Guest posting is not an entry level blog promotion tactic. Whichever path you take, you should have a few blogging feathers in your hat before attempting guest posting.
Ideally, you get a personal invitation, which you have to earn and which also requires for you to be a perceived authority in your field (you’ll know you may be an authority in your field when you’ll start getting invitations to guest post). Next, look for and respond to calls for guest posts, which some bloggers occasionally issue or which others (like this blog) have as a standing invitation. Again, you should have a body of blogging work to show for yourself before responding to such a call or invitation, if only because new visitors will be evaluating your blog’s content before they subscribe or return. Otherwise, guest posting is a fruit of a relationship with another blogger. In any case, you need a plan.
Guest posting plan
To start, follow these steps:
- Define a clear set of measurable objectives for guest blogging, in terms of increases: traffic – visitors, pageviews, subscribers; conversation – comments; inbound links; sharing – tweets, diggs, bookmarks; Technorati authority.
- Identify bloggers/blogs you want to partner with through guest posting: blogs with the same or very similar target audience or community, blogs with similar (hopefully not the same) or complementary content, or blogs that you like and want to succeed. Do your homework, some bloggers don’t write or accept guest posts. Bloggers you’ve seen post elsewhere are a good starting point, as are writers of new blogs.
- Draft an action plan for your guest posting effort, including your schedule and evaluation process.
Your action plan should include the following activities:
- Comment on your “target blogs”. Make your comments thoughtful: expand on or add something to the original post or another commenter. Feel free to agree or disagree. Don’t bother with just thanking or expressing appreciation. Blog posts and comments are about conversation, so converse. Be consistent in your commenting or social networking with your blogger. A single comment or a retweet is not a relationship.
- Connect with your “target bloggers” on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or anywhere else where you’re both present and active. Be helpful to them, answer their questions, post useful links or resources, share their posts that you enjoyed.
- Meet your “target bloggers”, if physically possible. A face-to-face interaction trumps any online one. Alternatively, as you do your background research on people you meet, see whether they have blogs and if so (you’d be surprised how many do), whether the blog fits in your plan. Following your meeting, a guest post exchange is a very nice, reciprocal way to cultivate the relationship.
Rules of engagement
- Converse, don’t promote. Remember, the other blogger is a person. Making friends equals creating sustainable relationships. Don’t be pushy.
- Remember the key word in guest posting is “guest”. Be mindful and respectful of the host’s requirements or requests, including deadlines, format, or content; it’s his/her blog after all and she’s a busy person.
- Take no for an answer. Even if you follow all of the above, your “target blogger” may still decline to host you or write a post for you. It’s not a reflection of you or your blog. The blogger may have a myriad reasons, none of which may have to be related to you. Accept it as her decision, thank her for the consideration, and move on, while continuing other conversations with the blogger. Conversely, feel free to decline other bloggers’ pitches or invitations, for example if they don’t align with your objectives.
The biggest guest posting effort I’ve seen was Max Gladwell’s simultaneous posting of “10 ways to change the world through social media” on 100 different blogs. I won’t attempt that but I will spend the next stage of my blog’s development stepping up my effort to put these guidelines into action. You’ll see my results in guest posts here and in my “Blogging elsewhere” lists. Stay tuned and happy reading of all the guest posts (the best way to keep track is to subscribe to the feed or via email).
How has guest blogging worked (or not) for you and your blog? What additional advice or tips would you add to the above?
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How to promote your blog with guest posting, pt. 1
Image credit: AHMED…
