Want to Try Guest Blogging? Here’s How

Guest blogging is a great way to grow your voice and make life-long friends along the way! 

Ok, maybe not life-long friends. But more likely, you can build a solid base of valuable partnerships along the way.  

Guest blogging can be a foot-in-the-door practice that opens your message up to tons of interested ears and eyes. Not only does it grow your reach, but when done correctly, you can hit a strong bullseye in growing your overall reach, engagements, and conversions. 

Download our checklist of 30+ ways to promote content here.

What can guest blogging do for you? 

• Guest blogging can help circulate your content and get it in front of audiences with relevant interests  
• Guest blogging earns valuable backlinks that can improve your search engine standing for important keywords  
• Guest blogging creates a new channel for sharing content that people can engage with

So if you have an itch to write but want a new way to publish, guest blogging is a great strategy. There are several ways to maximize your success with guest blogging – from the investigation to the delivery, to the execution. So, let’s dive in on some guest blogging tips!  

Decide on your goal 

Deciding on your goal will help you tailor your strategy. Some common guest blogging goals include: 

• Improving a ranking for a specific key term 
• Reaching a niche portion of a target audience 
• Creating a lasting and strategic partnership to boost content strategy long-term  

You tend to take different roads to reach different goals, so taking the time to understand exactly why you want to undertake and leverage this strategy is important to consider off the bat.  

Find the right relationships 

Sometimes, the best place to start is with the information you already have. You are the expert of your industry, so you may already have a shortlist going for guest-blogging opportunities.  

Do an inventory of your professional network to see what direct outreach opportunities may be available. However, just because someone may be willing to host a blog post doesn’t mean that it will necessarily be valuable: 

• Symbiotic relationships tend to be the most beneficial, by the very nature that they support and help both parties. If only one partner is benefitting, chances are it won’t be permanent.  
• Choosing the right size of company, organization, or personal following will also help you narrow down your list.  
• Monitor your list’s digital activity and only reach out to those consistently active on digital platforms – there’s no point to try to work with a partner that doesn’t blog or post on social regularly. There’s less of a chance for increased reach and traffic if they aren’t communicating with their audience. 
• Work with organizations and companies that stir a good amount of engagement with their content.  
• Look for easy wins. Starting with personal relationships and close networking partners is the easiest jumping point with guest-blogging, as there tends to be much less convincing involved. 

Start an investigation for new opportunities 

If you have already gone through your direct opportunities or didn’t have them in the first place, a little bit of investigation will help you cultivate some promising opportunities.  

As with any investigation, the best place to start is a good ol’ Google search. That may seem like an over-generic task to take on, but by using specific keywords, you can find relevant publications that have been open to guest blogging in the past. Using search terms like “ guest blog by” can help you find recent guest blog posts in your industry – which will identify the blog pages accepting guest blogs in your industry.  

The next place you can start a search is on Twitter. Twitter is an easy place to search for organizations that accept guest bloggers because it is the easiest place to promote blog content. Checking relevant hashtags plus #Guestblog or #Guestpost to narrow it down.  

Prepare a guest blogging pitch 

Once you have your list of viable candidates, it’s time to perfect your pitch to maximize your chances of creating a new partnership.  

Always reach out to a specific person. No “to whom it may concern” or simply “Hi”. Taking that extra step to find the person you need to work with is that good first impression that is the difference between a response and having your email thrown into the junk file. 

Do your due diligence before reaching out. Always find something specific within their strategy, past posts, or digital presence to compliment or comment on. That will separate your outreach from any boilerplate outreach that is so much easier to send.  

Follow the rules of each road. If you’re reaching out to publications that commonly post guest blog posts, chances are they have a preferred format for outreach. Understand whether the organization wants you to come up with the idea, offer an outline, or even submit a finished draft. If you reach out with less than they are expecting, they will skip over you for someone who completed the application.  

For more tips on writing a pitch, check out this blog! 

Write a successful guest blog post 

Chances are you won’t have free reign over what you’ll be able to cover in your blog post, but you can tailor your strategy to best support your goals.  

Make sure to promote the guest blog on your platforms so your audience sees the blog post, as well as your guest post partner’s platforms. That way the individuals that are already interested in your content see the post too. 

Another important thing to do is to reply to any comments, reactions, and shares that your guest blog post generates. That way you boost engagement and connect with the new potential supporters that were interested in what you had to say.  

While yes, it’s time-consuming, finding guest-blogging opportunities is a low-risk-high-reward practice. By creating consistent and modern guest-blogging tactics, you can minimize your rejections and find the ‘golden nugget’ guest blogs that can grow your business for years. If you need help creating your guest blogging strategy, reach out to our team!