Writing good content and hoping that readers will discover you out of nowhere is an approach that rarely works. Savvy bloggers know that the simpler route is to reach out to the established names and publishing a guest blog on their sites. Guest blogs enable you to reach many new readers and get high-quality backlinks and this can significantly boost your monthly readership. |
What bloggers look for in guest posts
|
A blogger will receive many requests from people looking to post on their blog/site and they will turn down most of these. In order to ensure you’re not among the rejected, here are a few things to consider: |
· Bloggers are not looking for more of the same, they want something new that will add value to their website. This means that your content needs to be original. |
· Data matters. It’s easy to sit and write down your own opinion. The greater challenge is basing your information on facts and presenting it with a combination of graphs, data, research and quotes from experts. |
· Length matters. Quantity matters just as much as quality and this applies to readers and search engines as well. |
Common mistakes made when guest blogging
|
· Writing the post before reaching out to the blogger. It’s better to pitch the ideas to the blogger and let them pick the one they think their audience will prefer. |
· Do your research. The site you’re submitting your post to will have guidelines for guest posts and if you don’t pay attention to the format and other such details, your post will not go far. |
· Not including writing samples: Writing samples, especially those published in other blogs, are important. Site owners will not want to wait for one week only for the final article to turn out to be of very low quality. |
· Link bait: Most site owners are not looking for guest posts that are simply done to build links. The target is usually articles that will still be relevant to readers after several months or even years. |
· Not taking enough time to write: To write an article that is of true high-quality takes a lot of time. A rushed article will never do. |
· Articles that are not ready to go: Bloggers want articles that will be inserted to WordPress without requiring any further work such as attaching images or writing by-lines. |
Steps to getting published on a high-traffic blog
|
1. Acquaint yourself with the blog you want to write for by reading articles and leaving carefully thought out comments. |
2. Make sure you have your own blog already. |
3. Pitch your ideas to the blog owner. |
Results of a good guest post
|
If you write a good guest post, the first and most obvious result will be an increase in traffic to your own site. However, there are other benefits such as establishing a good relationship with other bloggers and also connecting with your target audience. This will help you to become a recognisable figure in that area. |