Guest Blogging

/ Sheila McIntrye Good, Author

 Day 7: 

Have you considered guest blogging but don’t know where to begin? The first step is to determine what you want to accomplish.

What is your goal?

  1. Do you have expertise in an area and want to share it?
  2. Do you want to create more traffic to your blog or increase followers?
  3. Want to see an increase in backlinks to your content?
  4. Or, establish yourself as an authority?

Where to Find Guest Blogging Opportunities:

Once you know your motivations, it’s time to find the opportunities, and there are many.

  1. Begin with a simple keyword search for “guest post” on Google, Twitter, or preferred search engine.
  2. Utilize the connections you’ve already established – favorite blogs or other social networking sites.
  3. Look for blogs that best match your area of interest or expertise, have engaged readers, and is active on social networks.
  4. Check out sites like Contently, Huffington Post, or Angie’s Diary.

Things to do before pitching a guest post:

  1. Familiarize yourself with the blog; it’s content and readership.
  2. Have guest posts been featured before?
  3. Who were the guest bloggers? Authors? Other bloggers? Freelancers? Read their bios and get to know them.
  4. How did the guest post do? Was there a lot of reader engagement?
  5. Become a familiar face in the blogging community.

When to pitch:

  1. When someone mentions your blog on, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Google.
  2. When a blogger advertises, they are seeking guest posts.
  3. When a guest post is featured on another blog.

How to Pitch:

  1. Read the guidelines.
  2. Introduce yourself. Craft a guest post bio and include links back to your blog or author websites that show your work.
  3. As with any pitch, personalize your email.
  4. Explain what you can offer in a guest post.
  5. Provide links to your blog and other sites on which you have published.
  6. Format your guest post the same as the site in which you are submitting.
  7. Provide valuable and relatable information.
  8. Do not self-promote except within the author bio.
  9. Utilize internal links to some of the owner’s posts.
  10. Create a call to action for comments.

Want to know more about guest blogging? Check out these resources.

 Guest Blogging Opportunities:

Does guest blogging interest you? Have you been a featured guest blogger in the past?

I’d love to hear your comments. Talk to me. Tell me your story and look for me on Facebook at SheilaMGood,  Pinterest,  Bloglovin, Twitter@sheilagood, and Contently.

 

32 thoughts on “Guest Blogging”

  3. I’ve done a guest blog before. It was interesting, but there is a lot more that goes into it than just writing. You definitely cover a lot of that extra stuff i would have liked to have known before I did mine.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. This is a topic I’ve always wondered about, but I didn’t really know who to ask. I see guest posts everytime I turn around. I guess I never felt comfortable asking anyone about it. I’ve bookmarked it for later. Since I’m not yet published, I thought I didn’t have anything to offer as a guest author. But, after reading your article I’ve been rethinking that. I could offer other crime fiction authors and mystery, suspense, and thriller authors tidbits on the legal system, courtroom tips, police and courtroom procedure, forensics, weapons, crime lab info, evidence and chain of custody and a host of other information that pertains to crimes and the law. I never really thought of what I could offer unrelated to the craft of writing , editing, revising, querying, publishing etc. Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge once again.

    Melissa Sugar
    http://melissasugarwrites.com

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Melissa, I think all of those things are excellent subjects to share, I know I would be interested in reading them. In fact, you might be able to give me some tips on a short story, I’d like to expand into novel, after we get through this challenge. Thanks again for stopping by.

      Like

      Reply

  12. This is such a great post! I was wondering how to go about becoming a guest blogger. I want to feature guest bloggers on my own blog at some point as well. Excellent resources! I will be bookmarking this one for later 🙂

    Julianne
    Ink & Stitches – http://blog.jhwinter.com

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

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