Guest Blogger – How To Share Your Expertise On OPBs (Other People’s Blogs)
I briefly mentioned guest blogging as part of my web content challenge and have been approached by a few people who where intrigued by the idea but didn’t know how to become a guest blogger on someone else’s blog.
Before we get into the actual “how-to”, let’s take a minute and talk about why we would want to guest blog in the first place. It’s a great way to expand your reach and put yourself out there in front of a bigger or different audience. As a person who pays attention to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), it is also a great way to generate incoming links. In other words, guest blog posts can create quite a bit of traffic for you and help your rankings.
The person allowing you to post on their blog, gets some interesting and unique content for their blog, making it a win-win situation.
But how do you go about becoming a guest blogger. In short, you ask. Most bloggers (and website owners in general) are looking for fresh content to add to their sites. Writing it all ourselves is a lot of work, and quite frankly I sometimes run out of ideas for things to write about. Having someone come in and write a post (or two or three) for me gives me a little break. Often that’s all it takes for me to get my creative juices flowing again and I’m ready to jump back in and post away. Guest bloggers are also great when you’re on vacation or out sick or can’t blog regularly for any other reason.
If you’d like to write a few guest blog posts (and I certainly think you should), start by looking at people you know. Is there someone that reaches a similar target market? If you already have a relationship with that blogger, it’s pretty easy to send them an email or give them a call and ask if they would be open to publishing a post you would write for their blog. I like to come up with an idea or two for the post, but also make it clear that I’m open to their suggestions as well.
If you don’t know any bloggers in your target market, start getting to know them. Find their blogs, leave some comments and send them an email just to start getting to know them. Then approach them about guest blogging.Yes, this is a little bit of work, but worth it because you are building a relationship with a fellow blogger that can result in all kinds of different types of cross promotions down the road.
When you start looking for these bloggers, don’t just focus on the big names and popular blogs – especially if you’re just starting out. Look for some smaller blogs. You’ll have a much easier time getting them to agree to a guest post.
While I prefer to approach bloggers that I think would be a good fit, there’s another option as well. Go to Google.com and search for your keyword or target market and then “guest blog” , “guest blogging” or “submit an article” or “submit a post”.
Your posts won’t always get published when you use this second method. I like to keep track of each my posts and if it doesn’t get used within a few weeks on one blog, I submit it to another one, turn it into an article that can be submitted to article directories, or I just use it on my own blog.
Just go out there and ask or find some places that will accept your blog posts. Keep track of what’s published where and then use those posts to show your expertise as you approach other bloggers about guest writing opportunities.
Oftentimes all it takes is to get those first few guest posts out there. As other bloggers see your guest blogs they start to contact you to about a possible guest post on their blog as well.
As I am writing this I’m sitting in a Hotel in Asheville, NC. I participated in a blogging conference here and it was a wonderful opportunity to find both excellent blogs that I can become a guest blogger on as well as plenty of wonderful writers that are interested in blogging on one of my blogs.
If you are already going to conferences, keep that in mind. You may also want to check into what blogger meet-ups and conferences happen in your area. Social media and blogging clubs are springing up all over the place and are a wonderful way to meet fellow bloggers in person. Once you know these people, it’s a lot easier to start a converstaion about guest blogging.
Get out there and find some bloggers today that may be interested in publishing a post by you.
P.S. My favorite conference for both content and networking is NAMS. If you’re thinking of attending a conference this year, come join us in January in Atlanta for the Nice Marketing Affiliate System Conference. I’ll be there.
You may also like to read:
- How To Be A Guest On Other People’s Blogs
- How To Ask Bloggers To Guest Post
- How To Ask For A Guest Post
- Targeted Guest Blogging and A Challenge Update
- Content Marketing Tips From Three Of My Favorite Blogs
Tags: guest blog, guest blogger, guest blogging, how to become guest blogger, writing guest blog posts
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I’ve actually done the opposite. I’ve asked people if they want to guest blog on mine.
It’s a little easier for me as my blog is more about helping people with their blogs whether they use theirs for making money, their hobbies, or just their own personal blog and I like to let my followers see what others are doing and why.
In any case, consider offering an exchange of posts. You get your post on their blog, but they also get to write a guest post on yours. It may provide the extra incentive to get your post there.
– Jeffery
Excellent point Jeffrey. Definitely a good idea to do both. I’m not sure I would always do direct blog post exchanges because it has the potential of looking like a link exchange with more content to Google. Doing it occasionally should be fin though.
Instead what I do one of my other blogs is pick different blogs to guest post and write guest posts on my blog. With this site I haven’t gone out and looked for guest posters yet since it’s so new, but I will in the near future. There are some really good people out there with plenty of things to share.