Day 7: #atozchallenge
Have you considered guest blogging but don’t know where to begin? The first step is to determine what you want to accomplish.
What is your goal?
- Do you have expertise in an area and want to share it?
- Do you want to create more traffic to your blog or increase followers?
- Want to see an increase in backlinks to your content?
- Or, establish yourself as an authority?
Where to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities:
Once you know your motivations, it’s time to find the opportunities, and there are many.
- Begin with a simple keyword search for “guest post” on Google, Twitter, or preferred search engine.
- Utilize the connections you’ve already established – favorite blogs or other social networking sites.
- Look for blogs that best match your area of interest or expertise, have engaged readers, and is active on social networks.
- Check out sites like Contently, Huffington Post, or Angie’s Diary.
Things to do before pitching a guest post:
- Familiarize yourself with the blog; it’s content and readership.
- Have guest posts been featured before?
- Who were the guest bloggers? Authors? Other bloggers? Freelancers? Read their bios and get to know them.
- How did the guest post do? Was there a lot of reader engagement?
- Become a familiar face in the blogging community.
When to pitch:
- When someone mentions your blog on, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google.
- When a blogger advertises, they are seeking guest posts.
- When a guest post is featured on another blog.
How to Pitch:
- Read the guidelines.
- Introduce yourself. Craft a guest post bio and include links back to your blog or author websites that show your work.
- As with any pitch, personalize your email.
- Explain what you can offer in a guest post.
- Provide links to your blog and other sites on which you have published.
- Format your guest post the same as the site in which you are submitting.
- Provide valuable and relatable information.
- Do not self-promote except within the author bio.
- Utilize internal links to some of the owner’s posts.
- Create a call to action for comments.
Want to know more about guest blogging? Check out these resources.
Guest Blogging Opportunities:
- The community of Guest Bloggers – free sign up.
- Brian Keith May – 100 Sites to Submit Guest Posts
- Buzz Blogger – 500 Places to Syndicate Your content.
Does guest blogging interest you? Have you been a featured guest blogger in the past?