Guest blogging — also known as guest posting — is the practice of contributing a post to another person’s blog in order to build relationships, exposure, authority, and links. Guest blogging creates a relationship with the blogger hosting the blog, and you would be able to tap into the audience of the host blog for additional exposure, and helps you establish authority among an audience.
In this way of Guest Blogging, you write a blog article according to the requirements of a particular blogger and get a backlink in return, usually in the bottom of the article. In SEO, guest blogging offers a strong opportunity to maintain a link back from another website, in addition to the marketing opportunities.
So, first thing first, how to actually pave a way for yourself to be accepted into the big players’ league of blogs.
1. Get hold of Blogs
First thing first, you need to know which blogs to look out for. A google search on top blogs which offers to write for them can be easily found. Spend quality time on browsing through the list. You will find various blogs that comply with your niches. Make a note of those.
2. Visit the blog and read articles
If you want to get yourself partnered with the blog, you need to know how they write. By how they write, you need to look into what topics they cover, and what is their writing style. By looking into the ten– fifteen blog articles, you can pretty much figure out those. So, take your time to look into the articles. Take your pick of 2-3 articles of your favourites. You can take your own pretty time with this.
3. Comment on the articles
Most blog articles receives plethora of comments, mostly by other owners, for just to get noticed (WordPress logic). You wouldn’t wish that your comment would get lost in the sea of useless. Take your pre-picked liked articles and provide in-depth reviews, maybe ask them questions and provide suggestions. Authors would like to read and reply on comments left by others with little delay. So, you need to comment on 2-3 articles to actually getting conversation going.
4. Email the owner
Getting your comments recognized and setting up a stir amongst the authors of the blog (You know, human curiosity), send the owner an email. You can easily get the address from About Us section. Introduce yourself. Tell them how much you love their blog. Ask them a question about their business or website. Now, you would like to send a short email of “Hey, I like your blog”, but truth to be told, it would be going to be lost amongst thousands of same emails, and would probably end up in Trash. Make an email by introducing yourself and asking them questions or providing suggestions. This way not only you get noticed, but also build a persistent relationship with the site owner and provide another mode to communicate with you.
5. Choose a Topic
Looking through the blog and finding what type of topics are covered, gives you a fair idea on what topic your post should be upon. You simply can’t send then a guest post which has no connection with the blog’s core topics. Some blogs have guidelines for guest post, which will narrow down your topic ideas. If the site you’re pitching has a “popular posts” section, check that out and see if you can come up with something similar. However, in many cases, it’s best to offer the editor a few different topics with a summary, providing owners to look into and maybe selecting one or two. Don’t offer already published content, as it will get less audience, if the owner has not research about originality, and would likely thrown into trash.
6. Send the email
The next thing is to send an email to the owner. Many would suggest to use two emails one for announcing that you are interested in providing guest post and include a brief summary on what you would be wring. If it raised up their curiosity radar, and receive an email to tell them more, send your topic(s) along with points which you have created. Some use single email and merge the two emails into one. Both are correct and efficient, so choose your own path.
7. Follow up
If you haven’t heard from them for over a week, as editors take a week to review, follow up with email to ask about your pitch. Most will reply back, giving information about your status. So, be patient.
8. You Are Accepted
Now, write a full blown article. Make sure to include images or visuals. Including a great visual not only helps the editor but also makes your content more compelling for readers to consume and share.
Proofread the final content as many editors are very likely to delete a pitch if it includes spelling and grammatical errors. One thing to keep in mind that you need to consider the website’s guidelines, though you will want to write in your own unique voice. Before you write the post, agree with the blogger how many backlinks they are willing to include.
Include hyperlinks to your business or blog, to get audience from host. Writing guest posts gives you far more control over keywords in the anchor text, placement of the link and the content writing, which is sure to get good SEO ranking.
Final Word
So, what’s next? Apply for other blogs. You will get rejected by many times, but by persisting and getting enough backlinks, you are sure to get the audience you need and love.
Nice work