Category Archives: Guest Posting

Essential Guest Posting Rules that Must Not Be Ignored

Guest posts are powerful tools that can improve a website’s authority, enhance brand visibility and bring more traffic to a business website or web store. In order to enjoy the benefits of a well written guest post, it is imperative for writers to know the rules that should never be ignored.

Enjoy the process and detach

This is about setting the right mood, so your writing comes naturally. Unless you can detach yourself from all fears and possible outcomes, you won’t be able to function fully and be your best creative self. Bloggers who allow themselves to feel good and who stay detached have the best results in the end. Fearful, tense writers fail to impress their audience.

Focus on high authority blogs

This approach is still the best you can have when it comes to quality guest posting. You need to read big blogs regularly and to make friends with their owners/writers. If you’re good enough, you might even get invites without needing to push for it. It’s better to stay focused on these big, high authority blogs instead of investing your time in loads of small ones.

Give it a great title

The title is crucial to a blog post. The writer needs to aim to surprise and engage the reader right away. It must not be misleading though. Deliver what you promise. The title is the way you ‘pack’ your post – make it create interest in readers.

Adding value

Good writing has certain traits that cannot be alienated – it usually adds something to a known topic, it provides a new perspective, it challenges views and so on. To make your guest post valuable, you must figure out what you can bring. Is there a novelty, a different perspective, a supplementary piece of information on the given topic? Posts that don’t add value are overlooked. You can also pick a topic that isn’t covered by the chosen blog, as long as it’s connected and therefore relevant.

Read your host blog thoroughly

Don’t just pick a blog to write on; spend time reading it, getting to know its style, its preferred topics etc. This will also help you see what’s missing on it, so you can step in and have your say (and get attention). Read as much as you can on your chosen host blog before you attempt guest posting on it.

Skip the branding

Once you find such an opportunity, you’ll feel compelled to give your best and start an enthusiastic branding effort, but this will backfire. Branding should be kept out of guest posts. Keep these informative, educational, interesting or intriguing and refrain from speaking about your own offer. Don’t brad about your expertize, make proof of it. This is how you are going to convince people to click on your link. Avoid telling them how good you are or how terrific your brand is.

If your post gets rejected, it only means one thing: that you haven’t yet honed your tactic and writing skills. Or, the writing could be flawless, but you are missing on another important aspect.

Tips on How to Write a Great Guest Post

Everyone in online business should know by now that guest posts are essential to growing blogs. However, not many people realize that the right kind of guest posts can actually grow their careers. Most bloggers simply pump out articles with the idea that the more they post, the better they will fare, but the truth is that there are no long-term benefits to this. Here are some tips that could help you to write some truly great guest posts.

Guest Posts Should Move Readers to Outcomes

Every time that you decide to write a guest post, you will be given a small amount of space within that post where you can input a link to your blog, a small biography, and maybe even a picture of you. The mistake that most people make to start with, is that they don’t think about where they’re going to send their new readers. Make sure new visitors to your website are welcomed with a useful landing page that’s full of helpful information.

Mention Important Bloggers in your Niche

A great way for newbie’s to grow their blog is to give a shout out to other websites or blogs that have already established big audiences. The first benefit of this strategy, is that it associates you with the experts in your area. Secondly, if you provide an email or tweet before your guest post goes live, you can harness the benefits of their contact list as they associate themselves with your content. This a great bit of promotion that your host blog will also thank you for.

Follow up on Your Guest Posts

One of the best things to learn about guest posting is that you can leverage the fame it develops to create more buzz for your blogs. Mention big bloggers in your posts, then make sure that those bloggers have a reason to promote any of the follow-up posts that you produce. Make sure that you don’t only reach out once than give up, instead follow on with a continuous content relationship.

Look for Long Term Results

A lot of people write guest posts and then immediately sit around waiting for the traffic to come in. However, the short term response isn’t as important as your long term impact. Ask yourself some important questions when you’re assessing the success of your guest posts, and you’re sure to see an improvement:

Does it rank well on search engines for a keyword that is relevant to your goals?
Does it boost your credibility and reputation in your niche?
Has it created a new discussion somewhere?
Has it given you any new contacts to chase down?

Use the Comments

One of the most important things you can do for your guest posts is stick around and look into the questions that you get through the comments. Usually, most of the long-term relationships you really need will be built in the comment section, so don’t be afraid to respond and answer. If a particular question or comment is incredibly interesting or particularly engaging, you could take the idea and use it for the start of your own new blog post, then announce that in the comment section to get people moving.

Advice for Using Guest Posting to Grow Your Audience Online

Before you can fully understand the benefits of guest posting, you may need a refresher on what the process actually means. Guest posting means that you write and publish an article of your own on someone else’s blog or website. Plenty of websites online today offer this kind of activity, and you simply need to find one that is relevant to your industry if you want to get involved. It’s a great way for people to establish connections with brand new groups of readers, and get their name out into the crowd for the first time.

Guest Blogging Creates Relationships

There are a number of ways why guest posting has become such an important strategy for bloggers and website owners who want to build their online influence. Bloggers in general need good content, and by adding value to someone else website with your writing, you’ll quickly start building relationships with bloggers and other individuals in your industry.

Bloggers make up a pretty big percentage of the conversations that are currently taking place on the internet, especially on social media locations like Twitter and Facebook. They’re good friends to have, because they can be incredibly influential, which helps you to grow your influence too.

Guest Posting is good for SEO

Whenever you chose to get started with some guest posting, the one non-negotiable demand that you should have for your researched and high-quality work is this: the host must include a link to your blog or website somewhere in the post.

Over time, these natural backlinks will help to improve the overall value of your blog or website to search engines, meaning that you’ll quickly become easier to find in important places like Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Guest Posting introduces you to New Audiences

Perhaps the most beneficial part of guest posting, is that you get to enter into an already existing community, and share your message with anyone and everyone who’s there. This means that you can connect with brand new people, which is incredibly beneficial to your business if you do it right.

If your guest blogs join into a discussion and add some value, then you will see that value convert into other things over time, such as fans, followers, and further readers. On the other hand, if all you’re ever doing is begging for attention, you could get plenty of fame, but not for the reasons you were hoping for.

How to be a Good Guest

If you want to be a good guest on any blog, you should make sure that you:

Link to your post from your own website or blog
Share the post on twitter and Facebook – feel free to post about it on twitter several times
Thank the host of the blog in question
Make sure that you’re available to answer the questions and comments that will undoubtedly appear regarding your post.

Although none of these steps are mandatory, it’s a good way to improve your chances of establishing a great reputation online.

How To Find Guest Blogging Opportunities

Guest posting is a good way to market your blog to new, wider audiences. By tapping into the audience of another blog, you are growing your own audience base and increasing your credibility at the same time. Of course, there are a lot of challenges you will face when you want to use guest blogging as a way to market yourself. One of those challenges is finding the best guest blogging opportunities.

Search Engines To the Rescue!

One of the easiest ways to find guest blogging opportunities is by actually using search engines to search for keywords such as:

Guest post
Guest blogging
Writers wanted/needed
Write for us
Get in touch

These keywords usually lead to guest blogging opportunities, and you can actually find thousands of results by doing a simple search on popular search engines.

Social Networking Sites

Almost all bloggers and news sites are now on social media. Since social media is meant to be social, you can actually reach out to them and get responses almost instantly. This is a good way to explore guest posting opportunities. Simply ask if you can do a guest post on the blogs you are interested in engaging and act on the response you receive.

Don’t worry about bloggers and sites that reject your request or offer. Focus on the ones that gives you the opportunity to write an article for them. Once you have a couple of guest posts published, finding more opportunities will be much easier to do.

Be Part of Communities

Blogging communities, online blogging forums and even blogs or websites that specialize in blogging are very easy to find these days. By connecting with them, you can also find hundreds – if not thousands – of guest posting opportunities.

Linknami, for instance has a page dedicated to those who want to exchange guest posts. You can meet fellow bloggers, explore the possibilities of posting on each others’ blogs and gain a lot of credibility very quickly. Other sites such as BlogSynergy uses a similar system to connect bloggers with each other.

Ask for People to Contact You

Last but not least, add a contact form to your page and ask people to contact you about possibly doing a guest blog. You can exchange blog posts and publish posts by other bloggers on your site as a return. You can even create a special category on your site for guest posts from various sources.

Tips on Finding Valuable Guest Posting Opportunities

These days, a lot of people understand the benefit of running an active blog, but not everyone has the time or resources to commit to posting articles and updates every day. That’s where guest blogging or guest posts can come in so useful. As well as providing you with more time to focus on other aspects of your business, guest posting allows you to give different perspectives on the same topic. Every customer, vendor, partner, or industry expert that you speak to will provide a new voice for your blog, and a new light for your readers to view the work you do. Finding someone to give you guest blogs is a simple task. There are hundreds of writers out there that are happy to offer you work. However, finding someone who can actually do an amazing job and draw clients in with their voice, is a slightly more challenging issue.

Make Sure you’re sending out the right message

One important thing that you need to remember is that although bloggers may love the work that they’re doing, it’s still their work. They’re writing for a living, and the two main things that they’re going to want from you are cash, and exposure. If you want to lure in experienced, high-quality bloggers, then you need to give them the right bait, so make sure that you come up with some good incentives. At the least, let your blogger know that they’ll be able to provide a link to the work they have done to you from their site, so they’re getting recognition for their content. Furthermore, although exposure is important, the right money never hurts, and offering a decent price for a good post will help to draw in the higher standards of writer out there. Bigger names with better credentials are going to want more money, but remember that there are a few un-noticed stars still in the mix today.

Give your bloggers guidelines

Bloggers and writers are a fairly creative bunch, but you shouldn’t expect them to come up with absolutely everything themselves. If possible, provide a complete list of guidelines on your website to show guest posters that you have a very clear business plan already set in motion. You’ll usually find that this is a great way of weeding out writers of a poorer quality, because of the guidelines look too complex, some bloggers will recognize they’re just not going to make the cut. Include:

Your preferred word count
Policies on adding links and pictures
Lists of topics your writers should cover

Remember, just like searching for anything else of worth in life, you’re going to have to be patient if you want to make sure you get the best quality. Take the time to reach out to different networks and ask bloggers for samples for you commit to any individual in particular. If you can, try to build a group of writers that you can rely on to help your blog grow.

How to Use Guest Posting to Drive Traffic to Your Site

When it comes to online success, there are few things as important as traffic. Getting more people to visit your website on a daily basis, stay there for longer and indulge in the activity that you want from them, such as purchasing items or services, is the lifeblood of your internet based business. You can sell the best products around, produce the best services, and write the most amazing reviews, but if your website does not generate enough traffic, then it is effectively worthless. Some people rely upon having a great, search engine optimized content to drive visitors to their site, and while this can be an extremely lucrative way of generating traffic, it is not the only option available. Guest blogging can be a great way to get your name and your website out there for other users to see, building your reputation.

Firstly, Determine What You Want to Achieve

When you’re getting started in guest blogging, it is important to remember that it may take some time for you to start seeing results. Because of this, it is important that you are very careful about the work you do, tailoring each post to work towards your eventual goal. Your very first task will be to decide what your goal for guest blogging actually is. Knowing your goal ahead of time is absolutely essential when determining the kind of blogs you will be submitting your guest posts to. For example, if your blog, company, or service concerns computer technology, it is probably not a good idea to start providing guest posts to fashion blogs, and vice versa. These are three of the main goals when it comes to guest posting:

Getting exposure, so as to drive new traffic back to your website

Positioning yourself within well-known groups to establish yourself as a name in your particular industry

Using Guest posting to build back-links for your website.

Really good content could allow you to do all three of these things at once, but it is important to remember that if you are trying to achieve the first or second goal, you will need to find blogs to guest post on that have a large and active audience.

Submitting a Great Guest Post

A common query when it comes to guest posting is whether or not the best content should be used on your actual webpage, or for the guest post itself. Often, the answer to this question depends on the kind of blog to which you are submitting content. For example, if the blog you are writing for often uses several 600 word blog posts with various screen shots then your post should be similar to this. If the blog, on the other hand, has brief, 300 word posts with one or no images, then you should also tailor your post to suit this.

Remember, when you’re writing a guest post for another blog, you should try to think of it as something that is not entirely about you. Don’t direct attention towards your services, products or businesses on an excessive scale, simply provide information that readers would want to know about. Usually, it can be a good idea to save any information about yourself and your business for the author bio at the end of the post.

Make sure that you format your post to suit the ones that already exist upon the website. Before you write anything, take the time to look at the posts on your target blog, paying attention to whether they use bold text, images, quotes, headers, sub-headings, or any other kinds of special formatting. Research completed, you should be able to adjust your writing to meet the current standard of other posts on the site.

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