What is a Guest Blog?
A guest blog is simply one of your blog posts that is published on someone else’s blog.
Why Guest Blog?
Guesting on another blog is a great way to introduce your writing or your business to someone else’s audience. They have the opportunity to see what you offer, and they can explore your blog and your business further. Blogging for someone else, who is highly respected and has a great reputation in your niche, gives you additional credibility. And, it might open up blogging and writing opportunities as well as other business connections. Your blog link on someone else’s blog, will help to rank your blog higher in search engines, and this is always a good thing.
How do you go about becoming a Guest Blogger?
Do Your Research
It is important to spend some time finding blogs that would work with your niche and that have an audience that would benefit from your blog topics. You can do this simply by going to a search engine or you can search on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you are on WordPress, you can do a search in WordPress for blog topics.
Once you have found blogs you think could be options, browse through their comments to see what people are saying, as well as finding other blogs that follow that blog. They could be equally valuable to you.
Select a Guest Blog Topic
Have a look at some of your best blog posts, especially those that have had a great readership and engagement on your blog and on social media. See if any of these topics can be adapted to a guest blog and which would fit into the readership of the blog where you would like to guest blog.
Review the Guest Blog
Before you contact the blogger, have a look on their blog for their guest blogging guidelines. You might not meet their criteria, so it might not even be worth contacting them. (If you don’t have your own guest blogging guidelines on your blog, make it a priority to get them in place).
Make Contact with the Blogger
If you possibly can, try and connect on a personal level – at an event for example. If geography does not allow for this, contact them using an email address or a contact form on their blog / website. This means your message goes directly to their inbox and doesn’t get lost in the cyber ‘noise’. They may want the full blog submitted for approval. Some might just want an overview or a proposal. Some want the blog submitted in a Word Document with images attached as separate attachments. But by not following exactly what they want, according to their guest blog guidelines, will mean they may not even read your blog to consider it for their audience.
Give and Take
Be clear what you are able to offer the guest blogger. Outline how you will promote the blog in your community and on social media – be clear about the channels you will be using. If their guidelines haven’t specified, ask them how they will manage the relationship. How do they go about scheduling your post? Do they send it out in a newsletter? What social channels will they use to promote it? Ask them what they expect from you and let them know what you expect from them. This has to work for both parties, or it will be a fruitless exercise.
Attention to Detail
Writing the blog post is the easy part. and pay attention to the following details:
- Make sure you have a very good, strong author bio
- Your ‘Call to Action’ need to be clear. A ‘Call to Action’ is something you want your audience to do – sign up to follow your blog, or ‘like’ your Facebook Page etc.
- Include the products, services, book you are currently promoting, and if you are able to offer a freebie or a discounted coupon code for people to sign up to your newsletter, include that in the blog post too
- Include all your social media handles / profiles so that the new audience can follow and ‘like’ you
- Having links to other articles on your blog, will help the readers find more content from you and will help with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Sometimes the hosts don’t allow more links in your articles, so check this out before you submit anything
- Check that your website is set up for your new audience. You might need to get your ‘about’ section up to date, and you may have to edit or amend your categories to benefit this new audience
- Turn the comments on so that you can engage with your new readers
How do you know the Guest Blog is a success?
Decide what you want to achieve before you sign up to a guest blog relationship.
There are a range of measurements you can assess on your blog:
- Social shares
- Comments
- Followers
- Readers
On other platforms:
- ‘Likes’ on your Facebook Page
- Followers on Instagram or Twitter
- Search Engine ranking improves
Your brand awareness might increase, but this will always be difficult to measure.
What if it’s not a success?
A guest blog will not always deliver what you expected. Use your guest blog opportunity to assess and improve things. There are many reasons your results don’t show improvement:
- Maybe the new audience was not right for your blog
- Maybe the audience wasn’t as big as you thought
- Was your call to action strong enough?
- Did you give the blog post time to reach the right audience?
- Was the social media good enough to increase the readership?
Take some time out
Take time to look at all the stats on your blog and on your social media platforms. Guest blogging is not only fun, it is a valuable tool to help expand your audience – to reach more people. Whatever your blog is about, the idea is to increase your reach – teach, support, entertain, share or engage – that’s what you are trying to achieve. By expanding your audience, reaching new people and putting yourself in front of a community who need or want what you have to offer, is always really exciting for a blogger. Guest bloggers might want to blog on your blog. They will of course bring their community with them.
Don’t be despondent if a blogger turns you down – they weren’t right for you anyway. The blog post you wrote for them is not wasted – publish it on your own blog and share it with your own community.
The biggest Guest Blogging tip is BE PREPARED. Do your research and plan your blog carefully.
And most importantly – HAVE FUN!
I am thrilled to have guest blogged on the Air Maths Tuition website. Brilliant opportunity!
Guest blogging is also a great way of getting good back links to your site and a great way to get social media engagement as there is an ‘outside interest’ in your post.
Brilliant article! Thanks Dawn.
Thanx Michelle. I find it the simplest way to show expertise too.
Such great advice