Guest Posting May Be Simple, But It Isn’t Easy
This is the second blog post in a three part series. So now that you have decided that guest posting is something you want to explore, how do you go about doing it? First of all, there is a difference between guest posting and guest posting successfully. In order to get the most out of your guest post, follow these simple steps. For more on writing on your own blog, be sure to visit our Blogging for Business page.
Keep Your Eyes Open
As you are surfing the web, reading, and exploring, you need to be thinking about what sites make sense for you to guest post on. Find blogs that you want to be a part of and then find out if they allow guest posts. Once you have your list of blogs and have ensured that they do allow guest posts, the next step is looking for ways to build a relationship with the webmaster.
Guest Blog Request Email
The three things that need to find their ways into your email template request are:
- Introduction of yourself. When conducting business, they always trust you more if they know you a little better.
- Make sure to complement the webmaster. If you aren’t saying nice things, it will be very unlikely that they will take the time to respond to your request, much less accept it.
- Have 2-3 ideas layed out on what you would write about. They want to know that you have taken the time to figure out how you can improve their blog. It also shows that you are planning ahead.
Making Friends in the Guest Posting World
Getting your guest post published is just like meeting a significant other — you have to go out of your way to show them that you care before asking for what you want! Find the webmaster’s articles, like them, make comments, and retweet his twitter posts. Do things that you would be thankful for if you were in his shoes. Since you do not personally know the webmaster, you will need to do things that earn you some points in his eyes. This is the most successful method for getting your guest post allowed.
If you do not wish to go this route, the other play is to just send the webmaster an email message without having done anything to distinguish yourself. Right off the bat I will tell you this method is going to be less effective. I will go into what you should include in this email later on in this post.
Keep in mind that while guest posting may be mutually beneficial, the person receiving the request always feels like they are the one doing the favor for the requestor. This is how it will be, so be ready for it. Play along with it. It’s okay to show them how much you appreciate them taking the time to consider publishing your guest post.
Getting Your Guest Post Published — Your Way
Great, the webmaster has agreed to publish your guest post. However, there are some important things that you will need to keep in mind to make sure that you are getting everything all the value you expect from guest posting.
- Get a link. You must get a link back to your blog in the post you are writing. This is standard practice, so if the webmaster won’t agree to this, then you should be looking elsewhere.
- Be respectful with links. Yes, adding links is one of the biggest perks of guest posting. However, loading up your article with far more links than usual is just rude. Only link to relevant articles to show you know “SEO Best Practices“.
- Choose your topic wisely. Look through the blog to make sure your topic has not been covered. If it has already been written about, do not even bother submitting it.
- Make sure your guest post is at least 500 words. If you can, we recommend 750-1,000 words. The only way you can go wrong here is to make it too short.
- Is your own blog site high quality? If you are going to put links leading to your own blog in your guest post, which is being published on the webmaster’s site, you better make sure your blog is of high quality. Webmasters do check where these links are leading to. If they didn’t, we would question whether or not they were a true blogger.
Final Note: When submitting your guest post, make sure you write and format everything in your own blog first and then translate the entire post into HTML. This is the best way to ensure it gets published the way you want it to look. While the email method may work from time to time, the only way to increase your success rate is to learn how to build relationships with webmasters before asking them for a guest post. TheSiteEdge can handle all of your online marketing needs, check out our services page.