Guest posting has helped me in several ways.
I’m glad I discovered how to use this to my advantage and today, I want to reveal some shocking truths about guest posting.
There are 7 secrets that yields results. By results, I mean targeted traffic, quality backlinks and increase in pagerank.
So, in summary, guest posting helps you to:
- – Get fresh targeted traffic
- – Get quality backlinks easily
- – Improve your Google Pagerank
- – Increase Your RSS Subscribers
- – Build your email list
So, without wasting much time, let’s dive in and unveil these secrets steps. You need to follow them each time you plan on writing a guest post. This is the exact method I use to get my guest post published on A-list blogs.
1. Plan Your Strategy
Image credit: flickr
As simple as this is, you need to give it your utmost priority. Planning your strategy even before you embark on this journey of writing for other blogs, and waiting for the benefits is crucial. Planning helps you to pinpoint quality niche blogs that have huge readership and good placement on Google and other search engines.
When I started, the first thing I did was to research profitable blogs that accept guest post. I found several of them. Some of these blogs won’t get your article publish on time, I suggest you deeper and as you stuy along, I’m going to reveal some shocking goodies to you. Just know that you must plan, failure to do this means you will fail.
2. Research Your Keywords
Effective keyword research ensures your guest post attracts the best quality traffic. You know, the first few days of your content going live, it’s going to yield good results in terms of traffic and visits to your blog, but that’s not enough.
As an entrepreneur who sees tomorrow from today, make sure you write your content having searching engines in your mind.
As more guest posts are accepted, yours would still be sending consistent traffic to your site, because it’s been indexed and ranked on Google Top 10 and other search engines within 30 – 45 days. That’s how to succeed as a guest blogger.
3. Write Down Your Headlines
I see a lot of bloggers give up too soon, because their guest post was rejected. If a blog owner rejects your article, he did so because of your headline most of the time. They don’t have time to go through your entire piece.
They are busy with product creation, jv networking and social media marketing. What they usually do when your guest post gets to them, is to scan the article, read the headline and decide to publish or reject.
In my first month of writing 22 guest posts, 5 were rejected because of the headline and when I re-structured it, 3 were published the subsequent day. I spend a lot of time on my headlines and I advice you to do so.
Even in copywriting, great headline can bring trickles of sales spike. Even though the product is mediocre (not recommended), it would still sell.
So begin with your headline, write it down before writing your content. It makes this journey worthwhile and fun.
4. Pitch Bloggers First
Before you finally crank out those awesome content, it’s great to first pitch the blog owner. Pitching means sending them a brief description of your guest post even before writing.
It makes it a lot easier when you receive positive feedback that your guest post is ideal for their blog. This way, the possibility of rejection from these top bloggers is dim.
If you don’t pitch them, you may get rejected after spending hours writing a guest post you thought would be embraced by bloggers. Spare yourself the hassles, let the owner of the blog know about your title, the description and a little bit about you.
The vital components of a good pitch are:
- – Your full name
- – Your blog address
- – Your guest post headline
- – Guest post description
Off course, make this formal by saluting the recipient with “Dear (his/her name). If you have read their blog posts and commented earlier, let them know. It increases the possibility of acceptance from these bloggers.
5. Write Quality Guest Posts
Every blogger out there who accepts guest post is interested in quality. They are not doing you a favor, it’s a win/win situation and most of the time, they appreciate quality guest posts because it contributes and enhances their blogging experience.
Take for instance, if you submit a guest article to me and my readers loved it, guess what? I’ll not only ask for another post, I would promote you and thank you more.
Don’t write crappy article and expect to be accepted. Guest articles are supposed to be published in an interactive blog where intelligent people meet to talk about a specific topic. The first impression your showcase matters. They don’t even know you before, your content is the only channel for them to meet you and your great blog.
Don’t be in a rush, write your guest posts first and later edit.
6. Proofread Your Content
Don’t make the mistake of proofreading and editing while writing. It’s not done like that. Just write and pour out your heart on paper and ink, thereafter, you can proofread.
The reason why you’re doing this is so you can crank out articles fast. The brain works massively with speed, don’t slow your brain down by halting, pausing and thinking about the last word and sentence you typed.
Even though it makes no sense, don’t be concerned about that right now. After you have finished writing and typing your content, go ahead and proofread. You should proofread so that you can discover grammatical errors, omissions and transpositions.
There is no perfect person on the face of this earth, you need to go through your work again and again until you are satisfied. Erase any sentence that does not portray or relate to the topic in question. Let every single sentence give a single meaning. Don’t be overly promotional on your guest articles, it’s meant to educate, entertain and inform.
7. Write A Long Guest Post
I have been guest posting on several blogs for months, and I know what they want. Long post often get the most likeness. Although, it’s my culture to always write detailed article even on my own blog that you’re reading right now, I have also extended this style to my articles on other blogs.
Bloggers expect you to write a complete article. If you are talking about SEO optimization and how to rank on Google, don’t just talk about backlinks, what about the on-page SEO and quality content. All these makes your work phenomenal and a masterpiece. A minimum of 800 words is ideal if you must be accepted except you were specifically restricted on the word count.
Here’s the thumbnail: There is no way you can explain a topic vividly in 300 – 400 words. There is no need to summarize. Act like a teacher in this scenario and give readers what they long for – quality information. These types of posts get linked.
Google also values longer posts, they believe it’s of high quality since it can’t be utter rubbish and still be that long. Let this be your guide when next you write one.
B4T Marketing Takeaway
They goal of your guest post is to get you the best quality traffic, improve your pagerank and backlinks. That means your resource box has alot of work to accomplish.
In your bio, insert your name, anchor link for your primary keyword and most especially, don’t forget to insert your squeeze page address or RSS feed url. These should be hyperlinked so that you don’t scare readers away with your naughty feedburner address.
Does guest posting drive traffic to your blog? If so, let me know and don’t forget to include any other nugget for successful guest posting. I want to read your success story on the comment box.