Guest posting is a good way to get your blog and your skills noticed, but it’s even better if you can land a regular, paid blogging gig. Not everyone pays for guest posts, of course, but many do. Here are some techniques for attracting their attention and making sure you get past that first post.
Let Them Know You’re Available
No-one’s going to hire you as a blogger unless they know this is something that you do. Include the fact that you blog, guest blog or ghost blog on your LinkedIn profile, Twitter and Facebook pages, forum signature, portfolio site and blog. Better yet, include a call to action (hire me to blog for you) at the end of your best and most trafficked posts.
Give A Little
Go to all the blogs you read where you think you can make a contribution and offer to write a guest post for them. Before you make the approach, check the blogs to see what’s likely to appeal to readers or show off your blogging expertise – or hopefully both. At this point, you’re not looking for payment, but trying to build a profile. As long as the post has a byline or a link to your site, you will get some benefit from it. Craft your bio to include the fact that you’re a professional blogger and make it link to somewhere where people can find out more and contact you.
Follow The Guidelines
Once someone agrees to publish a post, do your best work. Although it’s always tempting to save the best for our own blogs, publishing to a new audience will bring more benefit in the long run. When the post is written, proofread it forwards, backwards and sideways to make sure there are no errors before sending it in. Look for a suitable image to accompany the post so that you can save the blog owner the trouble.
Promote Like Crazy
When the post is published, let everyone in all you networks know about it. Of course, you don’t want to spam anyone, but you do want to show that you can put some promotional muscle behind any post you publish. If you bring in a few new readers the blog owner will be happy and may well ask you to post again.
Be Responsive
It’s a (sometimes) unwritten rule that you should reply to comments on your posts. This is your chance to show even more of your personality and to make another favorable impression on the blog owner. Make your responses quick and interesting and you will earn some kudos.
Rinse And Repeat
Repeat this on as many influential blogs as you can manage in the niche you want to target. I know that this works because I’ve done it myself. I started my first blog in 2005. For the first few months, I concentrated on learning how to blog as it was different from the journalism I’d been used to. In 2006, I started doing occasional guest posts. Those landed me four paid blogging gigs between 2006 and 2007, and I’ve added a few more in the last couple of years. Dozens of bloggers have started like this before moving on to more permanent, paid blogging gigs. You can too.
(Photo:http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnnyvulkan/381941233/)
Fully agree with you Sharon, in my case I was approach by your name sake with a very humorous guest post for my travel blog. This was very refreshing an angle from the normal topics published on the blog and I was thrilled to publish hers. She sent through a second instalment which was equally funny though still driving the point home. I was blown away by her writing style and ended up getting her to do a regular weekly paid gig for a few months.
Nice tips. I don't ever try any guest post yet because I want to focus on my blog first. But, I believe guest post can be one of a good way to build community or gain more traffic from other high page rank blog. Thanks for showing the way how to do it.