topics discussed towards that central subject.
- Relevant statistics and data from reputable sources: When including statistics or any kind of real-life data in your post to back up your observations, make sure to check whether they come from a reliable source. Use research tools or websites specifically providing the latest updates on particular topics to make sure your data is valid. It is always advisable to link your sources of research to your blog whenever you are quoting any survey. However, you should also make sure that the research you are using has not been conducted too long ago. If so, the data may not be relevant enough for publication, or the measurements and results may have varied by the time you publish your post.
- Address the issues raised in your introduction: Any harmonious and ordered content should focus on answering or resolving the issues or questions raised in its introduction. This is also true for guest posts. Check whether you have addressed all the issues you have introduced in your write-up within the body, and that your conclusion has properly summed up all your findings and observations. Guest posts that adhere to this standard are more likely to get published and appreciated by the audience. Readers should not be looking for any further answers to the issues proposed in your introduction after your blog is completed.
Conclusion
Writing a perfect guest post entails following certain quality standards, which will ensure it is well-received by the audience and worth publishing on an established website. Absolute grammatical correctness and factual accuracy, relevant and timely statistics, unity in format and style and a well-ordered resolution are key to creating the ideal guest post.
