Have you heard all the hype about guest blogging lately. Marketers are writing ebooks and courses on how to become a guest blogger. If you're wondering what guest blogging is and if it will work for you, read on to see if this strategy is for you.
Guest Blogging - Definition
Guest blogging is pretty much as simple as it sounds. You serve as a guest author, guest writer, or guest blogger on someone's site. A format which often tends to be blogs. It is something that you may often see me refer to as publishing content on a 3rd party site in some of my other articles. You write an article and publish it on another site, as their guest. Sounds easy right? But what's the point?
Guest Blogging - The Point
The reason why many people choose to add guest blogging as part of their overall marketing strategy is because of a few reasons. First, having an article featured on another site puts your work and your message directly in front of a group of fresh prospects. Fresh eyes. Especially if the site has great traffic and/or a loyal following.
Second, guest blogging can give you a tremendous amount of credibility and visibility in your marketplace. While people have been guest blogging since blogs have been around, trust me when I say that I highly doubt all or very many (if any) of your serious competitors are guest blogging. It's not something a lot of entrepreneurs are doing and so the lane is still wide open for you to stand out front and center in your niche.
Third, you get great backlink juice! When you guest blog, it usually is at a blog that has a similar, lateral, or complimentary topic. At the end of your article, you can have a short bio with a nice link to your website and Google loves when a site links to another "related" site.
Guest Blogging - How To Get Going
So now that you see the point of guest blogging, you probably want to know how to get started. Well, no worries. it's easier than you might think. Websites (even the good ones) want more content - and user generated content is the greatest because site owners don't have to do any work. The reality is that website traffic improves the more you publish. So that's why websites need and desire content on a regular basis. Follow these simple steps and you should be well on your way...
Site Selection
Select sites that you are familiar with. That you read. Ones that you follow. These will be the easiest to generate article ideas for, and the site owners will be able to tell that. They rather publish work from people who actually read their stuff - then just people cruising by. Blog publishers want communities, not drive-by visitors.
If you follow a site or blog that accepts guest posts, more than likely there will be a link on the home page that reads "write for us", "submit article" or something similar. It will be easy to find. If there isn't a link for article submissions or writer's guidelines, then you can always choose to send an email to the owner with your article idea. More than likely they will gladly accept.
Writing
This is the easy part. Write your best. Send your best stuff in when you are writing for another site. You want to make an impression and be noticed among other writers. No pressure:) I rather you publish something then nothing - but since you're doing it - make sure to give it some polish!
Link Love
When you write an article as a guest blogger, it is "best practices" to link internally to other articles on the site within your article. Some sites may even require this, or some may not approve your article without a few internal links. So to just nip all of that in the bud, make sure to internally link to other articles on the site. It's nice to do for the blog that allowed you to write for them in the first place and it makes for site stickiness.
Signing Out
Your bio or resource box for a guest post is typically shorter then one you would write for an article directory. So you have make every word matter. You typically only get about a few sentences. So make your call to action strong, link to your website or landing page with seo rich anchor test, and that's it - you're done.
Conclusion
Ultimately you will have to decide if you have the time to invest in writing articles as a guest blogger. There is a commitment to the process, but the payoffs can be worth it. I use it in my business and see tangible and serious results.