Guest post writing is an excellent way to announce yourself as a writer, promote your brand and gain traffic on your web resource. This type of strategy is widely used by almost every marketer on the world of web.
Especially, it is vitally important for newbies marketers who have just started their long full of drawbacks way in the internet.
Nobody says that guest posting is an easy process! It requires, first of all, your writing skills. If you have never ever had a chance to write some piece of content before (let’s say a simple composition), thus, it is gonna be harder for you to deal with it. However, even if you are a skillful writer (in a real but not a web life), you might have apprehended some other skills still useful for you .
These additional skills will help you become not only a professional blogger but a talented marketer as well.
What skill am I talking about?
Ah, I believe you already guessed what I mean!
Yes, a very few but basic skills, such as interconnection, intercommunication, promoting, and credibility.
That’s why I thought it would be great to share with you 8 steps that will help you successfully publish posts on various blogs and never be out of your “guest post schedule”.
Let’s begin.
SIDENOTE: if you want to know how to do a keyword research in this year, you should check out this marvelous guide.
Come up with an Idea First:
Yeah, you must find a few ideas to write a fresh outstanding article first. Why I said “a few”? Because you can never know how a particular topic will be covered by you during the actual writing process – whether you will be able to explore the topic or not. I, personally, had an experience of such confusion. Once I decided to write a post on “A” topic but after a few passages I understood – a topic “B” is the one I could cover for that day. There are lots of facts that might play a crucial role in your “writing mood”.
If you still have some problems in finding a brand new topic, you can use additional ways to resolve this problem. Here is a “golden four” I mainly use by myself:
- Quora
- BuzzSumo
- Skyscraper technique
- Ahrefs Content Explorer
- Popular blogs
Quora:
I believe you know what Quora the place is. Yes, here you can ask whatever you want and people will give you the answers to this questions. Works pretty easy. You just have to make an inquiry of an approximate topic and Quora will reveal you what people are concerned with:Let’s see what how could you benefit from these questions based on your inquiry. The first question is “What are the trustworthy online services for blogger outreach?”. This question you could transform into the topic “The List of Online Services for Blogger Outreach You Should Use” and write an article in the form of “list” (must say “list” articles are always in-demand). The next question is “What is link outreach?” – here you could write the whole detailed guide on link outreach. And the last one question over here is “How do I promote a blog post using blogger outreach?”. Well, as you can see the question is, actually, a prepared topic for the article (with some slight changes) – “How to Promote a Blog Post Using Blogger Outreach”.
Three questions and three topics to be covered by you. Cool, right?
BuzzSumo:
This service also fits great for finding blog post ideas. Put a keyword related to your niche and BuzzSumo will reveal you content that you might use for your own ends. For example, let’s put “blogger outreach” keyword and see what BuzzSumo suggests us for the last month (you can filter the date):
You can observe the most popular content on social media and choose whatever you want creating your own material. For example, “Blogger Outreach Done Right: the Complete Guide to Have Your Articles Published” you can turn into “Complete Guide on How to Publish Articles on Blogs”, etc.
BuzzSumo is a great service for finding new ideas as well!
Skyscraper Technique:
I am sure you know skyscrapere technique was popularized by Brian Dean back in days. There is no need to find new ideas; you just need to find an article that has lots of shares, retweets, backlinks, etc. It doesn’t matter how old this piece of content is; the matter is – it is still popular. After adding some new insights in this article, you should get in touch with those who liked it before and present them your version of the post. That’s all.
Ahrefs Content Explorer:
Ahrefs content explorer another one awesome way of searching guest post ideas. The same as with BuzzSumo, you will have to make an inquiry with a keyword you are interested in and Content Explorer will present you all the material where this keyword has appeared:
Again, choose the topic you liked and create your own one, for instance“Blogger Outreach: How to Build Relationships With Bloggers” might be paraphrased into “A Step-By-Step Guide on How to Build Relationships with Bloggers” or “5 Tips for Developing Better Blogger Outreach” you could add a few more tips and write something like “10 Tips for Developing Better Blogger Outreach”. Isn’t it easy, right?
Popular Blogs:
This approach is the easiest one. You should know a few the most famous blogs in your niche and see what people post there. Please, pay attention to those articles (topics) that have the largest amount of comments, shares, and likes. These ones are your target number one!
Let’s presume you are an internet marketer and you want to write an article on internet marketing consequently. Firstly, let me specify one nuance – internet marketing is an “umbrella term”, that’s why you should get down to the nitty-gritty. Well, considering all possible “hypostasis” of internet marketing, you could stop, for example, on content marketing. Thus, you might set yourself an aim to find the most popular blogs in this niche. It goes without saying, you will ask Google first:)
Google suggests a list of the most well-known content marketing blogs you can discover on your own. However, I want to show you of what you should stick to searching ideas on the blogs. I know for sure that copyblogger is one of the coolest blogs on content marketing. Here we are looking for an article that has dozens of comments:
274 comments – it is rather a good sign to consider the topic of this post. Moreover, I strongly recommend you to skim through the comments! Believe or not, there you can find some useful information, tips and pieces of advice you could easily apply in your own material.
To sum up, following these opportunities of finding ideas for future posts, you won’t have any lack of ideas at all!
1. Check out Other Articles on the Same Topic
It is pretty good when you are able to write a post without any references to the third-party resources. It is a huge plus to you. But if you need some additional knowledge other writers already possess, there is nothing “criminal” if you choose a few articles on the same topic and base your piece of content on it.
I, personally, never neglect of discovering other articles before I start to write my own one. And it would be an honour for me if other writers could find something useful in my works as well.
2. Draft a Plan of the Future Article
Yeah, it seems writing a post without any plan is a kind of a donkey act. Sure, if your inspiration is able to make a miracle, you will create a masterpiece…that happens too rare. Unfortunately. Drafting a plan is a very helpful thing. It allows you to never miss away writing an article.
Here are a few basic reasons you should prepare a plan first:
- Save 25% of time you will spend on writing the material
- It helps you make the text connected and readable
- The article without a plan could miss one of the component parts of the text
Must say, drafting a plan takes about 10 minutes but it saves really lots of time during the process of writing. It is up to you whether to prepare the plan or not but I encourage you to do it.
3. Guest Post Opportunities – Where to Find Them
Before I start explaining how to find these opportunities, I would like to give you a warning first. Never start your writing until you make a deal with a blogger you want to publish your material! You might ask: “Is it really matter what to do first?” Fair question! You see, when you already dealt with the blogger about reviewing your article, this blogger is almost on the hook and he or she won’t turn you down. In the case you have some doubts about whether a particular blogger will publish your article or not, you should send your ‘Guest Post Inquiry’ a few other bloggers. Thus, you will always have a plan B.
So, where you should find guest post opportunities?
Google:
Yeah, the first thing that jumps to mind is Google. And there is nothing hard in finding blogs via Google! Just use the following inquiries, as:
- Keyword + “write for us”
- Keyword + “submit a guest post”
- Etc.
Twitter:
Love this method! I use it all the time. It works very simply as well. Use the same scheme of putting inquiries as I have shown you of how to do this in Google.
Twitter suggests you the tweets where blogs with “write for us” opportunity revealed.
I am sure using these two ways of searching guest post opportunities you will always find a suitable to submit your article.
4. Take Care Of “Guest Post” Inquiry
This step, perhaps, the most important one. You must get in touch with bloggers and try to spark their interest to review and, afterwards, publish your post. And here is the main cornerstone that might force you to fail.
Likely, there are no hurdles that you can’t surmount, right?
First of all, you should examine the blog you’re willing to get your article published. Pay attention to:
- What topics blog accepts
- Structure of the posts
- How many comments, shares, retweets a particular article has
- Guest post guideline
Once you discovered this information about the blog, it is time to send your guest post inquiry. But never send your article in the very first message. Don’t rush! Check out until the blogger replies you. Following this way, you will be able to find out blogger’s preferences and expectations from your piece of content. The first message should look like:
Hello [name]
I saw you’re accepting guest posts on your blog, so I thought I have a great guest post idea:
“10 Ways On How To Build Backlinks Via Email Outreach”
This article will introduce you 10 basic ways on how to earn backlinks using email outreach.
How does it sound for you?
All the best,
Aliokhin Sergey
Outreach Manager at @Ahrefs
This is a rough example of the email template you should use during guest post inquiry. However, I think you’ve got a clue:)
When you get a reply, you can freely send your post on reviewing. The blogger has got in touch with you and has taken his interest in your material. It means you will have more chances that your article will be approved.
5. Write, Check, and Correct
If you have already dealt with a blogger to publish your material on his or her blog but the article isn’t written yet – it is time to take care of it. I agree, writing a post is a very time-consuming and a tedious process. Likely, there is a bunch of services that will make your writing easier. Let me introduce you a few of them (I personally use):
- Grammarly. It helps you find and fix all grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
- Titlecapitalization. Capitalize titles in a right way.
- Hemingway Editor. Want to see your piece of content as readable as possible, use this service.
- Polish My Writing. Check your lexical, stylistic, and grammar mistakes.
Believe or not but it is enough to create awesome high-quality content using the tools I have just listed out. The rest depends on you:)
6. Sort out Your Priorities – Choose the Better Blog
I remember the time when I tried to publish my very first article. Truly to be spoken, I didn’t care about where to publish it, whom to offer it…My primary goal was to get it publish for all costs. When I became a more experienced writer, I started to choose between blogs.
I am sure you, as an author, does the same – you want to offer your masterpieces to those blogs that have a high Domain Rating (DR) and a good level of Organic Traffic it has. That’s why I suggest you verify every blog you find via Ahrefs Site Explorer tool. It reveals you what DR and Organic Traffic a particular website has. Here are two examples to compare:
Website “A”
As you can see, this website has DR 43 and Organic Traffic 76 (that is not cool).
Website “B”
This one has DR 58 and Organic Traffic 33K (that is rather solid).
It goes without saying, to prioritize – I would choose Website “B” because of there are more chances my article be reviewed by a larger group of users.
That’s why being a skillful writer you must always beat about the bush in terms of choosing a blog for publishing your material.
7. Be Able to Say “NO” but Never Forget to Offer Something in Return
I bet you’re a bit confused with the name of this chapter! No worries, I will explain what I mean. When you have a few bloggers that want to publish your article, you must opt for one of them. Yeah, sometimes this dilemma can bring unforeseen consequences. Nevertheless, I encourage you to think twice before giving a flat refusal.
Let’s presume, you have already given preference to a particular blog. The other one you offered you article didn’t satisfy your requirements. However, the owner of this blog is still waiting for your awesome piece of content. I am sure you will agree with me that it would be an ill act to ignore this blogger at all. Thus, try to offer him or her something valuable instead.
In such cases, I recommend you just to offer these “declined” bloggers your follow up article. Doing so you show your attitude towards the blogger, your willingness to submit a post on his or her blog, your desire to continue the cooperation. Believe or not but this approach will reveal you as a well-brought-up person and a real professional. Here is an example of how I do this:
Thus, never miss the opportunities you have reached out before.
Conclusion
To sum up, I want only to say that your success in guest posting depends on your own attitude to it. Never miss the opportunities you have stumbled upon! Never neglect of doing a countercheck of the material you want to offer bloggers! Never be lazy and in a bad mood!
Follow these 8 steps I suggested you in this post and you will see that guest posting is an interesting and valuable way of sharing your knowledge in the world of web.
Don’t forget to comment and share. I will appreciate it:)