This is a guest contribution from Hugh Beaulac
You’ve found your niche, and creating new content on your own site brings you joy, but you also don’t forget to find reputable websites to submit guest posts.
And you want to contribute to top blogs that match your niche, right?
It takes time and energy to rank, and proficient bloggers understand how valuable that is in terms of link juice, and if a blogger accepts your submission, you enter an already-established community, sharing your message.
In short, guest posting gives you many opportunities, and here are some other reasons why it is great:
- It allows you to build your writing portfolio and get your name out.
- Collaboration with top-notch blog owners helps to become a better writer.
- It helps to establish contacts with other bloggers and find new readers.
- It’s a way to find potential clients.
- You can get a backlink for your site.
Although blog owners also know core benefits to accepting guest posts, they want to collaborate with trustful writers only. If you can prove your expertise and knowledge, you can be featured on top-notch websites.
But…
How to create a perfect guest post contribution? You’ll learn how to craft it in this blog post.
#1: Do Research
Have you found a website you want to contribute to? Great!
It’s time to roll up your sleeves and do research before bothering a blog owner. The more you know about the website, its owner, its values, and writing style, the more chances you have to hook a blogger.
How to do research:
- Read submission guidelines to follow the instructions;
- Analyze published content to find what topics have been covered on the site;
- Pay attention to a content calendar to understand what type of content is in demand;
- Find contact info and blogger’s name.
Before contacting the blog owner, analyze the website to understand more about its audience and their needs. If applicable, follow guidelines closely as it’s a proven way to show your interest in contributing to the site.
#2: Write an Eye-Catching Email Pitch
In the business environment, we write many emails daily.
If you don’t get as many replies as you might want, just imagine:
- Over 269 billion emails sent each day;
- An average person receives 121 emails per day, according to the Radicati Group;
- 26% of US Internet users unsubscribe from email lists as they get too many emails in general.
The more popular a blog owner is, the more emails he or she receives daily.
What does it mean? You need to send an eye-catching email pitch that will be both interesting and useful!
Writing emails that don’t convert is just a waste of time and effort, so do your best to send a solid email.
So, how to write a brilliant guest post pitch?
- Personalize an email by adding blogger’s name;
- Introduce yourself;
- Describe the purpose of your email;
- Write down several guest post ideas that might be a good fit for the site;
- Create a short outline for every topic;
- Provide a blog owner with the best links to your recently published articles.
Sending an email pitch, you make an impression on bloggers and help them make the final decision whether they need your assistance or not. Once you start writing better emails, you can reach influencers and get your topic approval.
#3: Craft a Well-Written Article
Once a blog owner has chosen a blog post topic, it’s high time to start crafting a well-written article as writing a post gives no guarantees of acceptance.
Criteria for a well-written article:
- Comprehensive and smooth content that offers new perspectives;
- Actionable tips and pieces of advice;
- Statistics proofs;
- Visuals that support ideas (infographics, screenshots, images, etc.);
- Links to other posts on the blog;
- Improved readability of your article (headings and subheadings, the text is divided into chunks, short sentences, bold/italic/underline font styles, etc.).
If you need the ultimate guide to writing a compelling blog post, here it comes:
- Analyze your potential readers, their needs, and problems to give them what they crave.
- Do research and collect useful information, statistics, data, case studies, etc.
- Create an outline to put down all important insights and make your writing easier.
- Write the article, adding visuals.
- Give it some time and proofread/edit the text.
If you offer evergreen, unique and compelling content, people will read it with a big pleasure. Plus, it’s more likely they will share it on their social media which means attracting new visitors to the blog. All in all, publishing a well-written article gives many advantages for a blog owner, readers, and the author.
#4: Promote on Social Media
Congratulations! Your article went live on the blog!
You’ve put much time and effort into it, but it’s not enough to satisfy a blog owner’s needs. After publishing the article, it’s time to promote it to attract more readers!
Don’t hesitate to share your article via social media.
By the way, do you know the power of social media?
- There are 2.3 billion active social media users;
- 89% of US Internet users are on Facebook;
- Social media (64%) is among top 3 content marketing tactics.
All the above-mentioned stats prove that sharing articles on social media helps to attract more readers and promote your text without investing money. If you help to drive traffic to the website, a blog owner might be thankful and, therefore, you can be invited to write another post in the future!
#5: Communication with Readers
Experienced bloggers know that putting readers first is a surefire way to create a perfect post. If you write an article thinking about your audience’s needs and expectations, you should stick around and respond to comments on the post after it has been published.
For a variety of reasons, communication with readers is crucial, and you’d better reply to their comments as fast as you can.
If readers interact with you after reading a blog post, it’s a great sign that the material was interesting for them. Encourage people to leave comments and involve them into communication to hold audience’s attention and make them want to check the website over and over again.
In Conclusion
Being a successful guest blogger pays off, so try to contribute to profitable websites and always think about benefits a blog owner may get with you.
If you need to understand top reasons guest content is declined, pay attention to picture below:
Learning from common mistakes most guest contributors make is a great way to stand out from the competitors and be featured on top websites.
Have we left something off the list? Share your thoughts in comments!
Hugh Beaulac is a writer who runs MC2 blog and writes on various topics. He contributes to different websites, so Hugh knows how to give a blog owner what his/her audience craves.
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