Teenius

As I said in my list of ’20 Blogging Lessons I Learnt In 2009’, guest posting is one of the best practises a blogger can have. I know I’ve written an article on the topic before, but firstly that was a long time ago and secondly, this article is rather different.

So, anyway, back to the topic in hand: guest posting. To give you a quick description, a guest post is where you write an article for someone else’s blog, usually in return for exposure (delivered in the form of a link crediting you).

I’ve written quite a few guest posts on various blogs of differing niche and popularity since I started Teenius and I’m now going to share some of the lessons I’ve learnt from these experiences with you. To make it a bit easier to follow this long article, I’ve split it up in to the following eight steps (click on them to skip).

1. Find the right blog
2. Decide on an article topic
3. Contacting the blog owner
4. Writing the article
5. Creating an author bio
6. Get the post published
7. Promote the article
8. Interact with the readers

Well, obviously you’re going to need somewhere to post, and deciding where to do this can be tricky. I can’t tell you exactly where to guest post, but here are a few of the things I look for:

• A site in my niche so that I can connect to people who are interested in my articles.
• A blog which has good traffic, so that I can get more exposure.
• A blog with authority in my niche, so I can leech on some of that authority.
• A good community on the blog, so that I can really connect with quality readers who will join in the discussion on my site, should they visit.
• A site with articles that I enjoy reading, purely because it makes me feel good to see my work amongst other great articles.

However, if that’s not enough for you, you may also look for websites which not only give you credit for writing the article, but also pay you. Usually these are the bigger websites and they expect really high quality stuff, but the reward is big (exposure from popular sites AND the money – up to $300 that I’ve seen!). A couple of blogs I can think of that pay for guest posts (off the top of my head) are Tutorial9.net and the tutsplus network.
Also, something to note… make sure the blog actually accepts guest posts. You can’t just pick a random blog and expect them to publish your stuff!

If you choose to post on a site in your niche, then it shouldn’t be too hard to decide on a topic for your guest post, as you can just imagine you were doing a post on your own blog. However, there are a few things to note:

• Don’t just suggest a topic you rejected for your own blog; as I will talk about later in the article (step four to be precise), you need to pick an interesting topic.
• Check the blog you’re interested in guest posting on before you suggest an idea. If it’s only a couple of weeks since they posted a similar article then not only will you be wasting your and their time, but it also shows that you don’t follow their site (which could make the blog owner not like you, if they’re harsh).
• As I briefly stated earlier, you should try and think of an idea which you’d post on your own blog. This is because if someone reads your guest article and decides to visit your site, the likelihood is that they’re expecting more of the same… so give it to them!

This is the bit that could make or break the whole ‘operation’, as one wrong word could result in you looking very silly, and the blog owner disregarding your guest post application! Here are my top tips for getting a guest post accepted:

• Introduce yourself first. Don’t go on and on, but let the blog owner know your credentials (I usually just say who I am, and that I run Teenius.com).
• Present the article in an easy to understand manner. Explain what the article is about, the main points you’ll explain in it, and any other little details that makes the article special.
• Make sure you re-read your email before sending it! This is the only chance you’ll get at a first impression and if you have spelling mistakes then the blogger may doubt your ability and refuse to talk to you further, which is quite simply a disaster!
• As a general tip, remember that you’re selling something here: the article idea. The stuff you write in this email needs to be persuasive enough to make the blog owner say ‘damn, I want this article on my blog… when can you do it by?!’

I bet you’re getting excited by now: you’ve got your idea approved and now you have to write that article. So, lets get it written up as soon as possible and send it off to the blog owner to post, yes? NO!

The whole idea of a guest post is to reach out to a new audience, so you want to leave them drooling for more content. To do this, you need to write the best article you’ve ever written, dragging them to your website. After all, if I go on a blog and see an awful guest post (uninteresting, useless and a plain old waste of time), I’m hardly likely to visit their blog, am I?

A few more top tips coming up here, this time for actually writing the guest post:

• Imagine that you’re doing a ‘special’ post for your blog. Everyone does one every now and again (infact, this is one!). It’s the sort of article you put extra hours in to, crafting it to try and get it as good as it can be so that people not only enjoy it, but also tweet and link to it! Do this sort of quality for your guest post and it’s bound to be a hit!
• Make a plan, and stick to what you said you were writing about. As someone who publishes guest posts on my blog, I can tell you that there’s nothing more frustrating than receiving a cool email with brilliant ideas, only to find that when the article turns up in my inbox, it’s completely different to what the email said!
• Re-read it. I’m hoping you do that for your articles anyway, but in guest posts it’s even more important to make sure everything is perfect… make sure you have presented the information in an easy to understand way which reflects your personality.

The author bio is the bit at the end of the article (usually) and is a paragraph about you and a place to put your links to reap the rewards of the guest post. However, it’s not as simple as just saying your name and your links… if you want to maximise the traffic you receive, you need to think a bit harder!

For example, if I just put something along the lines of this

I’m Simon and I run Teenius.com, a blog about blogging

Then there’s no real spice to it: nothing to make you want to visit my blog. However, this is a much better example of an author bio:

I’m Simon Rogers, a teenage blogger from the UK who shares blogging tips at Teenius.com. I love to connect with other bloggers, so send me a tweet @teenius, or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to my RSS feed?

Let’s compare the differences, shall we?

• The first is extremely impersonal, whereas the second makes you want to interact with me, which means I get traffic (either directly through the link, or through my Twitter)
• The second has my full name, which is better for branding. I would imagine there are thousands of bloggers named Simon, but a lot less called Simon Rogers!
• The first gives no real option to stay up to date with my articles. The probability is that they’ll visit my blog, read a couple of articles and then (unless they think my articles are totally awesome) leave, never to return. However, the second allows them to keep up to date via the RSS feed AND via Twitter.
• The second is just generally nicer to read. The first seems very in your face and, whilst the second only contains a tiny bit more information, it seems like you’ve gotten to know me slightly, rather than just knowing who I am.
• The second bio also has lots of interactivity, which readers love, whereas the first has none (apart from the link to my homepage). Just asking a simple question (‘why not subscribe to my RSS feed?’) and saying you love to connect makes you sound much more appealing!

This one is out of your hands, as all you need to do is send the completed post and author bio in, then just wait for the article to be posted! There’s not really much more to it, but a problem may arise if the blow owner rejects your post.

It’s OK, don’t worry… it happens.

In this case, it’s best to just stay calm, take the advice of the blog owner (I’ve never experienced a blogger to reject a guest post without saying why) and correct the article. Once that’s done, send the article back and hope for better luck this time!

I know what you may be thinking: ‘why would I send traffic to someone else’s blog?!’. If you’re asking this, don’t worry, I thought the same thing once, but here’s my reasoning for promoting the article:

• It drives more traffic to the post, which means more people see your link.
• Again, more traffic, but this time slightly different. If people see the quality article, then they’re likely to link back to the page, thus increasing the quality of the backlink you receive in your author bio.
• Promoting the post also makes relations between you and the blog owner better, which is never a bad thing!
• It lets the blog owner know that you appreciate the opportunity to guest post.
• If the post has loads of traffic, the blog owner might ask you back to do more posts, as they clearly perform well on their website!

In the past, I’ve spoken about the importance of thanking your commentators by replying to their comments, and the same thing applies to guest posts. Not only is a good habit to get in to, but (as I talked about in the author bio section) it also makes you more approachable as you’re more ‘down to earth’.

As well as this, it also has traffic benefits. If you reply to comments, then people see your link again. If they missed it the first time, here’s your chance to make sure they don’t miss it again by filling up the comments section with it (and, no, I’m not talking about spamming – the “quality commenting” rule still applies!)

Get Guest Posting!

Hopefully this article has given you some tips to improve your guest posts so that you can get maximum traffic from your guest posts and find new readers from all over the blogosphere!

I’d love to hear how your guest posting goes and also your comments on this article, so please feel free to submit your thoughts in the form below! Also, it’d be appreciated if you shared this article with your friends by clicking the ‘retweet’ button at the top of the page!