Top 7 tips to Guest Blogging

October 31, 2015 Blogging Guide

Anyone can create a website, but without back links it is unlikely to perform highly in the search engine rankings. Guest blogging is an excellent way of creating useful links back to your website. You can either write your own posts or pay someone else to do the hard work for you. There is nothing wrong with paying a writer to produce content – and plenty of people are happy to do that – but writing your own content is better from a quality control perspective.

The principle behind guest blogging is very simple: you write a post for someone else’s website, which includes a link back to your website, either in the main content or in the bio. The webmaster gets some free content and you end up with a valuable back link to your site. Basically it’s a win-win situation for both parties. So what’s the catch?

The catch is this: it isn’t as easy as you might think to write guest posts. Yes, any reasonably literate person can string a few sentences together and write a coherent piece of text, but guest blogging is more than that.

Follow Instructions

Before you start tapping away on your keyboard, read the blog owners submission guidelines closely. Sounds obvious, but you would be amazed just how many people don’t do this and then wonder why their post is rejected. So if the guidelines say the post has to have a minimum word count and cover specific topics, take note.

Choose the Right Topic

Topic is very important. Ideally you should write on a subject that you are an expert in, since the whole point of guest blogging is to establish your authority in a particular field. Try and be original. This isn’t easy with so much existing content already posted online, but even if the subject you want to write about has been written to death, approach it from a new angle or offer your own insights based on personal experience.

Craft a Suitable Title

A great title is essential. The title of a blog helps the reader to decide whether or not they want to spend five minutes of their life reading it. Think about how newspaper headlines work: they are short, pithy and attention grabbing. This is the kind of title you should aim for. Try a few on for size and see which ones are a good fit for your article. If the title is a good summary of the blog and interesting to boot, you can move on to the next bit: writing the body of the post.

Keywords

A guest blog should contain some solid keywords to help search engines index your post. Do some research before you start writing, so you know exactly which keywords to include in your text. If you can write a post that ranks well for particular keywords, you will see an increase in web traffic back to your website. The site owner will also benefit and will therefore be more receptive to accepting further guest posts.

A Beginning, Middle and Conclusion

A well-written guest post will boost your credibility and help draw new visitors in to your website. If people enjoy reading your post, they will follow the link. If they don’t read past the first paragraph, this isn’t going to happen.

Format your post clearly. It needs to have an introductory paragraph that tells the reader what the blog is about, followed by the main meat of the post. Finally, write a short conclusion summarizing everything you have said, plus any advice you wish to offer.

Formatting Your Post

Web content needs to be formatted correctly. It should also be free from spelling errors and major grammatical howlers. It is a lot harder to read text on a screen, and even more difficult if there are long, unbroken chunks of text. Always break your post up into short paragraphs, divided by sub-headings. Depending on the length of the post, it can also be helpful to insert bullet points to add visual interest. And if the posting guidelines allow, including appropriate images is definitely a great idea.

Slipping Links In

Since the point of writing a guest post is to include a link back to your website, you will be including at least one link in the text. The anchor text you choose is important and there are many different link strategies to choose from. You can link to a key phrase, place the link in naked, or simply anchor it to “click here” or similar. It is a good idea to insert a couple of other links in, so as to mask the main link. However, this will depend on the posting guidelines for the blog.

Writing guest posts can be fun and the more you do it, the easier it will be. But if you can’t think of a single thing to write about, outsource your content requirements to a professional writer instead.