I recently got invited for the third time to speak at my alma mater at their annual Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium!

Over the years, I’ve spoken at nearly two dozen law schools, including schools that I couldn’t have even gotten into for law school – like Harvard!

Want to know how I get these speaking gigs?

Writing for Forbes! I have been writing for Forbes nearly a decade now, and a huge percentage of my paid speaking gigs can be traced back to pieces I wrote that an event organizer found when searching for a speaker online.

For me, that is one of the primary reasons I write guest blogs. An outlet like Forbes is always going to have better SEO than my own website. These event organizers aren’t going to find my speaking page, even though I’ve been working on my SEO for years.

Yet, most people who come to me I have spent far more time building up their own website. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that, but make sure you’re making time to guest blog on a well-ranked sites. Not only will those show up higher in search results, but the backlinks will improve the SEO for your site.

Remember, it’s a long game. You don’t write for one of these outlets once and suddenly have an inbox flooded with speaking requests. But, it is worth the time! Not only have I landed dozens upon dozens of paid speaking engagements over the years from guest blogs, it’s also a huge reason I got a book deal from a major publisher, complete with an advance. It’s also how TV producers and radio show hosts find me most frequently.

So, be honest…are you devoting the time you should to guest blogging? And are you being consistent with it and patient for results?

Learn where to find your first (or next) speaking gig!