6 Actionable Tips to Boost Guest Blogging Success (That Really Work)

Guest blogging offers multiple benefits - it provides you with relevant traffic to your website, gives you opportunities to get backlinks and help you position yourself as an authority in your industry. In fact, bloggers who guest posts are 48% more likely to report strong results, according to Orbit Media.    

Though most bloggers try to adopt a guest blogging strategy, not all of them are able to secure the same success. If you’re someone who wants to master guest blogging, the help is here.

In today’s post, I’m going to tell you six actionable tips to boost guest blogging success.

After reading this post, you will know how to create a kickass guest blogging strategy for your business to ensure success.  

Without further ado, let’s dive in:

1. Build Relationship Beforehand

Building a relationship with other bloggers in your niche is imperative for your success. Networking with leading bloggers in your industry offers many benefits - developing mutually beneficial connections, creating more awareness for your blogs, growing readership for your blog, providing you opportunities to get guest posts published are just a few of them.

So you have agreed that building a relationship with fellow bloggers in your industry is important. Now comes the question - how can you find leading bloggers in your industry?

The easiest way to search for relevant bloggers is to google the compilation of lists. The web is populated with such lists.

Suppose you are active in the digital marketing domain, and you want to find relevant blogs in your industry in India. Just google “top 30 digital marketing blogs in India.”

These are four top results. You can search for “top 50 or top 100 blogs” to discover good blogs in your industry.

Another way to find blogs in your niche is to set google alerts for your relevant keywords. Once new content on these keywords is posted, you will get notifications.

After making the list of relevant bloggers in your niche, the next step is to build a relationship with them.  

Here are some ways that can help you build a relationship with bloggers:

• Regularly comment on their posts and share the posts on your social channels
• Mention their posts in your blog posts regularly
• Take the interviews of bloggers and publish them on your blog
• Invite them to write on your blog
• Coauthor blog posts

Building a relationship with bloggers in your niche is a powerful strategy to get posts published on relevant websites.  

2. Search For Relevant Websites  

Needless to say, building a relationship with niche-specific bloggers is the best way to do guest posting. But it takes time and efforts to build a relationship. And you cannot put a stop on guest posting till the time you have a good rapport with leading bloggers in your industry.

What should you do then? The simple answer is to search for relevant websites.

Google is the ultimate destination to search for sites that accept guest posts. You can use the following keywords to search:

• Submit a post / guest post/ blog post+your niche
• Submit an article+your niche
• Send a guest post+your niche
• Write for us+your niche
• Become an author+your niche
• Guest bloggers wanted+your niche
• Contribute to our site+your niche
• Become a contributor+your niche
• Become guest writer+your niche

You can also use social media to find good websites to write guest posts for.

Twitter Search can offer you lots of opportunities. Suppose you want to discover websites to write guest posts on digital marketing, you can search for “guest post digital marketing”.

By scrolling down, you can see a list of tweets including word “guest post.” Check these websites if they can serve your purpose.

If you want to automate this process a bit, you can use a tool like Ninja Outreach or BuzzStream.  

3. Find Irresistible Guest Post Topics

Once you have made a list of websites that accept guest posts, the next step is to find irresistible guest post topics. My friend, figuring out guest post topics is a bit tricky affair. You need to discover topics that the audience of the host sites would love to read.

One way to find guest post topics is to visit the “Most Popular” section of the website and try to figure out topics that resemble with the posts filed in the “Most Popular” section. After getting an idea about the guest topics, search these topics on the host site if the site already has posts published on those topics.

You can also use a tool to find popular topics in your niche. The following is BuzzSumo analysis on “on page ranking factor”.

Find popular topics in your niche and check whether these topics are covered or not on the host sites.

The thumb rule of finding guest post topics is to offer value. If you find a topic that provides value to the audience of the host site, the site editor is most likely to accept your topic idea, provided that topic has not been covered so far on the site.

4. Send Customized Pitches

You made a list of good websites that accept guest posts, and you have found irresistible topic ideas. So far so good. Now, it is time to pitch your ideas to those websites.

Well, my friend, the success of your guest post pitches depends a lot on your outreach emails. Weak, templated pitches are often rejected. So it is important that you should know how to pitch.

Here are the five elements that decide the fate of your pitch:

• The subject line of your outreach email
• The unique angle of your post
• Introductory, catchy line (hook)
• Powerful summary
• Your post format (list, feature)

Also, you should clearly mention that why readers would love to read your post.

Needless to say, editors are busy folks and they receive tons of emails daily. If you want to make sure that your emails get opened, you should write powerful subject lines and engaging hook (introductory lines of your email).

One point to be noted that you should always send customized pitches. Avoid using guest post pitch templates available on the web.

5. Create Awesome Content

Once your guest post pitches are accepted, the next step is to create content. As guest posts you write are often published with your byline, they create a brand image for you.

Do you want to be known as someone who doesn’t create awesome content? Of course, you don’t. Besides, poor quality content doesn’t move the needle and can be rejected by the host sites. Therefore, it is imperative that you should create awesome content.

But how will you ensure that the audience of the host site would love to consume the content you created?

Follow these pointers:

• Study the host sites carefully to get an idea about the language style
• Write an irresistible title, engaging hook, high-quality body, and powerful conclusion of your post
• Use bullet points and subheadings to break your text
• Use images to make your content visually appealing
• Use shorter sentences and have enough whitespace  
• Format your content in line with the host site

In your guest post pitch, you make an offer. And the written post is the final product that you deliver. Make sure that your final product delivers what you promised in your pitch, or else the host editor might reject your written post.

6. Promote Guest Posts

Your job is not over once your guest post is published by the host site. You should also promote the post aggressively so that a larger audience can see the content.

The more people notice your guest posts, the more chances the content has to get shares, likes, and comments. And the more engagement your post receives, the easier it will become for you to publish the next posts on the host site.

Here are some best practices to promote your guest post:

• Share the post on your social channels
• Create 20 snippets to schedule your post for the different times of the day
• Find an opportunity to mention this guest post in your next guest posts on other sites
• Check if you can use the summary of this post as answers on Quora with a link to the post
• Share the guest post in content sharing communities like GrowthHackers
• Send the guest post to your blog subscribers

When you share the guest post on social media, don’t forget to tag the host site to let the host site editor know that you are actively promoting the content. Also, you should actively participate in the discussion in the comment section.

Final thoughts:

Guest posts can be a great tool to build authority and earn tons of referral traffic if you strategically, smartly approach relevant websites.

Building relationship with bloggers beforehand, having a list of relevant websites, finding irresistible topics, sending customized pitches, creating awesome content, and promoting your guest posts are a few ways to boost your guest blogging success.

What about you? Do you want to share any other guest blogging tip? Please leave it in the comment section? I would love to know about it.

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