How to Write a Guest Post that the Blogger Can’t Refuse
Guest blogging is good for the blog's owner and a guest blogger only if it's done properly. So, before you start guest blogging, you'll want to make sure your own blog or website is ready for new readers that you will get by guest blogging. In particular, you need to ensure that your blog/website:
- has only quality posts,
- has a good design, and
- offers a subscription option.
Once it's done, you can start searching for the blogs to guest post on.
Search for Blogs
To get the most of your guest blogging, look for a blog with an audience that’s similar to yours. Guest posting on a blog that has absolutely nothing in common with your blog theme will not bring you very many readers. But if you guest post on a blog with a similar subject, you can greatly increase the number of your visitors.
The best place to start looking for blogs to guest post on is the blogs you already know and like reading. You can also discover new blogs from comments on your blog, your favorite blogs’ blogrolls, searches and other links.
To find blogs that accept guest posts, type in Google or Fast Blog Finder the search terms like
Looking for "guest post" Looking For "Guest Bloggers" "This guest post was written" "This guest post is from" "Guest post by"
and start the search. To find the blogs relevant to your niche, add your keywords to the search query, for example:
Looking For "Guest Bloggers" your keyword phrase Wanted: "Guest Bloggers" your keyword phrase
Got the idea? When you found the blogs for guest blogging, you'll want to know what kind of post they accept. Read a few posts on the blog to get familiar with the blog’s style: personal, conversational, informal, professional, informational, or preachy, in order to understand what kind of blog you will be writing for.
Visit those blogs regularly, read the posts and leave your comments where you see it appropriate. Leave useful and valuable comments. Acting in this way you will present yourself as an active blog reader competent in the subject the blog deals with. You will be recognizable by the blog's owner and other readers. This will greatly increase the chance to have your guest post accepted by the blogger and published. You know many bloggers are concerned about guest posts from totally unknown persons and publish the stories from people they know only.
You should also look if the blog already has a guest posting policy like "no submissions", "submissions via e-mail", "queries first", etc. and follow those rules. Look for signals of interest in guest bloggers before making your offer. Has the blogger made any indication they are open to guest blogging? Some bloggers announce that the opportunity is there, on many blogs guest blogging can be arranged behind the scenes. Others wouldn’t make sense to have other bloggers.
Write Guest Post
After you get a feel for the style and posts on the blog, write a guest post specifically for that blog. Generally, it’s not enough to copy and paste one of your old blog posts or a guest post that you’ve already posted on another blog. Don't write in the way "slam bang – and it's done!" thinking that you don’t like to spend time for the content for someone else’s blog. It’s you who are primarily interested in a guest post of a high quality because:
- more people will want to click on your link and visit your own blog;
- your guest posts will likely be accepted without hesitation in the future;
- people will more likely remember the author of a good quality post.
When thinking of an idea for your guest post, remember that it must be of interest to the blog’s target audience, and most importantly, it must tell about something the blogger hasn’t written about before. If you are not sure about what to write, read the posts on the blog you want to write a guest post on and see what they have already covered on the topic and what they have not covered completely.
Your post should add value to the host’s blog, in particular if you’re sending an unsolicited submission. Make your post as useful as possible to the blog’s readers. Keep in mind that this is not your blog, write for the host blog's audience. Try to find topics and a style that the audience can enjoy. Don't be shy to consult the blogger for ideas. This might help your creative process.
While writing a post, think about how you can interlink your guest post with articles on the blog. Making that extra effort to integrate your post into the blog will most likely impress the blog's owner, and your post will act as a solid link between your website and the blog you have a guest post on.
What you must absolutely do to leverage your guest blogging is include a link or two to a post on your blog or website. Be sure to choose the anchor text of the links wisely because taken into account when calculating search engine rankings. The anchor text such as "Click here" or "Read more" isn't descriptive or helpful to readers or search engines.
In the next article I will tell about how to find the opportune moment to contact the blogger and what to tell them to have your guest post accepted.
Let me know what you think by posting your comments below.
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Tags: Guest Blogging, guest post, write guest post
Comments (23)
I had never heard of this concept until your last post.
However the following day I was contacted by a national US franchise to write guest blogs and articles for their site.
Beacause they were an offline business who wanted to use a profile of me as well I thought I should let them know I was in the UK not the US. Unfortunately this didn’t fit with their requirements.
It was a pity but I’m sure being truthful will pay off long term.
Paul
That was a very informative post Julia. I didn’t realize there was such a thing but now I’ll be on the lookout for some opportunities to guest post. Thanks for the tip.
That’s the first time I see someone suggesting to participate in blogs by writing articles and posting them in blogs.
This is probably a better solution than posting comments as the concept is just for building links and doesn’t build credibility at all.
I will surely investigate that option further as it may offer an alternative to writing and managing multiple blogs
Hi Julia,
Great post. I do some guest blogging from time to time. Probably not as much as I should but, I am always amazed whenever I check My stats to see how many hits I get from those blogs.
One of my favorite is the wordtracker blog, I always get a good number of click troughs from it. It is not related to any of my sites but the traffic from it is great.
Terry
Hi Julia
Thank you for this great idea, I didn’t know that this could be done. It’s a clever way to market a website as long as the content that you submit is written specifically for that particular blogs audience. It could also help to make you appear like the person to go to for help and advice in your specific niche.
I look forward to reading your next article, by the way fastblogfinder is an excellent, user friendly application. I came across something reasonably similar recently but it was very clunky and had script errors.
Yours works flawlessly!
Best Wishes
John O’Hara
United Kingdom
Julia:
Thank you for sharing some solid commen sense suggestions and ideas to increase awareness and use of guest blogging and guest posts.
Looking forward to putting your advice to good use.
David
Hi Julia, this is a technique I have never heard about! Good job, specially if the search is done from your software which then naturally returns blogs. I am still using the free version of your s/w but I am getting more and more impressed with what it can do in a strictly white hat way, i.e. find blogs related to your area and leave a valuable comment, and as a reward get some link juice. Helps the blog, helps the community, and helps the site.
Julia, I read a lot about blogging, link building, social media and SEO. Not everyday do I learn something new. I would like to say thank you for tying a couple of these pieces together for me. Interlinking your blog post with the other articles on the blog is brilliant! You can be sure I will be buying a licence for Fast Blog Finder this week. Thanks again and keep up the great work.
Julia – I appreciate how you showed us to use Fast Blog Finder to find guest blogging opportunities. Are you planning to drop some more pearls of wisdom on us?
Hi Glenn,
Thank you and all other readers for the comments. I’m glad to know that my post was useful and interesting for you. We are currently busy in testing the new 2.0 version of Fast Blog Finder. As soon as I have any useful information to share, I will absolutely do it.
However, I’d like to tell you about a trick or maybe a particularity of Fast Blog Finder that you might not be aware of. For example, you found a blog post. But you see that this post is too old and maybe doesn’t accept comments anymore. So, you can browse that blog and search for more recent posts where you can comment on. You write your comment and after you click on the Submit button, the new URL of the page where you commented on is automatically added to the list of your URLs. This works in the Gold version of Fast Blog Finder as well as in the free edition if you have less than 50 blogs on the list.
Guest posting on other peoples blogs… what a brilliant idea.
Thank you very much! Just like all your other post on this blog, this one really gets the old gray matter flowing.
I’ve been using the free version of Fast Blog Finder and had it on my shopping list for a while now, but it’s just got moved to the top of the list – come pay day, I’m going for Gold.
I found this out kinda the hard way…
I had set out to write an article for my own blog, but then realized as I was putting the wraps on it that it was not really all that well-suited to my audience. It was a bit too techie and strayed a bit too deeply into web site dev to be of any real interest to the majority of my readers. I had worked hard on this post and wanted to see it get the attention it deserved, so I shopped it out to Darren Rowse, hoping to find the article a broader target audience over on his Problogger.net blog. He graciously accepted my offer and posted the article Geoblogging – How to Geotag Your Blog.
As I had hoped, this article drew in lots of comments on Problogger and also a fairly steady stream of traffic over to my site for a couple of weeks. Now the problem…
I hadn’t planned ahead to make sure that I had some quality posts waiting in the wings for the hours, days, and week after that guest blog hit the readers. I scrambled around and came up with a few posts in the days afterwards, but I know I could’ve capitolized on the influx of new visitors far better if I had only been a little more prepared.
So, yes, guest blogging is a wonderful way to bring new visitors to your site – just make sure you’re ready for company!
Absolutely love the footprints to search for guest blogging opportunities in Google. Will share this post with my friends!
Right on the money as always Julia. Like so many others who posted in response to your Guest Blogger info, I also didn’t even know about the method. I will watch for software from you in the future as you have high quality, real world useable software ideas that get results.
A real question for you…
Does your Fast Blog Finder work on Macintosh OSX? I tried the free demo, but could not install it. If your product does not, please refer me to someone who has a similar product for Macintosh.
I am having a hard time finding high PR real estate websites that use Keyword Luv.
Guest posting is a good way to get backlinks. What is needed is for us to gain the trust of the blog owners. I believe that having a showcase of blog collections will break the initial barrier.
I never even thought about using fast blog finder as a real search engine! The applications for this could be amazing…
I just purchased the full version and boy it is really good! Way better than anything out there or comment kahuna! I hope you guys continue to good work and best wishes to everyone.
A lot of interesting comments here Julia. I am also amongst those who had not truly thought of the role of a guest blogger. Kudos also to Paul from Heart Attack recovery on his honesty. Paul, you may have lost that contract but a lot of people admire what you did.
Dino Delellis
You can also find people looking for guest bloggers on some forums. People like new content and sometimes need fresh ideas so they allow some guest bloggers from people they know or have read about.
If you want to post a blog that a blogger can’t refuse than you have to get familiar with the blog’s style, personal, conversation, profession or information in order to understand the blog’s nature. Visit those blogs regularly and leave valuable and useful comments. In this way you will show yourself as an active blog reader. This will automatically increase your chance to have your guest post accepted by blogger.
Hi Julia!
This is the first time I comment on your blog. I just wrote a post myself on fairly the same topic as yours but cover and detail slightly different points as yours. Therefore, I thought that referring your post to my readers will provide them more views on the matter! You should get a trackback from me about the same time as you get this comment!
I was searching the ways to write a good guest post. You are on top of Google results for my search, that’s why I am here. Find your writing style explanatory and ofcourse your post an informative one for me. Thanks!