The era of simply having a presence on the Internet is over. You need to improve your online presence and achieve high site performance if you want to make your company successful and increase its profit. To achieve that goal, it’s crucial to develop and implement effective link-building strategies, and guest posting is one of them.

There are many free guest posting sites on which you can publish your content without paying a penny. Some bloggers do accept guest posts for free. However, limiting yourself to only using free resources means getting some visible results will take a much longer time than you’d like. This is when paid guest posting comes into play, where you charge third-party resources for publishing your content. 

As budget issues are a cornerstone, especially for start-ups. Logically, the question arises: “How much do paid Guest Posts cost?” Let’s find out together the answer to this question and determine whether paying for a guest post is the strategy you should consider if your budget is very limited. 

What Is Paid Guest Posting?

Paid guest posting is a tactic in which you publish content with links to your website on trusted sites. Surely, those websites should be relevant to your niche. When implemented correctly, it is a way to buy links for SEO without getting a penalty from Google. So no wonder that this link-building method is increasingly popular in the SEO world. 

According to SEMrush, guest posting is currently one of the top Internet marketing strategies.

Advantages of Paid Guest Posts for SEO

Before diving into paid guest post pricing, it is important to understand which benefits you’ll get. 

Attracting a Target Audience

Guest posting is an effective tool to attract your target audience. When you post a guest post on an authority website with a large audience, you reach new people who may not even be familiar with your brand or product and introduce it to them, generate leads, and increase profits. 

Gain Trust From Search Engines & Users

Google algorithms do consider backlinks as one of the factors that your content is of high quality and worth attention. So publishing guest posts on reputable websites can help you improve your ranking in search engines.

Additionally, publishing quality guest content allows you to showcase your expertise and the value of your brand or product to your target audience. When readers see what you post on websites with a large readership or well-known publications, they are more likely to trust your messages and beliefs. 

Increased Brand Awareness

As we have already mentioned, paying for guest posts allows you to reach a larger audience. The more frequently users come across your brand name on the web, the higher the level of brand awareness of your brand will be.

Backlinks Are Fixed on a Permanent Basis

It is one thing to find a relevant web resource for linking, and it is quite another thing to keep track of the links in the published content all the time. In most cases, when you pay for a guest post, you can be sure that your link will remain active all the time.

If you use special platforms such as Collaborator, the exchange itself tracks whether your guest post is indexed and ensures that it is not deleted. Collaborator offers free three-month insurance which can be further extended. In case your post has been deleted or non-indexed and there is no way to solve these issues, you’ll get a refund.

How Much Should You Pay For a Paid Guest Post Based On Metrics?

Let’s talk about how much to charge for guest posts to get the most benefit instead of wasting lots of money and getting little to no results. 

Domain Authority

The DA indicator is one of the critical factors that can affect guest post cost. It is calculated by Moz and SEMrush. The DA displays a website authority on a scale from 1 to 100 predicting how well a site will perform in the SERPs. 

A guest post on a high DA site may impact your target audience more. Consequently, such websites may charge a higher price for a guest post-publication as they are of great value to advertisers.

Domain Rating

The DR (Domain Rating) is similar to the DA mentioned earlier. But DR is calculated by Ahrefs. It also runs on a scale from 0 to 100. 

Accordingly, in practice, the impact of the DR indicator on guest posts cost is the same as the indicator DA.

Traffic

The owners of the sites are constantly working on increasing organic traffic, which indicates the number of people visiting a site. Obviously, this metric should be considered in conjunction with the above-mentioned ones. 

The organic traffic of ahrefs.com in Semrush

Here is how the indicator of organic traffic affects the price of guest posts:

• Higher organic traffic means greater visibility and popularity of a site. In other words, it can attract an audience from search engines.
• Lower organic traffic reduces the price of guest posts. Websites with less organic traffic may be less influential and have limited outreach.

In numbers, it looks like this:

Trust Flow

Majestic’s Trust Flow (TF) score also affects the cost of guest posts. It indicates the credibility of the backlink profile and the trustworthiness of domains linking to a website. 

Websites with a higher Trust Flow score usually have more trust from search engines and users. Accordingly, the higher TF, the more valuable a link from these sites is. 

How much does a guest post cost based on the trust flow of a website?

How Not to Overpay For a Paid Guest Post

Now you know the main factors that directly affect the price of posts. This is when the question arises as to whether you should solely focus on websites with high SEO metrics or not. 

Set Your Priorities

You have to choose: whether you want to progress quickly at a high cost or take a slower and more economical approach. Regardless of the path you choose, you’ll get good results for your website. The difference lies in the time it takes to achieve them.

If your project has a very limited budget or you are simply not in a hurry, you can opt for websites with lower SEO metrics. The main thing is to have enough patience to wait for positive results. You can also use a combined approach: publicize your guest posts on both expensive and inexpensive resources.

Consider Referring Domains 

Take your time to analyze the backlink profile of a potential donor site. What’s the point? You will be able to avoid spammy websites. 

Whatever a blogging website, if it has a low domain rating but a great number of referring domains, it’s most likely spam. You can do this with Ahfrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and other SEO tools. Below, we’ll give you step-by-step instructions on how to use Ahrefs for this task:

1. Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer
2. Enter the website address where you want to publish your guest post
3. Click the “Referring Domain” button on the left

How to check referring domains using Ahrefs

Publish High-Quality Content

Whether you choose a medium- or high-scored site donor, there is a requirement that your content should be of high quality. Create engaging content for your target audience. Don’t just write something for the sake of publishing. You can search for popular topics in your niche on forums and use AlsoAsked, AnswerThePublic, or any other service.

It would be great to write content based on your own research and experience. Keep in mind that the higher the SEO metrics a donor site has, the higher the quality of content should be.

Conclusion

Business promotion always includes investing in building brand awareness and attracting an audience to generate leads and improve profits. However, that doesn’t mean you need to overpay. In our article, we did our best to explain all factors that affect guest post pricing and whether it is necessary to exclusively focus on the most expensive websites or not. 

FAQ

1. What is the cost of paid guest posts?

Paid guest post pricing depends on site credibility, organic traffic, trust level (Trust Flow), audience, subject relevance, and more. We explain these indicators and their impact on the cost of the post in our article. It is also important to note that specific terms and the final post cost can be negotiated between the advertiser and the site owner.

2. Is it worth paying for a guest post? 

Yes, it is. Guest posts are worth an investment if you want to improve your brand awareness and your site’s visibility and performance in the SERPs as well as attract new users and generate more leads. 

3. How can I save on the paid guest post cost?

There are several ways to save on paying for guest posts. One of them is to search websites with lower SEO metrics but a high reputation and relevant audience. Such sites may offer more affordable prices but still provide benefits from guest posts. Also, you can consider long-term deals or package offers, allowing for a reduced price for more publications.