Is Guest Blogging Right For Your Marketing Strategy?
By Andrew Patricio
May 25, 2016
Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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By the small business content developers at BizLaunch.com.
If you’re just looking to increase your site traffic, you could just buy ads through search engines or social media websites. The problem is that traffic doesn’t always translate into building brand awareness, robust sales, or audience growth, so if your marketing strategy does place importance on building your brand or reputation, expanding your audience, and generating sales leads, then your goals must be bigger than just increasing traffic alone. There are many methods and practices for for achieving these goals, but one that may be often overlooked because of the effort involved is guest blogging.
Why Write a Guest Blog?
If you’ve ever seen a blog post written by your favorite blogger posted on a website owned by someone else, you’ve already seen the power of guest blogging collaboration. In essence, you create a connection with a website that aligns with your target market or focuses on your field and create custom content that they publish under your byline on their website. Many apparel or accessories companies use this tactic when they hire fashion bloggers to post on their website’s blog. The blogger brings their audience and the brand gains some additional cachet by being connected with a dynamic fashion influencer.
While some guest blogging is sponsored or hired, most undiscovered guest bloggers have other motivating factors like brand building or networking. In this instance, a guest writer brings her fresh, innovating, and interesting content as well as solid promotional skills and in return builds a connection with a larger audience, develops an association with a leading specialist in the field, and establishes a reputation as an expert.
How To Do Guest Blogging Right
The challenges of guest blogging are many and in an effort to do it right quick, many writers make awful blunders along the way. Here are six ways to einsure that you are getting the most out of guest blogging:
You might think that you can just query a search engine, find some relevant blogs, and move on to the next step, however you must do your due diligence. Read multiple posts on the targeted blog, review the social media pages affiliated with the website, survey the bios of other contributors, use a web traffic analyzer to make sure that the intended website’s audience aligns with your own target market, and scout out how the blog or website prefers you to submit your work.
Since this may be your initial contact with the blog owner or manager, you must put your best foot forward. If you’ve previously contributed through comments, you can use those to talk about how much you enjoy the website. If not, you can write about your favorite posts or something you’ve learned through reading the site. Introduce yourself, provide links to previous work or your blog, and advise how exactly you’d like to provide content for the website. Your summary should be brief, but also include a short description of how the content will produce benefit for their audience. Avoid any hint of canned or boilerplate text.
Once your pitch is accepted, you must write a post that is charming, educational, and innovative. Your prose should be clear and engaging and your content must include information that provides quantifiable value for the website. Ideally the website to which you submit will provide some editing or feedback on your submission, so that you know how you’ve succeeded and where you might need more work.
In many cases, the website will request this information when you submit. Use an image that is professional and complimentary and that you won’t mind customers and clients seeing for years to come. Most reputable websites will remove links to your own website within the body of the post, but will allow you to include one in your bio. Include to links to your social media profiles too, where appropriate.
Work hard to provide supplemental promotion for your guest blog post. Share it on social media, send out a link in your newsletter, and promote it on your own website. While you may think that the the post’s popularity is out of your hands, your promotional efforts will be appreciated by the website team. That energy and effort may prompt another invitation to guest post in the near future or prove to another website that you’re the right match for an offer to guest blog.
Don’t post and ghost. Stick around to answer questions or provide feedback on comments left on your guest post. You can stimulate a robust discussion if you hang around and nurture conversation. This will also encourage readers to click over and check out your website, expanding your audience in the process.
If you’re just looking to increase your site traffic, you could just buy ads through search engines or social media websites. The problem is that traffic doesn’t always translate into building brand awareness, robust sales, or audience growth, so if your marketing strategy does place importance on building your brand or reputation, expanding your audience, and generating sales leads, then your goals must be bigger than just increasing traffic alone. There are many methods and practices for for achieving these goals, but one that may be often overlooked because of the effort involved is guest blogging.
Why Write a Guest Blog?
If you’ve ever seen a blog post written by your favorite blogger posted on a website owned by someone else, you’ve already seen the power of guest blogging collaboration. In essence, you create a connection with a website that aligns with your target market or focuses on your field and create custom content that they publish under your byline on their website. Many apparel or accessories companies use this tactic when they hire fashion bloggers to post on their website’s blog. The blogger brings their audience and the brand gains some additional cachet by being connected with a dynamic fashion influencer.
While some guest blogging is sponsored or hired, most undiscovered guest bloggers have other motivating factors like brand building or networking. In this instance, a guest writer brings her fresh, innovating, and interesting content as well as solid promotional skills and in return builds a connection with a larger audience, develops an association with a leading specialist in the field, and establishes a reputation as an expert.
How To Do Guest Blogging Right
The challenges of guest blogging are many and in an effort to do it right quick, many writers make awful blunders along the way. Here are six ways to einsure that you are getting the most out of guest blogging:
- Do your research.
You might think that you can just query a search engine, find some relevant blogs, and move on to the next step, however you must do your due diligence. Read multiple posts on the targeted blog, review the social media pages affiliated with the website, survey the bios of other contributors, use a web traffic analyzer to make sure that the intended website’s audience aligns with your own target market, and scout out how the blog or website prefers you to submit your work.
- Send a query email.
Since this may be your initial contact with the blog owner or manager, you must put your best foot forward. If you’ve previously contributed through comments, you can use those to talk about how much you enjoy the website. If not, you can write about your favorite posts or something you’ve learned through reading the site. Introduce yourself, provide links to previous work or your blog, and advise how exactly you’d like to provide content for the website. Your summary should be brief, but also include a short description of how the content will produce benefit for their audience. Avoid any hint of canned or boilerplate text.
- Write the best post of your life.
Once your pitch is accepted, you must write a post that is charming, educational, and innovative. Your prose should be clear and engaging and your content must include information that provides quantifiable value for the website. Ideally the website to which you submit will provide some editing or feedback on your submission, so that you know how you’ve succeeded and where you might need more work.
- Include a bio and photo.
In many cases, the website will request this information when you submit. Use an image that is professional and complimentary and that you won’t mind customers and clients seeing for years to come. Most reputable websites will remove links to your own website within the body of the post, but will allow you to include one in your bio. Include to links to your social media profiles too, where appropriate.
- Promote your guest post.
Work hard to provide supplemental promotion for your guest blog post. Share it on social media, send out a link in your newsletter, and promote it on your own website. While you may think that the the post’s popularity is out of your hands, your promotional efforts will be appreciated by the website team. That energy and effort may prompt another invitation to guest post in the near future or prove to another website that you’re the right match for an offer to guest blog.
- Interact with audience members.
Don’t post and ghost. Stick around to answer questions or provide feedback on comments left on your guest post. You can stimulate a robust discussion if you hang around and nurture conversation. This will also encourage readers to click over and check out your website, expanding your audience in the process.