Guest blogging is when someone writes a guest post on someone else’s blog. A lot of bloggers think of their blogs as their home online, so when someone else writes for your blog it’s like having a guest in your house. If you’re looking to expand your audience then writing guest posts on other peoples blogs can be a great way to introduce yourself to another bloggers readers. On the other hand, it can be a great way to get some extra content on your blog that you don’t need to knock up yourself. It’s kind of win-win!
How Do You Find the Right Blogger?
So, how do you find these mystical guest bloggers? The easiest and best way is to let them find you. Pop a little link somewhere on your site that let’s people know you’re up for having a guest author posting on your blog from time to time.
When someone clicks on the link you’ll want it to go to a page that gives them some information about whatever rules and conditions you have for guest posts, and how to contact you about it. The ultimate rule is of course that you get final say over who can guest post, and that you get final say over whether something get’s published or not. I mean, it’s your blog so that’s should be a given, but it’s best to set that out there for all to see. It’s always sad to have to turn someone down, but usually it’s for a good reason. Your blogs all about your readers so if you don’t feel like the guest post is something that they’d enjoy then it’s best to turn it down. Your readers should come first.
What Topics You Want to Write Blogs On?
You’ll want to specify what kind of topics you’d want the guest post to be about, and a rough guide to the length of the post. If you’re a blog that is known for putting out long 2000+ word well researched posts, you probably don’t want to host a guest blogger that is putting out short 300 odd word think pieces.
Of course nothing really comes for free, so you’re going to want to entice guest poster with some incentives. Why should they write a great post for your blog that they could write for their own?
The normal incentive is that the guest blogger can link back to their own blog with a do-follow link. This is like a double prize. Firstly, the link will make it really easy for any of your blog readers checking out the post to go to the authors website. Secondly, a do-follow link helps with SEO, it passes some page rank over to the guest posters blog. If your blog is particularly popular then the benefits of that can be massive for a smaller blogger. It also acts as an incentive for the guest blogger to write great content for your blog; the higher the page rank of the guest post, the more page rank gets passed over to their blog. Another incentive could be the social media promotion that you’ll do for the guest post. The more you promote it to your audience, the more the guest posters work is getting seen and the more chance of some of your readers checking out their blog.
Some bloggers like to do a trade, so they each write a guest post for each others blog. That way you’re both getting the same benefits for the same price.
Along with all your rules and any incentives you’ve got, you’ll want potential guest posters to be able to contact you. Bear in mind most people aren’t going to want to spend time putting together a post for you to read then decide whether to use it or not. The most common way to kick things off is to ask them to fill in a contact form and link to a few pages on their blog that they think show off their style the best, or, if they don’t have a blog, to submit a few of their sample posts for you to check out. The main thing you should be looking for is someone that is writing posts that your readers would enjoy, and would fit with your blog. Beware of getting someone too similar to you, it’s should be like if you were both apples but one of you is a granny smith and one is a golden delicious. Similar but a little different.
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Conclusion – How to get Guest Bloggers for your Blog
Guest posting is something you definitely don’t want to rely on too much. At the end of the day readers come to your blog to read what you’re writing so if half your posts start being written by an assortment of other people your readers might lose interest in your blog.
