5 Tips for Doing Guest Blogging Effectively
Guest blogging is a great way to build your page rank up on the web.
Anyone who wishes to gain page rank for their blog knows that one of the most effective ways to do it is with guest blogging. This not only brings in direct traffic from your partner blog but also brings in search traffic because having more backlinks means getting more page rank for your own blog. Here’s how to do it right:
What is Guest Blogging?
For those who have never heard of the term, guest blogging is exactly what it sounds like. You write a post for another website with your own name on it and links back to your website. While some snobby blog owners turn their noses up at guest bloggers, the ones who make it big know that it’s in their best interests to accept guest blogs.
The reason is simple: guest blogs bring more traffic to the blog you are writing for because they offer a different perspective for regular readers to read about. Plus, if you can get regular guest blog contributions, you’re one step closer to getting into Google News since you need multiple writers in order to get approved for the news aggregator.
How to Find Blogs for Guest Blogging
I have yet to find a resource which tells you, “here is a list of blogs that accept guest bloggers.” And frankly, even if such a list exists, it may not be the best choice of blogs to do guest blogging for.
As a professional writer, I long ago learned that the places where you actually want your work to be featured don’t need to advertise to get new writers. They have people banging down their doors begging to write for them.
Therefore, if a place is actively soliciting guest bloggers, they are one of two things:
- They’re brand new. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has to start somewhere. The thing is, your guest blog may not get the traffic you want from a brand new blog.
- The owner is a terrible writer. This kind of blog you want to stay away from no matter what. If the other writing on the blog is really bad, even if your work is good, you’re going to end up looking bad by association.
Look for Bigger Blogs
Yes, getting a guest blogging gig on a smaller blog is easier. However, ideally, you should try to do it on a bigger blog. This will increase your link juice and your direct traffic as well. Plus, if you get turned down by the bigger blog, as long as your work is not super time sensitive, you can always try again with a lesser known blog.
Put Your Best Foot Forward
It’s important when doing a guest blogging gig to put your best foot forward. Many people try to pass off crappy work as a guest blog, but that’s a big mistake. After all, this will be the first impression many people have of you at this new blog. If you want them to come back and read your blog, you need to impress the heck out of them.
Read a Few Other Guest Blogs
Before you rush to submit to a blog, read a few other guest blogs that they’ve had up in the past. This will help you figure out what to write for them.
For example, as regular readers here know, I run a personal finance blog as well. My personal finance blog is very broad based, with lots of subjects covered, including things like paying for college and dealing with credit card debt. However, most blogs I might do a guest blogging gig for are more narrowly focused.
Therefore, just because I happen to write about paying for college on my blog doesn’t mean I’d want to write about that as a guest blog for a blog on credit cards.
Write Comments and Become a Regular Commentator
If you want to improve your chances with an A list blog, take the time to write comments at the blog and to become a regular comment contributor. Not only will it help your link juice, but it will also help you to build confidence with the site owners that you know what you’re talking about when you write a guest blog for them.
Remember, Anchor Text Matters
Finally, if I were doing a guest blog for my personal finance blog about college financing, I could write anchor text where I say, check out my blog here for more ideas. Or I could write anchor text where I write, here are some great ideas on how to pay for college. The second one is much more effective, both for getting clicks and for getting link juice from Google.
So if you were searching for guest blogging opportunities where would you look? If there was a blog you wanted to guest blog for would you just email them and ask? Thanks
Yes, that’s exactly what you would do. Just look for the webmaster Email address. Occasionally, they’ll also have a link where it says “write for us.” Since I wrote this, I learned that there are a few guest post exchange services, however as I suspected, 99% of the blogs accepting guest posts there were crap.
enjoyed the tips. For someone who is just starting the tips offered will come in handy.
Glad to have helped you out. I do try to post useful tips and ideas here regularly so be sure to drop by again to see the latest.
This is a very useful blog. I did agree totally with you that some blogs that I read have some really crappy, my word not yours, content. It does not make me want to search very far into what they have to say. However, if the content is of good writing and style, I am more likely to go back to see what else has been said or added to the blog.
I love blogging. I’ve created one blog for ecommerce and i make one post to each week. Now, I am planning to write for guest blog and post it to promote my same blog.
Found your article very resourceful. I felt that this site was spot on. I will be bookmarking for further reference.
Keep the great advice coming. Am looking forward to it. I will be using your tips for the future. Thanks for the spot on advice.
I’m glad you found it so helpful. Which of my tips was the one you liked the most?
I’m glad you liked it so much. May I ask what specifically you found so interesting though? Which of the tips was most useful?
I’m glad I could be of help to you in coming up with good ideas for doing guest blogging. Good luck.
Exactly my point — too often we tend to think that a guest post is one which should be junk so we can keep the good stuff for our regular readers. However exactly the opposite is in fact true.
I like what you guys are up too. Such clever work and reporting! Keep up the very good works guys I’ve included you guys to my blogroll.
I’m glad you liked it so much, but could you please tell us what it was that you liked so much about the blog? It helps me to know which topics to do more on in the future.
Written well, mostly, but don’t you feel you’re oversimplifying?
In what way?
If you put a “like” I’d share this over FB.
I’ll mention it to Yasir.