Determine your guest blog goals
Before you start, your first task is to decide what your goal is for the guest blog.Knowing this goal in advance is critical to determining the right type of blog to send guest messages to.Typically there are three main goals for guest blogging.
- Position yourself as an authority and well-known name in the industry.
- Get exposure (traffic) to your website.
- Creating backlinks to your website.
With the right kind of content in the best blogs, you can do all three of these things.If you're looking to get the former or second, then you'll want to find blogs with an audience of size and engagement.If you're just trying to get No. 3, you need to locate blogs with strong root domain authority.You can check this for free using the SEOmoz toolbar.Knowing your goals in advance will help you determine which blogs will be the best to send guest messages for.
How to find blogging opportunities for guests
The first thing you'll want to do is find guest post opportunities.When looking for places to post, your main goal is to find sites relevant to your niche or industry.You are looking for blogs that meet the following criteria:
- The content is focused on your niche/industry.
- The blog audience will be interested in your industry.
- The blog engaged readers (posts were shared socially and commented).
- The blog owner is active on social media (so you know they will promote your work on their site).
So, if you sell seeds, you'll want to find gardening blogs with a busy audience of gardeners.The following should help you find the right kind of guest post opportunities.
searches Google is a great place to start when looking for guest posting opportunities.You can use one of the following keyword searches to find blogs that accept guest posts.Replace the keyword with keywords from your industry.
- Keyword "send a guest post"
- keyword "guest post"
- Keyword "guest post by"
- Keyword "accept guest messages"
- Keyword "Guest Post Guidelines"
These searches should lead to a blog's guest post guidelines page, guest post submission page, or actual guest posts from other authors.
Prolific Guest Blogger
Do you know any prolific guest bloggers in your industry?If you read enough blogs in your industry (which you should), these will be the names you see over and over again writing content for others.For online marketers, the list includes Gregory Ciotti, Danny Ney, Leo Widrich, Neil Patel, Marcus Sheridan , and many more. Using Google search, search for the name of prolific guest bloggers in your industry and the phrase "guest post by."This will reveal all the sites on which these guest bloggers have posted.They should also be a good place to post guests.An advantage would be if you actually know a guest blogger in your industry who can make a presentation for you to the owners of blogs they have guested on.
Competitor
backlinks If you (or your online marketing agency) have ever done a competitor's backlink analysis while working on your SEO campaign, it's likely that one or more of your competitors have backlinks from the guest posts they've made.If you have access to tools like Open Site Explorer, you can look at your competitors' backlinks and locate any blogs they've written for.If not, you can do a Google search for the link: domain.com -domain.com "guest post" (replacing domain.com with your competitor's domain) that should reveal the sites for which a competitor has written.
Social
research Many bloggers and guest posters will share their latest guest posts on social networks.Since the easiest to search for is Twitter, you should try performing a Twitter search for the keyword "guest post" to get the latest tweets about guest posts in your industry.Follow the links to see which blogs accept guest posts.
Over 600 guest
blogging opportunities Need more keyword research ideas or just a list with many different guest posting opportunities?Check out this post on Buzz Blogger with 500 places to syndicate content and this one by Brian Keith May with 100 sites to post guests.
MyBlogGuest
Last, but definitely not least, is My Blog Guest, a community of guest bloggers.Sign up for free and search for blogs that accept guest posts.Better yet, post your information to say you're trying to write guest posts on a particular topic so blog owners can find you!
Prepare to submit a guest post
Note that we don't just find blogging opportunities for guests to contact blogs.This is because there are a few things you need to do before proposing a guest post for a site you've just found.
Get to know the contents of the blog
Knowing the content of your target blog is key.Surely you know that they have content on the keyword you searched for while looking for guest post opportunities.But you need to know even more about that content like…
- For what audience level are they writing (beginner, intermediate, advanced)?
- What kind of audience are they writing for?If your business is B2B, you'll want the blog audience for your guest post to be business, not general consumers.
- What kind of content do they write?Are they mainly general concepts or specific and detailed tutorials?Do they like lists?
See how other guest
posts do While a blog may contain guest posts, the question is, do guest bloggers do it well?Do guest blog posts on the site get as many comments and shares on social media as blog posts from the owner?Some sites may accept guest posts, but if your audience is only tuning in for the blog owner, you won't do as well if your goal is to build authority or get traffic to your website.
Find out who guest bloggers
are Some blog owners are more likely to accept guest posts from certain types of people than others.Take a look at the bios of some guest bloggers on the blog to see if they are fellow bloggers, freelancers, consultants, business owners, and so on.This will be important when you introduce yourself to the blog owner for your presentation.You can read more about guest post penetration success rates in this study on SEOmoz.
See which posts do the best
To ensure that your guest post is accepted, you'll want to present the blog owner with topics that will go well with their audience.To get some good ideas of topics that will work with your blog audience, use the following sites to see which posts have been popular on social media.Just replace domain.com with the blog domain.
- http://topsy.com/s?q=domain.com – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been tweeted.Click the number if you want to see who tweeted the post and learn more about the blog's audience.
- http://plus.topsy.com/s/domain.com – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been shared on Google+.Chances are blog posts that have been shared a lot on Google+ will also have a lot of +1's which could mean better search visibility.
- http://delicious.com/search?p=domain.com&jtf=E&partial_type=B – This will show you the number of times blog posts have been saved on Delicious.
- http://digg.com/search?q=site:domain.com – This will show you the blog posts that received the most Digg votes.
Become a familiar face in the Community
Blog To increase your chances of being accepted as a guest blogger, you'll first want to get recognition from the blog owner.The best way to do this is to take a week or two and comment on their latest posts. You'll also receive bonus points for sharing these posts on Twitter – be sure to include @nomeutente of the blog owner on Twitter.That way, when you publish your guest post, you won't be completely a stranger.
Best times to submit a guest post
You won't always have a golden opportunity to present a guest post, but there are a few things to take advantage of when they show up.These include the following.
- When the blog mentions you in one of their posts or on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.).
- When the blog lists you, your company, or your product in one of their posts.
- When the blog advertises specifically they are looking for guest posts.
- When the blog publishes another guest post.
Basic pitch best practices
The following are absolute musts when you send a guest blog post to another blog owner.
Read the guidelines
The last thing you need to do before contacting the blog owner is to read the guest posting guidelines, if applicable, and follow them carefully.Does the blog owner want an idea to be presented or to actually submit a full post?In what format do they want it?Do they want you to create an account and enter it into WordPress?These are all things to know in advance before contacting the blog owner.
Personalize your emailAs a blogger who receives daily guest introductions, nothing distinguishes me from an email more than those that start with Dear Sir or Madam , Dear Webmaster , To the owner of Kikolani.com or simply Hello .
Somewhere on the blog you are going to contact will be the name of the blog owner.You may have to look for it on the about page or on one of the blog's social media accounts, but it's more than likely there.Find it and use it to start the email.
Who are you
Remember the part about seeing who the guest bloggers are on your target blog?Some blog owners are especially careful to allow other bloggers to post guest posts on their sites.If you've noticed that most guest bloggers are bloggers themselves, then you might want to introduce yourself as a blogger on (enter your personal or business blog here).You can always be an entrepreneur on the side – focus on your blogging skills first.
Why you should be a guest blogger
Be sure to include why you should be a guest blogger.Add some links to posts you've published elsewhere, including your blog.Preferably go with posts that have good social engagement so that the blog owner will see your potential value with his audience.
How to present an idea to guests
If the guest post guidelines ask you to submit an idea for a topic, then (based on your search for previously popular posts), lay out a few different ideas so the blog owner can choose.
How to send a great guest post
One of the most common questions about guest blogging is whether you should use your best content for your blog or guest posting.It really depends on the quality of the blog you're sending your content to.If the blog has nothing but 900+ word posts with lots of screenshots, your post should be similar.If your blog has nothing but posts with 500 words or less with a single image, your posts (again) should be similar.The following are other good tips to make your guest post as great as possible.
It's not about you
The first thing to remember about a great guest post is that it's not about your business, products, or services.Guest posts should be valuable sources of information, not advertising! All information about your business and related articles should be reserved for the author's bio.Mentions, stories, or occasional examples are OK to illustrate a point, but most posts should be focused on something other than your business.
Format posts like those on the site
Check out your target blog posts.Do they use a lot of headers, bold text, images, quotation marks, or other special formatting?Make sure your post has similar elements to match other posts on the site.
Include internal and source links Show the blog owner that you know their content by including some internal links to some of their posts. The easiest way to do this is to perform a Google search for the site: domain.com intitle: keyword.
This way you will get their best posts on a certain keyword so that you can link that post to the keyword in your post. Also, if you mention specific products, books, etc., Be sure to link to these as well (assuming it's not self-promotional).
Include a call-to-action for comments
At the end of your awesome guest post, be sure to include a call to action for comments.The more discussion your post generates, the better!
How to Create a Great Guest Biography
The most important part of the guest blog (for you) will probably be your guest's bio.This is usually the only place where you should include self-promotion links to your website, blog, product, service, book, etc. What you write in this section will depend on the goals of your guest blog.
- If your goal is to get good backlinks, just make sure your bio includes a link to your website with the target anchor text and you're all set.
- If your goal is to bring traffic back to your website, you may want to consider the destination of the traffic.Depending on the topic of your guest post and the audience of the blog you publish it to, you may want to send traffic to a landing page or custom page about a specific product/service.
- If your goal is to increase followers on your social accounts, do so by adding a line at the end of your bio that says "Follow me on (enter your main social network and link here)".
How to be the best guest blogger
If you're looking to become a regular contributor to a blog or just want the blog owner to brag about what a great guest blogger you are, make sure you do your best to promote your post in popularity through your audience.The blog owner will love it if you send new readers in their own way.Also, be sure to respond to your comments.This will go a long way if you're working to build authority in your industry.
Monitoring of results
When the target is traffic, your guest blog results should be measured.The best way to do this is to create an advanced segment in Google Analytics.In this post, you can learn how to set up an advanced segment on how to find out which online marketing strategy drives the best traffic.All you need is a segment that uses the source dimension with multiple instructions for each domain you've guest blogged for – you can have up to 20 or instructions per advanced segment.Mine looks like this…
Using this, you can view all your Google Analytics data based on references from your guest posts.This can help you determine the success of your overall guest blog strategy in terms of traffic and conversions.If you're not sure how to track conversions, check out this post on how to get actionable data to learn how to set goals.
How to get guest bloggers for your blog
Finally, don't forget that guest blogging can be a two-way street.It's hard to keep your blog content while posting guests on many other blogs.So be sure to open an invitation for guest bloggers to write on your blog.This way, you can keep new content on your blog, add a new perspective for your audience, and hopefully get new readers from your guest blogger's community.It's a win-win situation!
Do you use the guest blog as part of your online marketing strategy?What other things would you suggest for a company looking to increase the success of their guest blog?
