Many of us – myself included, struggle trying to think of new, fresh and topical articles to write on our blogs which provide value to our audience and keep the flow of content frequent. In many cases sites become so hampered by this that they end up either releasing a stream of self-promotional drivel which interests no-one or even worse let their blog stagnate and go out of date. Adding boring, useless or spammy content as well as adding no content will damage your reputation and ultimately your blog’s ranking in the search engines.

But – there is help at hand!! – Guest bloggers.

Guest bloggers are people who offer insight or value to your market/niche and are willing to write one or more guest posts on your site. This is great not only for adding valuable content and a fresh approach but also the guest blogger themselves will often help promote their post, thus driving more traffic to your blog. If you manage to get a pro guest blogger then their input will also give extra clout to your blog, which can sometimes give the boost it needs to go from bedroom blogging into boardroom banter.

There is also another side to guest blogging – and that is you guest blogging on other people’s sites. If you are an expert in your field, in a position of trust or influence – or even just have a lot of good stuff to say – then you could be a guest blogger. Promoting yourself as a guest blogger can allow you to provide valuable content to a multitude of external site – all of which provide attribution (and traffic/links) back to yours. You can expand your reach into areas where you may not be able to get your current site. Or, in the most basic sense, you do it for the money! Either way becoming a guest blogger can be a profitable venture.

So how do I find guest bloggers?

It is actually easier than you’d think. The easiest way is to ask a well known personality in your sector to contribute a short blog on their subject of expertise. This is perhaps the best way to grow the value and reach of your blog. Just in asking, you not only flatter the person by acknowledging their status but you also drastically increase your chances of a back-link or at least an association with a brand that can bring you more readers. The only thing you need to make sure of is that you gauge the quality of the post and have agreed the right to edit the post before it goes live – as not all personalities are good with words (say no more Prince Philip!). If your blog is already popular then it can often be valuable to look outside your space and bring in guest authors who have a very unique angle or subject matter to help spice up your focus.

What if I don’t know anyone of note?

Then your best bet is to submit your blog to a guest posters’ forum and ask for guest bloggers. There are not many of these forums about but the one we recommend is a new venture which is currently growing massively in followers and guest bloggers – called My Blog Guest – it is totally driven towards providing a contact platform for bloggers and blog owners. So if you are a blogger or a blog owner you can use this site to build relationships for mutual profit.

How to get your posts on other people’s blogs?

This is perhaps a little trickier but here are a few thoughts to help you start:

1. Identify a series of blogs you think you could add value to and would be beneficial to you
2. READ READ READ – follow the blog so you fully understand the style of posts, the audience and what has been posted before
3. Write potential blog posts
4. Find out who the blog owner is and if possible email them directly – if not then try the blog’s general address – make sure you don’t waffle your request – get right to the point. Something like:
   “Hi whoever. I’d really like to publish this article on your blog as a guest post. I believe it adds value for your readers and is currently different to what is available elsewhere. Please have a read and let me know if you’d like to include it.”
5. If it is successful then you can continue to send them new articles – if not then ask what they’d want you to write about and try that.
6. If you are unsuccessful with this line of contact then the next option is to become a comment guru -
7. On your identified blogs provide regular, insightful and valuable comments (quickly if possible) to as many posts as you can without it looking spammy. Set yourself up to be seen as an expected fixture of the blog to the point that the blog owner is disappointed when you don’t add a comment. Then you can ask for a guest post spot – if your commenting was appreciated they’ll snap up your guest posts.
8. You can also write response posts on your site which reference the posts on another – provide valuable backlinks and traffic to your target blog. I have no doubt that the target blog will monitor traffic sources and backlinks – if your site becomes familiar to them then you increase your chances of having your posts accepted.
9. If all else fails do what you should already be doing – building your own site, providing valuable content and building your reputation. Then post on your site that you are willing to do guest posts – then sit back and await the requests.

So, guest blogging can really impact the effectiveness of your site/blog – why not give it a try (and don’t forget to check out the My Blog Guest  Community).

P.s – if you’re a digital marketing guru then you are welcome to send us your guest posts!

Tags: blogging, guest posts, Online Marketing

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Online Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.