Guest blogging has become an incredibly popular marketing strategy adopted by a vast number of online businesses. It’s the perfect, ethical form of online which benefits both the guest blogger and blog owner – in exchange for providing an interesting blog post from a new perspective, the guest blogger is credited with a backlink to their site and the opportunity to showcase their work in front of entirely new audience.
Maintaining a blog so it’s constantly updated with fresh, interesting posts can become almost unmanageable for blog owners as their site gains popularity and readership numbers inflate. This is when they invite guest bloggers to contribute posts for their site to take off some of the pressure and entertain their readers. If the blog is of high quality (which it should be if you’re considering guest blogging on it) then blog owners can be incredibly picky when it comes to choosing who they allow to write content for their site.
Guest Blogging – a Flooded Market
The guest blogging market is incredibly overcrowded due to its explosion in popularity over the past few years. This has caused webmasters to receive high numbers of pitches and submissions off people who want to write for their site. Some of these people are abusing the guest blogging system by plying webmasters with “unique articles” containing generic content that’s been covered hundreds of times before, with the obvious intent of gaining a backlink. This abuse of the system has made webmasters dubious to open their doors to guest bloggers, which means you have to demonstrate something special to get featured on high quality blogs.
If you’re new to guest blogging it can be a daunting prospect trying to sell yourself to blog owners – you may experience rejection or receive no response at all which can be very disheartening. Following the unwritten rules of etiquette when guest blogging can help you to build your reputation within the blogosphere and take on the highest quality blogs.
Quality of Writing for Guest Blogging
It can’t be said enough that the quality of your writing determines where you’ll get published. If your writing ability is poor then you have nothing to offer the webmaster – making your guest blogging attempts pretty pointless. Also, if you’re pitching title ideas to a blog owner, think outside of the box. They won’t want a post that every other site in their industry has covered, think of something quirky from a different angle that’s thought provoking to their readers. The higher quality your writing is the more links you’ll build to the guest post, strengthening your backlink and increasing its value to your site.
Don’t Ignore Guest Blogging Submission Guidelines
Due to the number of pitches webmasters receive, some have started to include submission guidelines if they do accept posts. Don’t just flick over these, read them thoroughly and adhere to them. Nothing angers webmasters more than people who’ve sent blogs without reading their writing guidelines, so much so you probably won’t even receive a response if you’ve clearly not taken the time to read them.
Avoid Sending “Generic” Emails
When pitching your post idea to a blog owner, use as much personal address as possible. Marketers who use a bad guest blogging technique will send a guest post pitch to hundreds of website owners, which irritates the blog owner and in some cases, may even cause offence – why should they let you write for them if you haven’t even got their name right? If they’re going to allow your voice and opinion on their blog you’ll need to show that you have a genuine interest in their site. Good quality blogs with large readerships are run by humans who take pride in their blog and will only accept someone who shares their passion and has sound knowledge of their niche.
Once your Post’s Been Published…
If a blog owner accepts your submission and decides to publish your work on their site you’ll be expected to promote the post through social media sites to gain as much exposure for the post as possible. This is in both of your best interests, not just the blog owner’s – the more readers and social shares the post receives the more likely you are to get your writing in front of new audiences and gain backlinks. Ask the webmaster to share it via their social channels and include your Twitter handle in their Tweets to gain exposure for your name and build on your reputation.
This post was written by Stephanie Staszko who works at SEO Manchester firm Web Vitality. In between blogging, she likes to take a week out of the year to ski and have fun in the snow. You can catch her on Twitter @StephStaz if you have anything nice to say.
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