Publishing a guest post on another blog is a great way to bring more traffic and gain actual readers to your blog. It not only establishes your presence online, but creates valuable SEO for your blog. These tips will bring you hits, obviously, but interested readers that want to follow your blog.
– Write a post with the blogger's audience in mind. Bloggers don't often think about writing posts for a different audience when they guest post for another site. Take note of who their audience is and study what subjects they focus on. Notice how the author uses images and wording. Read what they write to get an idea of what you want to talk about. It doesn't have to be the same thing, obviously, but you want to make it relatable.
– Write your post in HTML. This is HUGE. Write your post in HTML then send it via HTML to the person or company you're working with. I can't tell you the number of times people send me things in Microsoft Word and it makes me want to pull my hair out. Especially with blogger, this messes up the coding and can actually hurt your blog. I learned this the hard way.
Need help with HTML? Check out HTML tips Every Blogger Needs to Know
– Write with purpose. What I mean by this is to give the readers of the guest post a reason to visit your blog. Will they find tips, a laugh, a similar struggle, or did you overcome something they can relate to? Make sure to direct them to that page, not just your homepage. This will help establish your credibility and help new readers identify with you.
– Make sure you publish something interesting that day. When those new readers are coming to your blog's homepage and you have a month old post or a post that sucks, they'll quickly click out of your site. Just like you need to write interesting content for the post, you need to make sure to keep others interested by writing compelling content on your own blog.
– Consider the keywords you link to. Like I mentioned above, writing guest posts is a great tool for SEO and building your brand/blog online. Including relevant links to your blog post is great, but link to the right thing. Don't link the words “this post”, instead link something descriptive, for example, “The Best Time to post to Instagram.” Saying it like this helps with your Google ranking.
– Edit your post. I know you're thinking, “uhh duh.” But it has to be said. We all have errors on our blogs from time to time. But it's so obvious and such a big turn off for a reader when you're guest posting. (Make sure you're including high quality images too.)
Need more SEO help? Check out my quick guide on SEO for Bloggers.
– Share the post. If you're proud of what you've written it shouldn't be a problem for you to want to tweet it, facebook it, etc. This helps encourage others to see another side of your writing and give you credibility on the site. Plus, the blogger you are guest posting on will probably share about your post MORE since they feel you are proud of it.
What are your tips for writing a great guest post? Any blogs that you love guest posting on?
P.S. Want to guest post for me? Check out my options.
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