How to Make Guest Blogging Work for You

With the abundance of bloggers in the blogosphere – Technorati is currently tracking over 126 million blogs – you would do well to consider creative marketing strategies to get our business noticed in this crowd. One such method is guest blogging. Posting content to well-known blogs has shown to be a great method of increasing inbound links and generating traffic.

Strategies to make guest blogging work for your business

1. Perform some research

Some research is necessary before you decide where to submit your guest post (http://www.noobpreneur.com/blog-for-noobpreneur-business-blog/) to be published. You need to be adequately rewarded for your submission and that your produce high quality content that will be appreciated by that blog’s readership.

• Will you be provided with credit as the guest blogger? If the blog doesn’t provide author credit for guests, don’t submit your post. If you do submit your post with your byline to this type of blog, the owner will likely remove your name and submit the content with theirs. This method is not in your best interests since the whole point of guest blogging is to promote your brand!
• What types of post are well received by the blog readership? Peruse the blog’s most popular posts to gain a sense a sense of popular topics that generate reader interest and comment. Can you create such content in a unique and interesting way?
• Can you fill a niche? As important as understanding what topics are popular on the blog is noticing what topics seem to be missing but relevant to this readership. Ask yourself how you can use what you know to contribute unique and interesting content to this readership.

2. Optimize your post to gain the most benefit

What you choose to write about and how you present this content greatly influences how well your post will be received. What follows are a few tips for getting the most from your post.

• Link back to your own blog. If you have composed a post that relates to the niche of your own blog find a way to insert a link to it. You can also link to other blogs so that you appear fair. However if your post does not in any way relate to your blog (http://www.creditdonkey.com/business-tips.html), do not insert a link as this will be interpreted as obvious self-promotion.
• Devote sufficient effort to the post. As you plan your post keep in mind that quality content will drive more traffic to the post with a greater number of click-throughs to your own blog. Just because you are preparing a guest blog does not mean that you can let quality suffer; indeed the whole point of guest blogging is to increase traffic to your site and you can only do that by making the effort to compose high quality posts.
• Engage readers. An important metric by which bloggers track the success of a given post is reader comments. You can increase this number and reflect well on your brand by actively engaging blog readers by responding their comments and questions.
• Call on your connections. Call on your blog followers and social media connections to read and comment on your guest post so that you can bump up its success. You can also send the link of your post to other bloggers asking them to insert the link to their blog.

3. Preparing your byline

The byline provides you with credit for writing the post. Most blog owners will give you some freedom to create your byline as long as it is not very long. Since your byline is where readers will decide whether to click-through to your own blog, it is essential to craft a carefully worded statement.

• Keep your goals in mind. If your goal is to have readers subscribe to your blog feed, then you need only provide the link to the feed. If you want to increase the number of subscribers to your feed and also have readers click-back to your blog, include a link to both. If you goal is to only increase traffic to your site, just provide the link to that. Should your goal be to promote a product or service, you need only mention that without posting any links.
• Tailor your byline to your audience. If your guest post will target a niche market create a byline that speaks to this audience (yoga practitioners, baseball fans, other bloggers, etc.) This will attract reader attention and establish a connection through common interests.
• Highlight your USP. Your USP is your unique selling proposition and your byline should explain what benefits readers will derive by clicking your link(s) or purchasing your product/service. Examples of benefits include: advice, tips, how-to’s, free give-ways, etc.

Summary

• Research the blog you wish to submit a guest post
• Prepare the post with that blog audience in mind
• Quality content drives traffic
• Craft your byline so that it highlights a connection to the audience and what benefits they will obtain from your guest post.

About the Author

Debra Wilson is a Social Media Advocate at CreditDonkey. Entrepreneurs like you can visit www.creditdonkey.com to make business credit cards work for you and your business.