What is Guest Blogging?
The simple answer to this question is quite easy. Guest Blogging is
when you get approval from the owner of a blog to have your article
published. Depending upon how much traffic this particular site gets
your visitor volume can increase dramatically.
The harder part is actually getting your idea for a blog post accepted!
Now before you run off and start creating blog posts there are some
key points to take into consideration here. I like to refer to this as blog
etiquette!
You don’t want to confuse guest blogging with leaving blog comments.
These are two totally separate identities. Anyone can leave a blog
comment on a post or article.
With a guest post you are being given
the limelight or if you like the chance to create your own solo ad!
Take advantage of this and your business has the potential to explode
overnight!
The Benefits of Guest Blogging
The main benefits of having a guest post published are twofold. Yes
you will see an increase in traffic to your own site. But you will also be
getting your name out into the community. This definitely helps with
branding yourself and your business. This exposure can lead to you
being introduced to other marketers and into business circles that can
have positive effects on your overall business.
To start off, it is a great idea to sit down and figure out what your
goals are from guest blogging. Do you just want to get links back to
your site? Are you after recognition in your field or niche? Or maybe
you are looking to network with other experienced marketers? All of
these are great goals and knowing exactly what you hope to achieve
will help you get started with guest blogging in the right direction.
How to Find Blogs to Post On
The biggest piece of advice we can give you here is to look for blogs
that are in some way related to your niche. You want your article or
blog post to be found on a site that contains relevant information. This
way it will seem like a natural progression for the reader to follow any
links back to your own blog.
If you are active in your niche you probably already follow a number of
blogs. Add these to your list for possible places to guest blog on. Don’t
forget to look for guest posts and follow the author’s links back to their
site. This could be yet another place for you to offer a guest post.
Especially if the author targeted a relevant niche, you can keep going
in this manner and in no time have a huge list of blogs ready for the
attack.
Posting on unrelated sites will still increase the number of visitors you
get to your site, but they will not be targeted visitors. What we mean
by this is that they will not have enough interest to sign up to your
mailing list to download a free report.
They will definitely not be
buyers looking for the solution that you have to offer either. These
types of visitors will be more of the general freebie visitor just
browsing. So why waste a good article on this type of traffic?
The best ways we know of finding related blogs would be to do a
search in Google for your niche.
Just type in blogs + the name of your niche
Some of the internet searches you can do are by using the following
search strings or some variation of these terms:
•
submit a guest post
•
guest post
•
guest post by
•
accepting guest posts
•
guest post guidelines
•
write a guest post
•
guest post articles
You get the idea! While this method is effective it can also be a little
time consuming.
Here are two of our favorite ways which are a little quicker:
1. Use Google Reader and set up folders for related information in your
niche. Then each day simply check for blogs who have just published
new information. Visit the blog and see if it compliments your own
site. If so add it into your favorites or create a spreadsheet with this
information. You can also find breaking news stories here which would
make ideal content for guest posts.
2. The next way is to simply set up Google Alerts for blogs within your
niche. You can have the content delivered to you as it happens or once
a day. Again all you do is check out each site and see if it contains
relevant information. If so, add it to your main spreadsheet.
With these two steps once you have them set up you don’t have to
worry about hunting down sites. You will be notified of new blog posts
each and every day. Plus you will be able to keep on top of which blogs
are gaining more exposure and can target these ones.