Advantages for the guest blogger:
Here are some of the advantages you may gain if you are a guest on someone else's blog:• Build Backlinks: Guest blogging is regarded by many as one of the easiest and most effective way to build backlinks to your site. Guests to your host's blog will follow your links. An increase in backlinks will increase your ranking on Google, and if they like your site, they may start to visit it regularly.
• Build Your Platform: We hear about this need all the time. Editors often look to see what your platform is like before considering your contract. If they find you as a guest on other blogs as well as your own, this can only help your platform.
• Build Your Brand: By guest posting on your host's site, readers will associate you with that site's niche, and start to search for you when they want to know more on the topic.
• Build your site traffic: Guest blogging is one of the best ways to draw readers to your own site. Chances are your host will advertise your post on Twitter, Facebook,etc, which will also get your name "out there". If readers enjoy your guest post, they may start to follow you on other social media sites as well.
• Build Your Subscribers: As other guests to your host's blog follow your links back to your website or blog, they may well want to sign up to receive your newsletters or follow your RSS feed, so that they do not miss further posts by you.
• Build Your Credibility: As other bloggers read your excellent guest posts, they in turn will want to know more about you, and may also invite you to post on their blogs.
• Build Exposure: This stands to reason, the more blogs where you post original material, the more people will read your work, and the better known your name will become.
• Build Promotion: of book launches, or other products you wish to promote. A condition of your guest blogging should be that you get a bio with clickable links.
• Build Your Social Base: Writing is a lonely occupation, but if you want to be read, you need to make friends in the cyber world. By posting as a guest on other blogs, you start to mix, not only with the hosts of the sites, but also with their readers.
So what are you waiting for? Take a look at the other sites that cover interests similar to you, and see if you can write an article for them - or even share one you have already written on your own blog (provided you don't want them to pay you!)
Before you guest blog:
• Research the blog. Know its goals. Figure out what sort of posts the host wants. Read the last dozen or so blog posts. Get the feel of the site.
• Post original material. By all means quote from some material on your own blog (and don't forget to link back) but your host doesn't want a clone. For Google ranking, the material you post must be original.
• Write your very best. Where obviously your own blog deserves good writing, and everything you post should be well proofed before going public, it is even more important when you're posting on someone else's blog. Send in poorly written material and chances are it won't be posted at all. You certainly won't be invited back. And it won't achieve any of the advantages listed above.
• Send a sample. Rather than querying whether you can do a guest blog for a site, send along a possible post and say, "After researching your blog, I thought you might like to use this on your site?" Or "Would you like me to adapt this for your blog?" That makes it easier for the host to accept it--or reject it if it isn't suitable.
• Comment on possible blogs first. It is a good idea to frequent the blog for a few weeks, and comment on other posts. This way the host already knows your name, and may in fact follow your link back to your website or blog. He or she may then invite you to do a post.
• Promote your blog post.
○ Tweet your post on Twitter - more than once. Remember, the world is ruled by time-zones. A good time for Americans to read your tweet is a bad time for Australians. I promote all my blog posts eight times in all: three times, eight hours apart, the first day; then once a day for five days, each at a different time.
○ Share your post on Facebook, LinkedIn, ShoutOut, and any other social media you are involved in.
OVER TO YOU: What sort of posts could you write or share with other readers of this site? What would prevent you from doing so? Let's talk! Hit comment and leave your thoughts.
SHIRLEY CORDER lives a short walk from the seaside in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with her husband Rob. She is author of Strength Renewed: Meditations for your Journey through Breast Cancer. Shirley is also contributing author to ten other books and has published hundreds of devotions and articles internationally.
Visit Shirley on her website to inspire and encourage writers, or on Rise and Soar, her website for encouraging those on the cancer journey. Follow her on Twitter or "like" her Author's page on Facebook.
