Guest blogging can help you increase your reach, improve your credibility, attract new customers and develop your brand. However, it can only accomplish those things if you manage to get guest posts published.
To get your guest post published on someone's blog, you need to have a great pitch. Far too many people send out guest post proposals that sound like spam, or they don't demonstrate any value to the blog owner. The good news is, this means that presenting your post the right way can make you stand out from the crowd.
Finding Blogs to Pitch
The first step in pitching a guest post is to find a blog to pitch to. You can find potential guest blog opportunities by doing a search for related content, keeping an eye out for shared content on social media or networking through other bloggers in your industry.
If you are new to guest blogging, it is a good idea to start small. Don't try to get published on the No. 1 blog in the industry until you have at least some experience pitching to and blogging for smaller sites. Guest blogging on a top site does carry greater benefits, which means that they will be getting a lot more guest blogging requests and will be more selective. You will want to build a portfolio of sorts before going after the big fish.
Researching the Blog
Before contacting a blog owner, you should read up on the blog and gain an understanding of what it is about. In particular, you want to know:
- The topics the blog covers.
- Its position on any issues you might be discussing.
- The overall point of the blog or what the blog owner is trying to accomplish.
If you understand these things, you can pitch a blog topic that exactly fits what the blog owner is looking for.
Deciding on the Topic
You want to pitch a specific guest post idea, rather than simply offering your services or asking them to give you a topic. You should be used to generating blog topic ideas for your own site; now you just need to apply that to your target site based on your understanding of their goals.
Make sure your topic is unique; it should not just be a rehash of something you have already published, nor should it duplicate an idea that is already published on the blog you are targeting.
Writing Your Pitch
Once you finish the above steps, you are ready to contact the blog owner and make your pitch.
When doing so, you want to be personable. You are writing to a real person and a person who is used to getting generic, mail-merge type requests. Stand out by being specific: address them by name and demonstrate your knowledge of their site.
Don't be too coy; they know what your goal is. But if you can present them with a quality guest post that will help them reach their goals, they won't mind that it provides you some benefit in return.
Finally, keep your pitch short. You are not presenting them with the guest post itself; the pitch is just your proposal for a post. And if they get a lot of guest blogging requests, they probably don't want to spend a lot of time reading your request. Get to the point, and save the finer details for follow-up conversations.
* Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
