Should I do it? Does it work? What are best practices?
When trying to build some authority or get links from bigger websites, a lot of people will try guest blogging.
This is where you write blog posts for someone else’s website, in hopes they link your website, giving you a little more credibility.
Guest blogging takes some work, but I’ve had a lot of success with it, scoring links from gigantic websites all over the internet, and making some good connections in the process:
Here’s some of my tips that help you stand out amongst other potential guest bloggers:
#1.) Don’t give someone an “assignment” and more work. Take work AWAY from them.
A lot of guest bloggers become HUGE headaches for editors because they require a million little things from them, like this:
Hey Mr. BigWebsiteEditor,
I want to write a blog post for you, for free!
Can you please send me the following:
Thanks!
The editor of a big site is generally trying to offload work by getting guest bloggers, not do MORE work!
So you must make yourself useful, and help them look good…not create 10 more headaches for them.
#2.) Have some existing content ready to show them.
I personally get approached by guest bloggers all the time, and they are eager and willing to do free work, but I have no idea what they write like!
They are eager to write, but then don’t provide any examples.
I want to write for you so bad!!! Send me something to write!!
Sincerely,
Guest Blogger Person
If I see something like this, I have no idea what this person is capable of writing. More than likely it’s going to be a major pain in the butt to deal with this person going back-n-forth on email, so the common path is to just not reply.
But we can get around this by doing this crucial step:
#3.) Make a shareable document you can show editors, like this:
Checkout this template I’ve used very successfully (as well as others) that’s a simple Google Doc you can share with an editor, and give them an idea of your work:
Doc link here.
This document will contain:
✅ 3 to 5 sample articles. They can be partial articles.
✅ Your contact information.
That’s it. You don’t need much more.
By sending a document like this, they can take their pick of article from you, and they also know you’re a serious writer.
This process has got me links from huge sites like HubSpot and Business Insider.
Also by having a doc like this, the editors will often want SEVERAL articles from the doc!
Pro Tip: You can often just re-hash posts you’ve already written in the past in this doc. Then when you write the new post, just change it up a bit so it’s not exact duplicate content.
I hope this helps you understand guest blogging a bit better!
Sincerely,
Neville Medhora
P.S. Feel free to ask questions below 🙂
This content was originally published here.