5 Tips for Effective Guest Posting

Glen Allsopp has been blogging for over three years. He runs PluginHQ which is a site about internet business and also one on the other end of the niche scale about personal development.

My blog is almost one year old now and in that time I’ve received visitors from hundreds of different sources. Of course the usual suspects are there such as search engine traffic, traffic from stumbleupon and even a trickle of visitors from my comments on other blogs.

There may be one type of visitor you have not had in common with me though, and that’s visitors from guest posting on other blogs. I can tell you now, looking at the time on site stats and bounce ratio for all the types of traffic I receive, guest posts bring the most targeted and loyal type of visitor.

And, not only do they send visitors, guest posts bring your site more links and more subscribers. When you look at the fact that one guest post on a large blog sent me over 300 subscribers, you start to see the potential of this traffic source. I don’t think there are enough tips out there for people on how to guest post effectively so, as I have written around 40 in the last two years, I thought I would share some of my top tips.

1. Make Sure Your Own Blog is Prepared

I decided to put this at the top of my list not because it is necessarily the most important point but because so many people forget to share this crucial information. To understand what I mean by this point, let’s look at a little scenario.

you spend an hour one afternoon writing an article for a site in your niche that is expecting your guest post submission. you’ve worked hard on the piece, you send it off and then a few days later the post goes live. Through a combination of RSS, Email and website visitors to the host blog, you get an extra 150 eyeballs on your content that day.

But there’s a problem. They can’t find your subscribe button. And, even if they could, they wouldn’t give your their time anyway seeing as your last 5 posts are unrelated to your guest post and simply telling the world about your cat.

This is a bit of an extreme example, but it shares an important point: your website must be ready for an influx of visitors. you must make it easy for them to sign-up to updates for your content and you must capture their attention with relevant information when they arrive.

If you fail to do this, the most you’ll get from your efforts is some wasted traffic and a backlink.

2. Keep a Similar Writing Style to the Author

Not all blogs out there that accept guest posts make it clear that this is the case. Often, the author simply allows natural submissions to flow in and if any take his or her interest then they just might go live on the site.

In this scenario, you neeed to appeal to the authors interests.

One good way to do that is to keep your writing style and formatting similar to what the blog covers. Some sites have a range of articles from those that are short and to the point to those that are detailed and in-depth. However, some blogs tend to keep a similar format throughout.

If the author always writes long and “cover all the options” style posts with serious titles then it’s unlikely they are going to accept your short list post. The opposite is also the case, if they write short bite-sized articles that their readers can digest quickly then they don’t want a huge post with chunky paragraphs.

Keep to a similar writing and formatting style and it will give you a better chance for your post to go live. Of course, there are some exceptions to this but it is usually the case.

3. Write For Related Websites

This is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t go into too much detail. In my guest blogging experience I have written content for unrelated websites although that is usually only the case if the site has a very large audience or I’m a big fan of their offering.

Generally though it is far better to write for a site that is in the same niche as yours. First of all, the traffic will be a lot more relevant and people are more likely to subscribe to your feed. Secondly, the link to your site probably has a big more weight due to relevance factors.

4. Stick To One Unique, Focused Idea

The benefit of running a blog for a long time is that you start to build a loyal audience who are aware of the type of content that you put out there. Because of that, you can be a bit more diverse in what you cover, you can link back to older posts that back up your arguments and you can sometimes let the reader come to their own conclusion.

Guest posting often means that the audience hasn’t seen your writing before, and want to know what you are all about. Because of that, it’s not a good idea to head off down different paths and tangents in your writing unless you can bring them all together in the end.

Readers want advice (or entertainment / humour, depending on the site) that they can get one main idea from and it is easy to share. From the title of this post and the points that I’m sharing, it’s very clear I’m sticking to one topic and people can learn a lot more about that subject from reading this post.

5. Find Larger Blogs that Want Writers

Although blogging for any site can send you some visitors and increase the links back to your site, it’s obviously beneficial to write one article that reaches a larger audience rather than a smaller one.

Some of the biggest blogs out there which accept guest posts include:

• Problogger – 80,000+ Subscribers
• DumbLittleMan – 65,000+ Subscribers
• Copyblogger 50,000+ Subscribers
• John Chow 50,000+ Subscribers
• Pick the Brain 15,000+ Subscribers
• Free Money Finance 14,000+ Subscribers

These are just some websites that I’ve came across on my travels; some I’m sure you’ve heard of and maybe a couple you haven’t. If you want to reach a large audience like this, the author has to like your content and of course think that it will be beneficial for their audience. Don’t just submit any old drivel simply because the website accepts content from other authors.

Just from the sites in the bullets above, writing 6 articles could get you and your website in front of over 250,000 subscribers. Not bad for a days work. Look for “top blog lists” in your niche and you might find some gems that have a large audience and would love your submissions.

Glen Allsopp has been blogging for over three years. He runs PluginHQ which is a site about internet business and also one on the other end of the niche scale about personal development.