Let’s get started: Practical tips on guest blogging!

23 May 2010
Articles
This post was written exclusively for PV.M Garage by Davy Kestens
Comments (62)»

In my previous post Why you should guest-blog more, I explained WHY guest posting is far more effective compared to personal blogging. Today, I’ll focus on HOW you can play the guest posting game intelligently. Let’s get started!

How can you tell if a blog really receives quality traffic?

After realizing the enormous benefits of guest blogging, you might be tempted to gust post in a large number of blogs that target your niche. However, if the blog is not popular enough, I wouldn’t consider that a smart move. So, how can you find QUALITY TRAFFIC blogs? Here are few pointers…

The best approach if you want to avoid the SEO headache all together is to take a careful look at the blog of interest. The number of comments will give you an instant indication of how active the blog’s community is. But a word of caution here: it’s not just a matter of quantity but a matter of quality as well.
In other words, you need to focus on TRUE comments that are carefully written and actually contribute to the original post in terms of length and context. To me, comments containing 10 words or less mostly do not pass as a true comment.

Google the blog for positive or negative criticism. If the blog is well known for delivering incorrect or suspicious information, then I wouldn’t care less about its amount of traffic as I will be putting my own reputation on the line. That’s why, it’s critical to ensure that the blog is well-reputed.

Still want to add few SEO tricks to the mix, no problem! You can certainly take advantage of alexa and google page rank among others. Another no-brainer tip: if you type your niche keywords on google blogsearch, the results appearing on top of the list are certainly popular in terms of traffic

How can you approach the blog owners intelligently and win their approval of your guest posting proposal?

This is an easy issue especially blogs thrive on consistent ongoing content. In other words, blog owners are hungry for quality content. So, rest assured that if you simply mailed them and provided some necessary information such as a list your topics of interest, relevant experience if available as well as previous writing samples, they will be more than happy to take your offer.

I usually don’t request any sort of payment even if I know that paying for guest posting is common in that blog. Instead, I focus on impressing them with quality content and wait from them to acknowledge my valuable contributions generously.

So far so good! What are some of the “hot topics” to write about?!

Well, there is actually no clear cut answer to that. Certainly, if you are guest blogging to market an existing product/service/site, then it goes without saying that you already found your own “hot topic” and if you chose your niche intelligently, then your topic will be equally hot to them.

What if you are an internet business newbie and want to take advantage guest blogging as a very effective technique to “test the waters” and decide your own “hot topic”?

In doing so, please don’t go with the flow! Instead, choose a topic you are really passionate about, something that really excites and moves you. This way, you will be recognized as an expert in your reader’s eyes from day one and if you managed to consistently deliver quality content that entice your readers and give them new information, you will be building your list even before creating a concrete product to sell.

A good tip to establish the expert status

Ask yourself what can I write so that my reader would say: ”Aha! I didn’t know that before”. It’s that simple! As you write more and more quality posts, your fan base will expand and you will learn more about your beloved topic in the process.
Also, make sure to pay special attention to your readers’ comments and address any issues/concerns/questions they have in future posts. This way, you will be sending the “you are important to me” message to your readers. I couldn’t think of a better way to build readership. So, thrive to become the “Aha!” writer. If you do, the sky is your limit

I’m sure that many of you have a lot of valuable tips to contribute to this post. I can’t wait to read your comments. To our success!