Guest blogging is very conducive to building brand awareness, extending market reach, and boosting your credibility. Regular and quality guest blogging helps boost credibility in four major ways:
- Stronger online presence
- Increased authority in industry-related topics
- Additional leverage in link building & SEO
- Expanded audience base
Guest blogging provides a win-win situation from both parties involved. With that being said, poorly executed guest blogs can have a negative affect on your online reputation. Mastering guest blogging techniques is something content writers and marketers should pay close attention to.
Mastering Guest Posting
Guest blogging boosts credibility only when done productively and efficiently. To ensure that the guest post you make on a blog actually aids credibility building, follow these tips:
1. Choose Where to Post Carefully
Flickr: fotofish
Bear in mind that you want followers of the blog where you send guest posts to follow you, too. Selecting a popular blog will help you come in contact with high quality audience. The importance of extensive research in this area cannot be overstated.
Research will help you find the most popular blogs in your target industry. Many top bloggers do not accept guest posts and those who do require strict adherence to their terms and conditions. Research to find out which top bloggers accept posts from guest bloggers and what their terms and conditions are. You may also come across some not-so-famous bloggers with a high quality audience who accept guest posts.
2. Analyze the Blog
Flickr: NetMinder IG
Once you’ve decided the blog you want to guest post on, it helps to understand dynamics of the target audience on that blog. Go through the comments and feedback posted by followers of the blog to estimate their engagement level.
Choose a small but more engaged audience over a large but quiet group. Engaged audience share more frequently, provide feedback, and comment enthusiastically. Also note how often posts are made on the blog. Daily posts tend to crowd a blog and followers will pay less attention to a guest post. Blogs that get updated with new posts once or twice a week will reduce internal competition and allow more exposure.
3. Establish Contact with the Blogger
Flickr: Thomson Data LLC
Top bloggers receive hundreds of requests everyday. Master your sales pitch to ensure that all your research does not go to waste. Maintain a well written portfolio that does the selling for you. List similar work you’ve done and don’t forget to mention your credentials.
- Send out a personalized email with a short, straightforward subject line.
- Talk to the blogger about his previous posts, things that appealed to you, things that you found useful and project yourself as a regular follower of the blog.
- If you have a topic in mind, tell the blogger how such a topic would appeal to his followers. If you have no topic in mind, express interest in writing a guest post and ask what themes they prefer.
- Make a fleeting mention of your credentials. Don’t over do it, but you need to convince the blogger that your knowledge of the topic stems from your relation to the industry.
- Make your offer. Talk about links and terms and conditions.
4. Nail the Post
Flickr: jeff_golden
After all the research and pitching it is time to submit a winning guest post.
- Keep your content informative, unique, & interesting
- Unless otherwise specified, include a minimum of 1000 words
- Use good fashioned humor, puns, & trending subjects to keep the audience engaged
- Craft a catchy title
- Use relevant images to increase your credibility and reputation as a guest blogger
- Don’t be selfish – blatantly selling your own business on a guest blog is not acceptable
The only selling that you should do while guest blogging is the inclusion of a well written and attractive author biography. The bio should reflect your area of expertise. Keep the language professional and include a photograph for enhanced credibility.
Once your guest post gets posted on the blog, keep a track of its performance. How many of your followers shared, liked, and re-tweeted the post and how many new followers did you get?
Featured image courtesy of Flickr: andreabolder
