Guest Posting Guide: Promote Yourself as a Guest Author

One of the classic recipes to gain notoriety quickly on the web is guest posting or write in third-party media (other blogs, websites, social networks, etc.), in the established press that have a name and whose audience is at least related to yours.

In other words, we want to be identified with those who are already well-positioned in the hope that by rubbing shoulders with those people, something will “stick” to us.

In short, by posting on prominent sites for your niche, you shorten the hard road that you necessarily have to travel to make your blog known. This tactic is known in English under the name of ” guest posting ” or “guest blogging” or also “guest author. 

Because I advance something, if you are inclined to do everything by yourself from scratch to the heroine of the novel and enter into competition with everyone, it will be very hard because blogs that are very well located have been in the Fight (MoU, for example, started in April 2000) or, if they are relatively new, they have an SEO team behind them or make excellent use of networking, helping each other instead of competing fiercely.

What do you earn with the guest posting

You gain visibility and diffusion.
Your goal: Impress the readers of the other blog with your article to gain an audience.
Let’s see now in detail.

New visits to your blog

If your article is interesting, it adds value and is well written, surely many people will look at your bio to get the URL of your blog. In short, that you are going to get more traffic to your blog, then, of course, you will have to offer them reasons (other valuable articles) to continue visiting your blog.

New followers on your social networks

In general, the author’s bio includes the profiles of your social networks, so if your post made a good impression, they would want to keep in touch with you also on FB, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, etc.

New subscribers

Subscribers are the soul of your blog, and they are your audience. If your article is considered valuable, in addition to visiting your blog, they will probably also subscribe to your newsletter. Don’t you have a newsletter?

Improve your online reputation

Not all posts you send will be accepted. You can reduce the rejection rate if you first analyze the rules of publication of each blog to which you plan to send your content and, also, the style of the blog.

But if they accept your post in a blog that is already established and has a good reputation, you start to be part of a “clan of authors” with a good reputation.
It’s like when you have a product, and a recognized supermarket chain decides to put it in the gondola next to a star product. You go up, I tell you!

You get links to your blog and improve your positioning (SEO)

If you want your articles to position themselves well on Google ( see the advantages here ), you need links from other media that point to those articles.

The link is the payment currency on the web. It is what drives the positioning in Google.
In general, blogs that accept guest authors allow you to link articles on your blog (although in general, it is limited to 2 articles), with which you can choose which articles to connect to and with which keywords (which must be related to the thematic of the article).

These external links, used cleverly, will give you a boost for the keyword you link and, therefore, improve your overall positioning. In other words, they improve your SEO.

Branding

Your name and your blog are YOUR brands. And the more times they are exposed to your target audience, the better. And the brand is engraved on people’s heads based on repetition, say those who know that it is needed at least 7 or 8 times for their remembrance.

If you are convinced of the benefits you can get by writing articles to be published in other media, let’s now explore how to find where to post.

Networking

This is one of the best networking opportunities to develop ties with essential people in your sector. Do not waste it.

How to find blogs that accept guest authors

Your goal: Locate a certain number of blogs that accept guest posting.
But not just any type of blog but those that are related to your niche, in other words, that are relevant to your audience.

They can be relevant directly or indirectly. For example, if you are interested in the target of entrepreneurs, in addition to entrepreneurship blogs, you could expand your search to productivity, personal development, personal finance, etc.

Google Search

If you do not have candidates in mind or want to analyze the landscape to see if you discover a twig out there, it is best to turn to Google and do a search.

Some possible search criteria:

  • “Send guest post.”
  • “Accept guest posts.”
  • “Send a post.”
  • “Guest post.”
  • “Send a post as a guest.”
  • “Guest post guide.”
  • “Guest author.”
  • “Write for us.”

You have to locate a keyword related to your niche; in this way, you are searching and filtering the results to get the blogs of the same theme.

And you do that by using the “OR” and “~” operators, and we use these 2 operators (to see more about Boolean operators ) because it is tough to describe the theme of our blog with a single keyword.

Let’s look at an example: MoU is about entrepreneurship, marketing, blogging, etc.
So, if I want to search for blogs of those 3 themes that accept indicated authors, I can write the following in the Google search window:

“Submit article” ~ marketing OR blogging OR entrepreneurship

This restricts the search and forces Google to present results that contain only:

  • send article marketing,
  • submit blogging article,
  • Submit article entrepreneurship.

Search the blogs you read

Often in the same blogs you understand you will find mentions to other bloggers, either in a note or in the blog roll (that list that usually appears at the bottom of the page or on the side and that is entitled “blogs that I read ”or“ blogs that I like ”or“ the ones I follow ”, etc).

Search BuzzSumo using keywords from your industry

This is excellent advice from Neil Patel.
In  BuzzSumo, find the most shared content on social networks in a given period. And in this way, you can find the posts of guests with better performance, which will provide you with an idea about what to write.

Here is the best performing content for the keyword “make money with blogging.”

filter the post guests of the best performing segmentThen you can use BuzzSumo to filter guest posts. For that, in the left sidebar, deselect all the LESS “guest posts” options. And ready!.

Detect the leading blogs in your sector with Alltop

Another advice from Neil Patel.

Alltop a platform that serves to find a list of the leading blogs in your sector.

Enter the keyword of your niche and press the Search button. You will get search results with relevant directories. From there, you have to visit them and see which ones accept post guests. It is effortless to use.

In return, it is not very useful in Spanish, since most directories have blogs in English.

Search in Google Blogs, Logs

I leave you a video of Javier Barros that explains it in luxury.
One clarification: the third buzzing option doesn’t work anymore, so that you can skip the video to the fourth option.

Search guest blogging lists

I do this well, very easy. Directly type in the Google search box the following:  “blogs that accept post guests” or similar. And Voila!

Contact other bloggers

If you already know the medium well, and you have a list of blogs in mind (it is best to put together a list in excel to keep them always in mind and write down the observations), what you have to do is visit those blogs to look for signs that they accept articles from third parties.

You have to look at the secondary menu, where you have the contact links, institutional data, advertising, etc. and see if there is any link of the type “write for us”, “guest authors”, “collaborations”, “publish in this blog ”,“ upload your article ”,“ upload your post ”.

These links not only tell you that they accept articles but that they list the conditions of publication, their careful reading avoids an enormous waste of time for those who want to publish in that medium as well as the medium.

How to select which blogs to publish

Your goal: Narrow the list to keep 10 or 15 relevant blogs.
Once we have an extensive list of blogs in our niche that accept third-party posts, it is vital to analyze the menu and make a selection.

Those blogs that you read and where you sometimes comment should head the list of possible candidates, always clear that they respond to the market segment you want to target.

But what about those blogs you just discovered? Well, you need to apply other criteria to find out if they are worth it.

Some criteria to select a blog

Have good traffic and authority

Once you have your list of possible blogs, it is essential to choose those that have more traffic and power than yours.

For that, we add them one per line in an excel table or a Google Drive spreadsheet; then, we add columns to complete the following information:

  • Alexa ranking (the lower the number, the better),
  • DM ( Domain Authority, is a parameter of mozRank that the higher, the better)
  • Facebook fans,
  • Twitter followers,
  • Feed subscribers,
  • Country (it can be an essential fact if you want to position yourself in a particular country), and the networks that you consider necessary for your project (LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, etc.), and
  • Also, if they publish a newsletter and how many subscribers they have.

Many of these data are achieved by installing an extension in the browser, and there are several, one of the most complete is SeoQuake that although it is for competition analysis, they are the same data we need to analyze the strength of a blog.

Once with all these data (or the most possible), we can compare them with ours, and from there, the ones that are better positioned than our blog are immediately visible, which makes them an excellent candidate to publish.

Of course, if the difference is abysmal, the other blog will not be interested in including your publication (after all, if the papers were reversed, you would not do it …), but that should not discourage you, on the contrary, it should encourage you to improve and get the main niche blogs to accept you.

So this list can help you plan your growth.

Have a participatory audience

That is, the articles arouse the public’s interest to leave comments at the bottom. And that the community be active and participate in the conversation.

Another clue is to check the number of times they share on social networks.

Have a convenient publication frequency

If the publication frequency is very high, your post will remain on the cover for a few days, and you may go unnoticed.

How to get them to accept your collaboration

Don’t waste your time (or lose it)

You must create a positive perception from the first email. Let the blogger see that working with you is simple, that you are an agile person, with bright ideas.

To do this, go to the point and make a concrete proposal. But first, look carefully if you have published the conditions of publication. If you have them, read them carefully and adjust to them. And since we are here, you can see the terms of publication in Mujeres de Empresa.
This brings us to the next point.

Minimize the number of emails

There are people to work with is a delight and others who are real torture.
If you have received clear instructions, then why don’t you follow the instructions?

If you send the article one day, the images another day, if you have to claim the biography, when you send the journal you have to edit it because it is five times longer than requested, do not send the links to your social networks and since we are sure that instead of creating the Gravatar account to link your photo, you send us the picture so we can create the account, etc., etc. It is tough to work with such a person. As a result, the thing stagnates and ends in nothing.

Tell him what you can contribute

Be proactive, instead of proposing any note, check the blog you are interested in posting a little first and check the content you already have. Are there any issues or approaches that you could contribute to?

Then there you can contact the blogger, comment on what you have discovered, and propose an article that complements the content already published. Do not propose a note that this blog already has; it is not that you compete; it is about completing its content.

And that is a win-win-win situation. You are going to stand out with very original content, and the blog will gain in the wealth of material and the audience happy to read a single note.

And at the outset, you can demonstrate your efficiency by proposing 2 or 3 titles for the note in question, comment on the main points you plan to play, and some keywords to which you are going to point.

You positively called the attention, showed professionalism, and sent the proposal in just one email. What do you want me to say? Cool !!!

How to write the guest post

Your goal: Earn more readers/subscribers.

Write a super article

I mean a high-quality article, well written, excellent original content. And that, dear reader, takes a long, long time. But if you choose blogs well where to publish, it’s worth it.

And here counts quality and quantity. Quality because the post as the guest author is a unique opportunity if your article is also unique, original, well structured, contains a theme of great interest to that audience, etc.

Long article

And quantity because at the same quality, Google prefers the most extended article (and I stand out at the same quality …). It is not worth writing much to entangle the subject.

The articles positioned in the first 3 places have an average 2000/2500 words depending on the subject.

In this post, Neil Patel explains the topic in-depth. He gives an idea of ​​the ideal length (in several words) for each sector of the industry: retail, real state, technology, gadgets, sales, marketing, fashion, travel, etc., etc.

Short article

However, there are exceptions. There are cases in which a short article can position the best.

A short article positions when:

  • Authority is imposed. Blogs have more or less authority (DA = domain authority, it is measured from 0 to 100, 100 being the highest authority and equivalent to the quality or credibility of a website) on a topic, and that weighs when positioning.
  • Answer a specific question, and no more is needed. So it depends on the intention of the search.

Sometimes people make the mistake of sending mediocre articles and reserve the good ones for their blog. An average article does not attract an audience, and there you miss an excellent opportunity, in other words, you worked for nothing.

I tell you so: If you are going to do it, do it well.

Structure your article correctly

There is much to say here, basically writing for the Internet is very different from writing for a print medium.

That’s why I recommend that if you want to learn to write for the web,  read the following article.

Follow the blog style

In addition to structuring your article well, you have to format it like the others in the blog, in the same way that when a book has different authors, they agree on the stylistic aspects.

  • How are the articles in the blog you are going to publish?
  • Do you have many images?
  • Are they a guide type?
  • Do you highlight the key concepts in bold?
  • Do you include appointments?
  • What is the proposed length? Etc.

It includes internal links

If you name particular technical concepts, add a link to Wikipedia or some other blog that contains a good explanation.

The same if you name a book, specific product, etc., include a link to it.
If you are going to add a graph, statistics, research, etc., include the source with its corresponding link.

Look at the conditions of publication if you can include links to your blog to a particular post. They usually allow you to add up to two (2) rings, use them wisely. That means that if you manage to establish a relationship that will enable you to publish meas at once, do not link the same article again, Google will not like it, and you will not win anything.

If you want to do a first-class job and make an excellent impression on the blog editor, include links to other contents of the same blog.

The easiest way is to use the search box of the same blog and write a specific keyword to find posts that respond to that search, then there you already know what other articles to link to.

Include a call to action (CTA) at the end

The goal is to get comments. The more interrelationships you generate, the better. It is what in marketing is called engagement. Think of each comment as an opportunity to start a conversation and win a reader.

The engagement makes Google value your articles better and position them better, and its analysis is precise: if the post likes readers, it deserves to be well-positioned.

Take advantage of the Author’s Box

At the end of a note, depending on the design of the blog, there is usually an author box. That space where the guest author briefly tells who he is, what he does, what his blog is (with a link to it), and other links to his social networks.

And you also have the opportunity to show your photo, for this to happen you have to have an account in Gravatar and tell the blog with which email you opened that account, just that, you do not need to send your username and password.

Usually, the author’s box is concise. One or two lines, so it is up to you to write a bio with a “hook.”

After posting

Your goal:  Get your post to take flight.
For that, you also have to help promote it.

You have to:

  • Comment and include a link to the post in your blog
  • Promote it on your social networks.
    • Promote it on Twitter several times.
    • Share it on Facebook
    • Share on LinkedIn
    • Promote it on Google+
  • Thank the editor of the other blog that published it
  • Answer questions and comments in the post. This point is crucial: remember the engagement !!!!

Conclusions

Doing all this previous research, contacting the editor, preparing the different articles, is a lot of work. An excellent article can take several days of writing.

So before facing the guest posting, prepare your blog to receive visits.

As new as your blog is, it has to have at least 10 new posts because if your post looks and flows public to your blog, they have to find more exciting and different content (duplicate content is not worth) to continue reading.

So before going out to “fish” readers, prepare the house to receive them, but you will have worked in vain.

Guest posting is one of the most effective marketing methods available to anyone willing to invest time, effort, and, of course, commitment.
That’s why it has to be part of your content strategy.

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