Guest Posting: Guest Blogging Tips ~ My Guest Posts

Guest Blogging eBook

Guest Blogging has many benefits including guest posting for networking and exposure to guest blogging for greater reach to  geo-targeted blog outreach.

When you want to guest post, it is critical to include a few simple things in your guest posting requests.

Guest Blogging Requests

What to Include:

1. Two or three examples of posts you’re written – ideally on topics related to the one you’re pitching – any writing if you don’t have some specific to that niche.
2. A few title or suggested topics for your guest post.
3. Any sites you wish to link to in your post or author box. I do not mean every link you might use. I mean your blog, specific site or social network where the blog owner can quickly see what you’re about plus any business site or blog you are creating content for or promoting.
4. Your Twitter username and links to the social network you use most.

Guest Blogging Tips:

You can increase your chances of getting a yes by doing the above and:

• Reading the guest posting guidelines for that site. Some have them in a separate tab (tabs are located under the header where the name of the blog appears) and others put that information on their about or contact tabs. Mine is under Guest Posts on my Contact Page.
• Being familiar with the blog’s content. At least skim the recent posts or categories. Even better, read and comment in a few posts so the blogger already knows who you are BEFORE you pitch your guest post ideas.

YES! Guest posts are accepted on GrowMap
See guidelines under Guest Posts on my Contact Tab

Guest Posting Submissions

There is great variance in how you submit guest posts so be sure you read the blogger’s guidelines. Some common methods of submission include:

1. Granting you contributor access so you can enter the post yourself. Be aware that once you submit it in most cases you CAN NOT make corrections so be sure to proof it BEFORE you submit.
2. Giving you author access so you can create your post, control formatting, add images (on some blogs – on others you can’t and would have to submit them some other way – see the individual blog for how), and links with mouseover text (if allowed) and edit your post yourself. This is my preferred method here.
3. Writing your post into a proprietary system. This are often challenging to work with and a major reason why even though I have been approved to write for a site they are far less likely to get a guest post from me. Social Media Today’s system is a good example of one that is not intuitive, time-consuming to navigate, and could easily lead to poor quality results. I would love to write for that site, but that system is a major roadblock. If you are going to require guest bloggers to use your system, make it as close to WordPress as possible and provide excellent help and FAQs. I have too many questions about how the system @SocialMedia2day works to be comfortable using it – and am too busy to want to invest time in sorting it out – at least for now.
4. Emailing your post. The blog needs to specify what format they want the post in and how to handle links and images. Some want you to send them as attachments while other blogs forbid attachments which makes including images problematic. When a guest poster does not know WordPress I ask that they send me their post in .html version and also in .txt and/or .doc (Word) because pasting them into WordPress often creates formatting issues that can be very time-consuming to resolve.

Share Your Guest Posts

You will want to create a page for your guest posts. I still need to do that myself. An example of someone who does this very well is Kristi Hines @Kikolani. She writes so many guest posts that she now has them in guest blogging categories on her archive page.

My Guest Posts

My readers may be interested in seeing some of my guest posts, where they’ve been published, and an excerpt:

Liz Strauss Successful Blog (Feb 6, 2012)
Does Your Business Style Connect or Make People Cringe?

You may be wondering about the image to the left. That is a Ten Penny nail next to four pennies. I share it here to illustrate how big one is – and that is central to the story I share in my post on Liz’ blog.

Image Credit Santa Cruz Construction Guild

“There is something more serious you must be aware of as well and that is what kind of image you are presenting to the world. Specifically, what you consider acceptable regarding profanity, off-color humor, suggestive images, etc. may be anything but appropriate to your potential customers.”

Most people over fifty will know exactly what I mean, but those who are significantly younger may not realize that what is normal to them – whether that is dropping the f-word, cursing God, piercings or tattoos or pink or green hair – may cause many to not take them seriously.”

Social Media Today (Aug 14, 2011)
Social Media: Why You Must Specialize

If you want to be recommended – by me or anyone – you have to give us a reason. A reason to single you out. A reason why you are just the person for a particular business to contact. What marketers and Web designers have always recommended:

YOUR USP – Your Unique Selling Proposition.
Why You Must Differentiate or Die!

That applies to every small business, every blogger and every consultant. Make a name for yourself in something SPECIFIC – not just social media, or blogging, or whatever your business does.

You must answer this one question:
Why should I recommend YOU over everyone else?

PerformInsider: Quick Ways to Get Bloggers to Notice You (Aug 10, 2011)

“You have a new blog – or maybe you just want to grow your existing blog. One of the fastest ways to get more visibility is to connect with established bloggers in niches related to yours. There are three fast ways to make that happen: linking to their blogs, effectively using social media, and blog commenting.”

Adotas The Google Guillotine (Jan 28, 2011)

Google Guillotine"

“Big G intentionally created these problems with their MFA (made for AdSense) offering that I explained in my post about Google Killing the AdWords Golden Goose and their official Google AdSense© for Domains offering that pays big bucks to people who have littered the Internet with parked domains full of canned ads.

These tactics are what PPC (pay-per-click — i.e. AdWords and similar ads) experts call distribution fraud because advertisers can not opt out of them and a page full of canned searches is not a search and will not convert like a search…

Another “groan-inducing defense” that is getting old is the company that creates the problem claiming they are “fighting” the problem. Oh please.

Big G is trying to “clean up” the Internet to favor big brands and that has very serious implications for small local and e-commerce businesses and bloggers alike. I commented in this post on SEOBook by Aaron Wall regarding the now-famous Internet Cesspool quote on what I believe their CEO meant.”

Adotas: Email + Social Media: The Horse Goes in Front (Aug 18, 2010)

If you have a business, blog or existing mailing list I hope you’re paying attention to the speed with which the time spent Social Networking is increasing. Adotas quoted Nielsen stats earlier this month showing Social Networking accounts for almost 25% of all time Americans spend online.

That time online means opportunities for the wise, but investing your time or money in advertising or Social Media to attract visitors to your site before having a strong system in place to enable you to capture those new visitors for your mailing list is a waste of your money.

The best way to assure a positive ROI from all of your online marketing methods is to first capture and then effectively market to your in-house, highly targeted mailing list.

Your first priority is to select the best list management and email newsletter software for your business. Because changing solutions can cause you to lose subscribers and learning to use any new tool takes time, you must choose wisely.

The number one criterion when deciding is deliverability rate. If what you send to your list does not get through because of spam filtering where is the benefit to you?

There are three clear leaders among email marketing companies:”… CLICK >>> to READ MORE

QUESTION: Does anyone have an autoresponder set up to send those interested in guest blogging their guest blogging guidelines and submission instructions? That would be very useful.

If you do, please tell us about it in the comments and I will include your tips and a link with your desired anchor text to your chosen landing page in this post.

Guest Blogging Invitation ~ Hiring Writers? Ask Me!
I am interested in being a regular contributor on select blogs

Tagged as: guest blogging, guest blogging tips, guest posting, guest posting tips