Guest blogging is an amazing way to get traffic, grow your email list, and increase your search engine rankings.
Attracting a relevant audience has become more difficult now that everyone and their dog have a blog. But by blogging on a site that already has your target audience, you can quickly reap the benefits of that site’s hard work.
Guest blogging earns you backlinks – one of the most important factors in Google’s ranking algorithm because you can link back to your site – and instantly puts you in front of an existing audience.
Sometimes it’s nice to start and post a few guest posts on small but relevant sites. But, if you really want to make great strides, eventually you need to get to a top site, and it’s not as hard as you might think if you know the steps.
Getting published on big sites can work wonders both in the short and long term. I watched it with my own blog when I was published on sites like Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, and The Next Web.
There is a simple process that I used to get published on these sites and several others. Here is what worked for me:
1. Create a prospect list
To get good returns with guest blogging, you need to go to where a lot of your target audiences are, and to get your content to those audiences, you need to go to sites that publish content like the your. Below are some strategies you can use to determine which sites are likely to provide the best results.
First, you need to ask yourself, “Who are my potential customers?” You can’t decide how to target your guest post unless you know who you’re trying to reach.
Next, you need to think about where your potential customers are. What sites do they visit frequently? What blogs do they read?
Find it by conducting customer development interviews, googling words and phrases your customers are likely to use, and conducting research with audience intelligence tools like analytics.twitter.com.
Finally, you need to make sure that these sites accept guest posts. If they don’t have a page for guest submissions (see #6 for how to find them), browse their archives and see if there have been any guest posts posted.
The key elements are:
- Make a clear request at the beginning and at the end.
- Introduce yourself and list some accomplishments brazilian phone numbers to build authority, social proof, and rapport.
- Mention the article, what it is about and why you think it is valuable.
- Link to full article in Google Drive.
If and when you are published, be sure to share it on your social networks and respond to any comments, as this may make the site more likely to post additional work there. Once you’ve been published on a few smaller blogs, it may be easier to reach bigger names. The more bylines you have, the more you need to be chosen by a bigger site.
4. Network like a champ
Sometimes it’s not just how much you write but who you know. Having a referral from someone a publisher trusts can be a great way to motivate the site to publish your content.
I became a regular contributor to The Huffington Post following a long chain of networking events, connections, and followings.
It started with a workshop that I wasn’t even sure would be good. The teacher seemed underqualified and I thought of a million other things I could do. It turned out to be a great workshop. It inspired me to really make networking a priority and informed some of my strategies. We became and still are good friends.
The professor invited me to an event a few months later. Although I wasn’t sure what it would be, I went because I trusted his judgment. It turned out to be a private party for LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman to launch his new book, The Startup of You . It Croatia Phone Number List was hosted by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. I met the president of MTV and some start-up founders.
I was talking to an entrepreneur I had met that night when he said, “Hey, there’s Arianna Huffington, let’s go talk to her.” My first reaction was anxiety. But I turned off my brain, remembered how important it was to get out, and talked to him.
I don’t even remember what we talked about, but she eventually offered to have me contribute to her site and I got her email address. The next day I emailed her, although I was still nervous. She responded by introducing me to an editor.
This interaction has led to more opportunities for business and guest blogging. The backlinks and traffic received from the Huffington Post definitely made networking worthwhile.
