Unless of course your “excuse” is relevant to the topic of your blog. That would be the one possible exception.

Let me clarify…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because I was too busy driving across the country in an attempt to see a game at every stadium along the way.

That’s a great time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. Your excuse is something relevant to the topic of your blog, and that means your readers will care and be interested.

On the other hand…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because A) things have been hectic at work, B) my internet has been down/computer is broken, C) I’m busy packing for my big move, D) kids started school, E) my girlfriend’s sister is getting married, F) anything similar.

This is a horrible time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. In this case, you should be posting whatever you would have posted had everything been normal and on schedule. Anything else is just a big annoying bunch of nonsense to your readers.

With all of that being said…

With all of that being said, I’m only a couple of weeks into The Successful Site Experiment, and I’m already a full week behind trying to blog about it in real time.

This is harder than I thought.

Reason being, I have a funny work ethic. I only want to go at 100% at all times. I can’t (or just don’t want to) put 50% into this, 50% into that. I’d much rather put 100% into this, and 0% into that.

This means my new site is getting literally 100% of my time and effort right now, and 0% is being put into blogging about the entire process over here in real time like I intended to. My bad.

Now, this really wouldn’t be so bad if I just forget the “real time” idea and just blogged about it all anyway. I mean, so what, it won’t be in complete “real time” and my blogging here may be slightly behind what I’m actually up to.

The problem with that is that when I’m in (let’s say) the design and development phase, blogging about finding a web host (something I did before the design and development phase) is already uninteresting to me and feels like a chore to blog about at that exact moment.

So, what’s the solution?

Simple. I’m going to keep the “real time” concept going even if it means chronology gets fucked up along the way. Meaning, I may leave some stuff out and then come back to it later on.

For example, I’m currently in the design and development phase of this site, so that’s what I’m currently in the mood to blog about. (See next post.)

However, doing so would mean I’ve skipped blogging about the “finding the perfect web host” phase. It’s ok, I’ll just come back to it some time later on in this process.

There ya go, problem solved. Hooray!

One other excuse you’ll be interested in.

While I’m on the subject of giving you excuses for not blogging (note that these are relevant excuses that you will care about), I woke up today to find something else that will eat up a tiny bit of my time over the next day or two. This…

That’s a screen shot of traffic stats for another site of mine that I took today at about 11:30am.

As you can see (underlined in red for added obviousness), the site is at over 25,000 unique visitors as of 11:30am today which is well above its usual daily traffic (I’m guessing it will hit at least double that by the end of the day).

This is due to a piece of content from this site getting mentioned by a pretty huge blog sometime early this morning.

So now I’ll be spending some time today basically managing everything that happens as a result of a huge influx of traffic like this. I must say though, if anything was going to take some of my time away from working on this new site… this is definitely what I want it to be.

One thing I won’t be doing today though is worrying about this site staying up or slowing down or having any similar problems as a result of all of this traffic. Why? Because I have the perfect web host.

Shit. I knew I should have just written the “finding the perfect web host” post.

Welcome to the 4th and final part of this guest posting series. If you’ve been playing along at home, you’ve already learned just about everything you will ever need to know about guest posting.

All that’s left to learn now are some final tips for getting as much out of this as you possibly can. I’m talking MaXiMuM GueST PoSTiNG SuCCeSS!!!

And hey, what a coincidence, I’m going to explain exactly that in the convenient form of a list of “DOs” and “DON’Ts.”

And it’s going to start right… about… now.

DO have an amazing post already written and ready to be posted before your guest post goes live.

Pay lots of attention here.

Before your guest post gets published, you need to write up a truly amazing post for your own blog and save it. Don’t publish it yet, just have it fully written and ready to go.

Then, the second your guest post goes live, publish this amazing post of yours.

Why?

So when all of this brand new traffic comes to your site in one big immediate burst, this will be the very first thing they see.

Take my word for it, this will do more for converting this traffic into regular readers than anything else you can possibly do. And the more amazing this post of yours is, the more of this traffic you will convert.

I’m not guessing, by the way. I’m guaranteeing.

The truth is, right after guest posting, a bunch of people who didn’t even know you existed will show up on your site. And just as soon as they show up, they will leave and never return. Your goal (and your job) is to grab them and keep them there for as long as possible. Oh, and you’ll only have about 3 seconds to do it.

This means you need to ensure that the very first thing these people see is something that they just HAVE to read. If it is, they will stay and possibly go on to subscribe, sign up, join, buy, or do whatever the hell else it is you want them to do on your site.

If it’s not, you’ll have lost them forever.

Long story short, you only have one shot at converting guest post traffic, and this little strategy here is the single greatest way of making it happen. Prepare an amazing post in advance and publish it immediately after your guest post goes live.

DO make sure your next post is pretty damn good, too.

Yup, for pretty much the same reasons mentioned above for why that most recent post of yours needs to be amazing, your very next post after that needs to be pretty damn good too.

This post is the one that proves to these new readers of yours that your most recent amazing post – the one that made them stay and go on to subscribe – wasn’t a fluke.

If the guest post is the one that draws them in, and that amazing post above is the one that hooks them, this next post of yours is the one that keeps them.

Make sure it’s something capable of accomplishing this.

DO mention to your own readers on your own blog that you did a guest post.

If you wrote it, your readers will probably like it. So, be sure to tell them about your guest post and let them know where to find it.

DON’T tell your readers about your guest post until a few days later.

Yup. You should definitely tell your readers about your guest post, just not right away.

The reason why should be pretty obvious if you read the very first DO in this post. You know, the one about writing an amazing post and putting it live right after your guest post gets published so it’s the first thing all of this new traffic sees?

Well, the worst thing you can do is have the first post they see be a post along the lines of: “Hey guys, just did a guest post, check it out!”

Click, gone.

They just came from that guest post, so this is something all of this traffic is guaranteed to not give a shit about it. They’ll of course express this to you by leaving your site immediately.

Like I said before, you will only have one shot at converting these people into regular readers (or at the very least people who go deeper into your site to look around and then possibly become regular readers), so ensuring that the first thing they see is something they will love and not something they couldn’t care less about is of the utmost importance.

You should therefore hold off for a few days on mentioning that you did a guest post. There’s no real rush to tell your own readers anyway, so wait until most (or all) of that guest post traffic dies down and then do this post.

Or, better yet, publish that next amazing post first, and then make your “guest post mention” post.

So basically:

1. Your guest post gets published.
2. You publish a super amazing post on your own blog the second you see your guest post is live.
3. You publish another post that is also above average on the scale of awesomeness soon after (how soon after depends on whatever your typical posting frequency is).
4. Your next post can be the one where you mention you did a guest post.
5. You go right back to posting awesome content.

Rinse, repeat.

DO contact the blog owner and thank them for letting you guest post.

If you have an ounce of common sense (or manners), this one was probably pretty obvious. For those of you that don’t, be sure to contact the blog owner after your guest post gets published and thank them for letting you do it.

DO create an opening for future guest posts.

Whether you really want to guest post on that same blog again or if you have absolutely no intention of ever guest posting there in a million years, it’s always a smart move to at least create an opening for it.

This is pretty easy to do. In that “thank you” email you send (see above), just throwing in something as simple as “would love to do it again sometime” at the end should do the trick.

Real world example: I guest posted for John Chow, and I sent him an email right after my post went live thanking him for letting me do it and literally included the words “would love to do it again sometime” at the end of the email despite having little interest at the time in doing it again.

He replied back with something like “sure, whenever you have another post just send it over” and that was that.

Next thing you know, I felt like guest posting for him again, sent my post over, and it was live on his blog the next day. Oh, and it went on to be 50 times more beneficial to me than the first post. Good thing I created an opening for future guest posts.

Be sure to do the same.

DO pay attention to the comments on your post, and reply to them.

Assuming you guest posted on a blog that has an audience, and assuming your guest post didn’t completely suck, there’s a strong chance that there will be people leaving comments.

And, even though it’s not your blog, you should treat the comments on your guest post as though it IS your blog.

Reply to everything that warrants a reply. Answer questions, give advice, join the discussion, give your (expert) opinion, argue politely and intelligently with anyone who decides to argue against something you said in your post, and basically just use the comments to show these people (and all future people who come across this post) that you are a total badass in whatever subject your post was about.

Forget that replying to the comments is just the right thing to do for many obvious reasons, it’s also another perfect place to promote the crap out of yourself and show this blog’s readers how knowledgeable, credible and all around awesome you are.

Oh, and in the case where you guest post and the readers of that blog don’t actually realize it was a guest post (crazy right?), responding to the comments as the writer of that post is the best way of correcting that.

DON’T publicly make fun of that blog’s owner or readers.

Only a truly sick individual would do something like publicly poke fun at that fact that the readers of the blog they guest posted on weren’t exactly smart enough to realize that it was actually a guest post. (A nice example of do as I say and not as I do, kids.)

Even though it caused no problems for me at all (hell, I even brought it up a second time), it’s still a really good idea to avoid doing silly stuff like this that may jeopardize your chance of ever guest posting on that same blog again in future.

While on that subject…

DON’T publicly complain about anything related to your guest post or the experience as a whole.

Don’t publicly whine and complain about how little traffic your guest post brought you, or how they removed the link you added within the post even though they never actually said you could do that, or that they did some barely noticeable editing to your post, or that it took them a while to publish it, or really any similar thing that is seriously NOT AT ALL worth complaining about.

Just let this kind of stuff slide and don’t be a dick about it.

Well, unless of course it’s really, REALLY deserved.

In some very rare cases, something happens during your guest posting experience that makes some public complaining justified. I mean, I’ve heard of people submitting guest posts and then having their link nofollowed (when it clearly wasn’t supposed to be), or not having any link back at all, or not getting any credit of any kind (not even a name), or having their post edited to the point where it makes them sound horrible/wrong/dumb, and other equally crappy things.

Again, this kind of stuff is rare, and if you paid attention during Part 2 you will have picked a blog to guest post on that wouldn’t pull lame shit like this in the first place. But, in the event that something like this does happen, by all means feel free to strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger.

In all others cases though, just let it go. It’s not worth it, it won’t accomplish anything, and you’ll most likely end up looking like a dumbass in the process.

DO guest post on this blog again.

If you get a guest post published on a blog, you just instantly increased your chances of getting future guest posts published on that same blog. This is something you should definitely take advantage of.

Use everything you learned from the previous guest post to make the next one even more successful.

Take my John Chow guest posts for example. I did 2. The first did okay. Got some alright traffic, nothing crazy. What I learned though is that many of his readers aren’t very bright (look at me, I brought it up again) and failed to realize it was actually a guest post.

So, what did I do? Fueled by a combination of annoyance and vengeance, I guest posted a second time and corrected that problem… big time. And then I topped it off with some equally big time self promotion.

While that second guest post of mine definitely provided value (still the key to any successful guest post), it was really just a blatant attempt at self promotion (seriously, the whole post is me explaining what I’ve accomplished and how awesome I am for doing it) and making sure everyone who read it knew without a doubt that it was a guest post (3 words into the post I literally said the words “guest post”).

The result was me getting more traffic in this post’s first couple of hours than my first guest post brought in its first couple of weeks.

Of course, including a REALLY click-through-enticing link within the post itself certainly didn’t hurt, either. And this is another one of the perks of guest posting a second time on the same blog. You have a little more leeway in terms of the stuff you can do compared to your first guest post on that blog.

In this case, that “leeway” was me including a perfectly relevant link back to a specific post of mine within this guest post.

This wasn’t a coincidence. I wrote that second guest post with the intent of including that specific link. And if I wasn’t so busy at the time, I probably would have worked in a second link too. Even still, the results were exactly what I expected/wanted them to be.

The moral: Sometimes your first guest post on a blog goes really bad, just okay, or quite good. Either way, you’ll have learned something, and you can use that “something” to ensure your second (and third, fourth, etc.) guest posts on that blog go progressively better.

The End Of Part 4 (And This Whole Guest Post Series)

And that wraps up this guest posting series. You’ve now learned:

1. The point, purpose and benefits of guest posting.
2. How to find the perfect blog(s) to guest post on.
3. How to write your guest post and actually get it published.
4. What you need to do (and not do) in order to get as much out of all of this as possible.

If you made it this far, you are officially a guest posting badass. Congrats.

Now go guest post somewhere.

(This is Part 4 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)

In Part 1 of this series, you learned why guest posting is a super terrific way of marketing your blog and probably realized that you should do it.

In Part 2 you learned how to find the perfect blog(s) to guest post on.

And now, in Part 3, you’re going to learn how to write a successful guest post and actually get it published on the blog you’d like to get it published on.

Away we go…

How To Write A Successful Guest Post

Before we can go any further, you’re going to need to know what the definition of a “successful guest post” actually is.

Simply put, a successful guest post is a guest post that is both:

1. A success on the blog it was posted on (in terms of it generating a lot of comments, positive feedback, discussion, as well as getting lots of links, social bookmarks, traffic and really just anything that shows it was popular and well liked on this blog or anywhere else)
   AND
2. As beneficial to you, the guest poster, as possible (in terms of how much traffic it sends you, how much (and what kind) of exposure it gives you, how many new subscribers/users/customers it gets you, etc.).

You really can’t have one without the other, which is why the success of a guest post is really equally dependent on making both happen.

So, just how do you make your guest post a success? Simple. Do all of this:

Make it useful, awesome and full of value.

Everything you’re going to read below is pretty important, but nothing is more important than this. Your guest post needs to be useful and awesome and full of value.

It’s really easy to get caught up in the fact that what guest posting really is is a way for you to market your own blog. As true as that is, you can not lose sight of the fact that goal #1 is to write a great post that this blog’s readers will truly love.

No matter how perfectly you get every other aspect of guest posting, this is the one that carries the most significance in terms of how well it all works out for you. Get it right.

Follow instructions.

If they recommend a specific post length, do it! If they recommend a specific post format, do it! If they recommend using a picture in the post, do it! Whatever instructions or recommendations/suggestions they give (if any), DO IT!

And don’t just do it… do it to their exact specifications.

Write for their audience, not yours.

This isn’t a post for your own blog, and this isn’t your audience. That means that whatever you write needs to be geared specifically towards this blog’s readers and no one else.

Just because it’s a similar niche does not mean you are writing for a similar audience. You need to spend some time on this blog getting to know the people who read it, and make sure you keep them (and them alone) in mind when writing your guest post.

Make sure you end up with something that this specific blog’s readers will like and find useful, and make sure it’s something that is completely relevant to this specific blog.

Make it click-through enticing.

This is the hardest one to explain, the hardest one to teach, yet one of the most important ones to make happen. You need to write a guest post that entices everyone who reads it to click through to your site immediately after.

What’s that you say? There will be a link to your site at the beginning or end (or both) of your guest post and people will click it when they see it? Ha, that’s cute.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Here’s how it does work…

If your guest post doesn’t grab its readers in some way and make them WANT to check out the site of the person who wrote it, your link will be completely invisible to them. Sort of like ad blindness. Unless you cause a thought along the lines of “I want more of this person” to pop into the head of the people reading this post, your link might as well not even exist.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not only write something that is great and useful and full of value, but to write something that makes people want more of you, the writer.

Whether your post leaves them wanting to learn more about you and your background, read other stuff you’ve written, subscribe to your blog right then and there, or buy whatever you’re selling, it doesn’t really matter.

As long as you can get them to WANT to click through to your site when they see your link at the end of the post, you did your job.

Research what type of posts work best on this blog, and use them as guidelines.

I don’t mean find out what posts on this blog are the most successful and then rip them off. I mean figure out what kind of posts tend to work best on this blog (most comments, most social bookmarks, most traffic, etc.) and then use them all as guidelines for your guest post.

For example, if you see list posts (20 ways to blah blah blah, 10 best blah blah blah) work fantastically on this blog, write a list.

If you see that posts with a massive collection of data complete with graphs and charts work tremendously well, try something like that.

If how-to posts work best, write a how-to post.

If you see posts about one specific topic work best, make your guest post about that topic.

Basically, do some research on this blog. Find out what posts seem to be the most popular and successful, and then use them to your advantage.

Show your personality.

Just because you are writing a post for someone else’s blog, it doesn’t mean you should try to act like them or sound like them. In fact, you should do your best to do the complete opposite of that.

The less you sound like them, the more you’ll stand out. And the more you stand out, the more likely you are to catch the attention of this blog’s readers. Let your personality come through in your writing. Feel free to be funny if it calls for it. Be original and unique and write in your voice only.

As nauseating as this is going to sound, it’s the truth: just be yourself.*

(* Unless of course you suck. Then feel free to pretend to be someone who doesn’t suck.)

Be confident.

It’s easy to get a little scared/nervous/intimidated at the prospect of writing for a big, popular blog (or really just any blog that is bigger and more popular than your own).

Don’t.

It will come through in your writing and probably hurt the quality of your post. Not to mention, people won’t want to click through to the site of someone who pees their pants due to guest posting. And trust me, they’ll notice (that is assuming the blog’s owner actually accepts the post of someone who clearly appears to be in way over their head).

Instead, be confident in your writing ability, your knowledge of the topic you’re writing about, and how truly capable you are of writing something for any blog, anywhere, at any time.

This too will come through in your writing, and it will be a good thing.

Don’t repeat something they’ve already said and done.

Imagine if this blog accepted guest posts, and I got an email from someone who wanted to do a post about a method of building links whereby you create content that is relevant to both your own niche and some other completely different niche thus allowing you to sort of “crossover” into that niche for the purpose of having a whole new audience to get links from.

Sound familiar? (Link Building Method: The Niche Crossover)

Don’t be that guy.

Do a quick search of that blog before you write your own post to make sure you aren’t writing something that this blog has already written. (Or, better yet, check your idea over with the blog’s owner before running with it.)

Don’t guest post about a topic they JUST posted about.

Imagine if this blog accepted guest posts, and someone emailed me today about doing a guest post about guest posting.

Don’t be that guy, either.

Check the blog’s most recent posts and try to stay away from topics they literally just finished blogging about.

Make sure this is all new, original content.

I’m not talking about posting some new, original idea (sure would be nice, though), I’m talking about the content itself and making sure it’s not something that’s already been posted on your own blog or anywhere else for that matter.

I for one can’t believe that I actually even need to include this part, but it happens often enough that I do. Don’t be an idiot. Or an asshole. Don’t try to pass off your own already-written stuff as a brand new guest post, and don’t steal content from other sources and try to pass it off as your own.

The blog’s owner will find out eventually, and you can bet your sweet ass that they will make you look like the idiot you are when they do. I know damn well I would.

How To Ensure Your Guest Post Gets Published

Alright, so you have a pretty good grasp on what goes into creating a successful guest post. All you need to do now is actually get it published on that perfect blog you want to get it published on.

There’s just one teeny tiny problem… most guest posts will get turned down.

It’s easy to understand why if you think about it. For starters, most people can’t write worth a damn, and many of the ones who can lack the creativity, knowledge and whatever else to actually use that writing ability to create great content.

Not to mention, there’s a lot of people out there who understand the benefits of guest posting, and a lot of these people are submitting guest posts to the same blogs you (and many other people) are. These blogs just can’t accept the majority of them because they really aren’t interested in posting 40 guest posts a day.

For these reasons, many people will fail at this point. They’ll find the perfect blog to guest post on, write what they think is the perfect post, and fail to actually get it accepted by that blog.

So I guess what you’re probably wondering now is, how do you get around this and be the person who gets their post accepted?

Good question.

The single biggest factor in getting your post published on your blog of choice is your ability to create great, well written content. If you can’t do that, the rest of this doesn’t matter because you’ll be screwed no matter what.

So, take your creativity and knowledge and combine it with everything I mentioned above to ensure that the post you’re submitting is truly worthy of being submitted and truly has “successful guest post” potential written all over it.

Once you have that, there are still a bunch of additional factors playing a large role in whether your post gets accepted or not. Getting them right may not guarantee your post gets accepted (it will certainly help, though), but getting them wrong may very well guarantee that it won’t.

So, pay attention.

Follow instructions.

I know, I mentioned the importance of following instructions earlier, but I was talking about guest post writing instructions. There’s actually a whole other set of instructions that you can fuck up following… the guest post submission instructions.

Take it from someone who has gotten hundreds of guest post requests over the last few years… there is nothing that guarantees your guest post request will be turned down on sight quite like your inability to follow simple instructions.

For example, if a blog says to email all guest post requests with the words “guest post” in the subject, DO IT! If they say to fill out a form instead of emailing them directly, DO IT!

And please, for the sake of all humanity, send them what they ask for! If a blog says to email them with your guest post idea, email them with your guest post idea! Don’t email them a full post, or to tell them you’re interested in guest posting, or to see if they accept guest posts.

Email them what they asked you to email them. If it’s ideas, send ideas. If it’s a full finished post, include the full finished post.

Whatever instructions they give, follow them to a tee.

What if there are no instructions?

Here’s a very quick and simple template to follow when emailing a blog about doing a guest post. If they don’t give any specific instructions, do it basically just like this. If they do give some specific instructions, just edit where needed.

Hey [Blog Owner's Name (see A)],

[Something short about you being a fan of their blog (See B)]. [Something short and to the point that shows you aren't making that previous sentence up even though you just might be (See C)]

I noticed that you accept guest posts and would love to do one. I had an idea (or a couple of ideas) in mind. [Very briefly explain your guest post idea(s) (See D)].

You can find some examples of my writing here: [link to your blog or to a couple of your best posts (See E)]

Let me know what you think or if you have a specific topic in mind you’d like me to write about.

Thanks for your time.

[your name/link to your blog]

• A – Nothing says “don’t bother reading this” quite like an email that starts “Dear Website Owner” or “Dear Webmaster” or “Dear Sir” or “Dear Anything-equally-generic-that-proves-I-didn’t-actually-spend-a-second-on-your-blog-and-am-probably-sending-this-exact-email-to-1000-other-people.” Take a few minutes to find something resembling a name of some sort and put it there. Be it their first name, nickname, username, screename, or just whatever the hell it is they call themselves (or other people call them) on this blog.
• B – Put something along the lines of “Love the blog, been reading it for a while.” or “Big fan of your blog, subscribed to it a few months ago.” Basically, in one short simple sentence, show that you are a fan of their blog and not someone who just discovered it 5 minutes ago while looking for blogs to guest post on.
• C – Here’s where you prove B even though you may have been lying. And again, you do it as quickly and briefly as possible (noticing a theme here?). The easiest way to do this is by referencing a specific post of theirs that you like or by agreeing with/complimenting something they said or did somewhere on their blog. Basically, something that shows that you are a real live human sending a real personalized email to a blog owner whose blog you’ve spent at least 20 seconds reading.
• D – The key word here is “briefly.” Just give a very quick and to-the-point description of your guest post idea(s) and, if possible, why this blog’s readers will like it/find it useful. Once again, be brief and to the point.
• E – Don’t link to 100 posts. Either link to the front page of your blog, or link to a couple of what you think are your best posts.

Check grammar and spelling. Then check it 10 more times.

Seriously, the blog owner you are contacting is not your 5th grade English teacher, and the last thing they want to do is play the role of your 5th grade English teacher. Don’t give them the job of having to correct spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and typos. That’s your job.

Make sure you check your post over (and then over again) before submitting it. You’d be surprised how many guest posts are turned down as a result of them looking like they’ve been written by an elementary school dropout.

Always give 100%.

Some people (this is me raising my hand) have a really hard time giving 100% of their best when creating something that they’ll pretty much be handing over to someone else (it’s a big part of the reason why I stopped taking clients a decade ago).

Case in point… the guest post.

Sure, you’re certainly not doing it for free, as you are going to get something out of it. But even still, some people (hi!) find it really hard to create a great piece of content and then just let it exist on someone else’s blog.

This will usually cause one of two things to happen for these people. Either they’ll end up hardly ever guest posting (this is me raising my hand again) and thus miss out on all of its potential benefits, or they’ll end up trying to guest post a lot but rarely (if ever) actually get accepted.

And in the rare case that they do get accepted, they won’t get much out of it due to the low quality of the post.

So that brings us to yet another nauseatingly cliche line: always try your best.

Especially when guest posting.

The better your post is, the better the benefits will be. I promise.

Be patient.

Assuming you paid attention during Part 2 of this series, you should be trying to get this guest post on a blog that is fairly popular. The thing about a blog that is fairly popular is that the blog owner will probably be fairly busy.

And this of course means that you need to be a patient guest poster if you really want to get your post accepted.

If you submit your post and don’t hear back that day, or the next day, or even the day after that, chill out and keep waiting. There are few things quite as annoying as receiving a “Hey, haven’t heard back from you yet, blah blah blah” type email.

It’s one thing to do it a week later (and if a week or more passes without hearing back, you should email them and see what’s up), but to do it after a day (or a couple of days)… that’s just annoying and enough to get me to tell you to shove your guest post up your ass.

So, be patient.

Don’t write about something that will piss off the blog’s owner or readers.

Meaning, don’t trash products this blog sells/recommends, don’t trash blogs this blog regularly links to, don’t trash people this blog is friends with, don’t disagree with something this blog and its readers agree with, and so on and so on.

Save the trash talking, anti-establishment rebel routine for your own blog. This is a guest post. You don’t have to be a complete sheep, but the “sheepier” you are, the more likely you are to get your guest post published.

And since that’s your goal here, it’s a pretty good idea to hold off on doing stuff that will piss off the owner and readers of this blog.

Don’t make any special requests.

Do NOT submit your guest post, get it accepted and then make special requests for when and how it gets posted. Stuff like “I’d prefer it gets posted on Monday at 9am” is the kind of thing that will end your guest post career at that blog.

Just write a great post, get it accepted, and let the blog owner do whatever the hell they want from that point on. In the future, when you have formed a relationship with this blog and its owner and you are comfortable enough with each other to make requests like this, go for it.

But until that point, keep your requests and demands and preferences to yourself because, quite honestly, nobody gives a shit.

Don’t link to your own site (yet) and don’t include affiliate links (ever).

I think it’s a really good idea and in really good taste to NOT even attempt to include a link to your own blog within your post when you are guest posting on a blog for the first time. In future guest posts on that blog? That’s a whole other story. But the very first time? Nah, I strongly advise against it.

It’s certainly doable and does happen, but more often than not it will be the reason you get turned down. Sure, guest posting is all about self promotion. The blog owner definitely knows that. But even still, going that extra step to include a link within your first post just screams of being overly self promotional… and that’s a big no no.

A much better idea is to safely get that first guest post on the blog so that some sort of relationship gets formed and the odds of you doing future guest posts for them increases. Then, in said future posts on that blog… if it makes sense for you to include a link, go for it.

Real life example: look at the 2 guest posts I did for John Chow. I included a link to a post of mine within the second guest post. Could I have gotten away with it in the first post? Maybe, but I know it really wasn’t worth the risk of getting turned down because of it and then not getting anything published there ever.

Instead, I made sure that first post got published and created an opening for a second. I then used that second post to up the self-promotion a little. Unsurprisingly, that link within the second post brought more traffic in its first few hours than the first post brought in its first few weeks.

The moral of this story: it pays to hold off on links within the post until you’re a little more confident in your ability to get away with it.

Speaking of “getting away with,” here’s something you’ll never get away with in a guest post: affiliate links. Unless the blog owner flat out said “hey, feel free to include some affiliate links in your guest posts,” don’t even try it. EVER.

The End Of Part 3

There you go. That’s pretty much everything you will need to know to ensure that you write a successful guest post and get it published on whatever blog you want.

So uhhh, what’s left now?

Oh, that’s right, knowing what to do (and not do) directly before and after your guest post gets published so that you end up getting as much out of it as you possibly can.

The 4th and final part of this series will take care of that: 10 Guest Posting DOs and DON’Ts for Maximum Success

(This is Part 3 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)

Amazing coincidence or did I purposely plan it this way? What do you think?

This post calls out and questions your selection of your blog’s niche.

Did you pick the right niche? How do you know for sure? How DO you pick the right niche anyway? This post covers it all.

Check it out: Are You Sure That Niche is Right for You?

In Part 1 of this series, I explained the purpose, benefits and overall basics of guest posting. And, assuming your reading comprehension is up to par, you probably realized it’s a really good thing to do and are now considering doing it.

Smart move.

The very next step is finding the perfect blog(s) to guest post on, and that’s exactly what this part of the series is all about.

However, before we can get to very best ways of finding these perfect blogs, we must first go over a certain criteria that all blogs you consider guest posting on MUST meet.

This is a key step in the guest posting process that a lot of people miss, and it’s one of the main reasons these people tend to get very little out of their guest post.

So, you know, pay attention.

The Criteria

When you understand that the purpose of guest posting is self promotion, it should then be pretty obvious that the blog you guest post on should have already reached some significant level of traffic and popularity. This of course is to ensure that you actually get some significant amount of promotion out of doing this in the first place.

As obvious as this seems it should be, it’s apparently not.

I’m always amazed (in between pointing and laughing) when I see guest posts on C and D-list level blogs (or worse). Seriously, what the hell are these people thinking?

Guest posting on a blog that’s barely a blip on the radar in its own niche will accomplish virtually nothing. The benefits will range from tiny to nonexistent, and more often than not it will be a complete waste of both your time and a perfectly good guest post.

Think about it. You’re guest posting for the purpose of getting significant traffic and exposure (among other things), so step 1 in your quest to making this happen needs to be guest posting on a blog that is actually capable of making this happen.

Does that mean you should only try to guest post on the biggest, most popular A-list level blogs on the planet? No, not at all.

It just means that the blogs you consider guest posting on MUST have an at least somewhat high level of traffic and popularity. If they don’t, fuck ‘em, because they will rarely ever be worth your time and effort.

And another thing to consider, what do you have to lose by setting your sights super high anyway? You definitely don’t have to (and the newer you are at this, the more you shouldn’t), but why the hell shouldn’t you?

I say swing for the fences and hope for the best. The worst thing that can happen is they turn you down and you just take that post to some slightly lesser (but still popular) blog.

If they turn you down too, take it to a slightly lesser blog. And if they turn you down, your post probably sucks… so start over and try again.

But really, the big point here is this: understand what you want to get out of this guest post, and then make sure you guest post somewhere capable of making it happen.

How? Good question…

Determining A Blog’s Level Of Popularity And Traffic

So now that you know how important it is to ensure that you only guest post on blogs that have already reached some significant level of popularity and traffic, the next thing you should be wondering is how to tell if a blog actually is (or is not) at such a level.

Here now are the best methods for determining how popular a blog is:

1. Subscribers
   Keep an eye out for those little Feedburner chicklets that show you a blog’s subscriber count. There’s no simpler, more accurate way of telling how popular a blog is than by its number of subscribers, so this is definitely the first thing to look for. (If a blog doesn’t have one, you can get a semi-rough idea of its subscriber count by clicking “Add a subscription” in Google Reader and then searching for the name of the blog. This will only show you how many people are subscribed via Google Reader/iGoogle, of course. Still better than nothing.)
2. Comments
   How active are their comments? This is usually a pretty good indicator of a blog’s level of traffic and popularity. And maybe even more importantly, what kind of comments are they? Are they bullshit “good post, thanks!” type comments written by a useless audience that only comments in hopes of getting traffic from the 2 people who may click their link, or are they comments from a real loyal audience that actually reads and cares about this blog? There’s a huge difference there, so don’t get caught up in quantity alone. Pay attention to quality. I’d much rather guest post on a blog that gets 10 super high quality comments than a blog that gets 100 low quality pieces of crap. The blog’s traffic/popularity is the #1 thing we’re looking for here, but #2 is audience quality. Comments are really the only way we have of gauging the quality of a blog’s readers, so definitely pay attention.
3. Backlinks
   Popular, high traffic blogs tend to have lots and lots of links. Unpopular blogs with little traffic don’t. Use Yahoo Site Explorer to get an idea of where a blog is at in terms of backlinks.
4. Age
   Sure, the age of a blog really doesn’t do anything to guarantee how much traffic and popularity it has, but it’s very safe to assume that there’s more of a chance that a 4 year old blog has more traffic/popularity than a 4 month old blog. More often than not, the longer a blog has been around, the more guest post worthy it is. (In case it’s not obvious enough, you can tell how old a blog is by looking through its archives. Duh.)
5. Compete, Alexa, etc.
   Of everything on this list, this is by far the most useless way of estimating a blog’s traffic and popularity. I put very little stock in the Competes and Alexas of the world due to how laughably inaccurate they are the majority of the time. But, some people find them to be semi-useful for certain things, so I figured I’d throw it on the list just to please these people. Happy, people?

As for what specific number of subscribers, comments, backlinks, etc. you should be looking for to know whether a blog is truly guest post worthy, that will vary greatly from niche to niche. I can’t just say “only guest post on blogs with X subscribers” because in one niche 20,000 subscribers might be a lot, and in another 800 might be a lot.

You’ll have to use your own judgment (you know your niche better than I do) and common sense.

If a blog has little to no comments (or a bunch of really shitty ones) on most of its posts, or if it has less than a few hundred subscribers, or if it barely has 100 backlinks, or if it has only been around for a couple of months… you should probably keep on looking.

Similarly, if you see a blog that has a few thousand subscribers (or more), a nice amount of high quality comments on all of its posts, thousands of backlinks from quality sites and has been around for years, this is probably a good blog to consider guest posting on.

Where To Find Guest Post Worthy Blogs

Now that you have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for, you probably want to know where to look. This should get you going:

1. Brainstorm

The perfect place to start is in your own head. This is your niche, after all, so if anyone should know what some of the most popular blogs in this niche are… it’s you.

Make a list of the first bunch of blogs that come to mind and put them in order of how popular you think they are.

2. Technorati’s Top 100 & Technorati’s Blog Directory

From there, take a peek at the Technorati Top 100. This of course is a fairly accurate ranking of the 100 most popular blogs in the world. Makes sense to look there when you’re looking for popular blogs, doesn’t it?

Look it over for blogs in your niche (or a related niche) and add them to your list.

An added benefit of finding a relevant blog on this list is that it will give you a good idea of how popular “popular” actually is in your niche. Meaning, you’ll know what the upper limit of popularity is in your niche, and you can compare every other blog you find to it.

Sort of like blog popularity calibration. (I enjoy inventing new marketing terms that have no chance of catching on.)

After that, go through Technorati’s blog directory, which is basically a listing of some of the most popular blogs around broken down into categories and sorted by “Technorati Authority” (just their fancy way of saying “popularity”).

Check out your niche’s category and any other closely related category, and add some more blogs to that list of yours.

4. Research

Now do some research using the blogs you found so far. Chances are they talk about or link out to other blogs, usually popular ones. Add those blogs to your list too.

Then do some other simple/obvious research. For example, search for search terms related to your niche and see what blogs rank well for them. Blogs that rank well on search engines tend to be the blogs with the most traffic and popularity. Throw those blogs on your list as well.

Now what?

Your goal is to end up with a long list of relevant blogs that appear to be at least kind of popular and get some significant amount of traffic.

The next step is to narrow down this list by going through each blog to see if they truly do meet our guest post worthiness criteria using the methods and guidelines mentioned earlier.

The ones that appear to meet the criteria we’re looking for, keep. The ones that don’t, kick off the list (or save them somewhere else in case you suck at guest posting so much that only crappy blogs will let you guest post. I kid, I kid. )

The next step is to go through this updated list to see which of these blogs actually accept guest posts (more on that in a second).

In the end, you’ll have yourself a list of the perfect blogs to guest post on. Hooray!

Look Beyond Your Niche, Too

Remember that genius link building method I told you about a couple of weeks ago? You know, The Niche Crossover. Well, that exact same concept applies beautifully to guest posts.

I’m not going to explain the whole thing all over again here (read the post you lazy bastard), but you just need to come up with some sort of way of connecting your niche to some other niche, and then taaadaaa, you are now able to guest post on any blog in any niche you want.

The potential here is unlimited. Keep that in mind when making your list of guest post worthy blogs.

How To Tell If A Blog Accepts Guest Posts

So now you know how to find blogs to guest post on. Now you need to know whether they actually accept guest posts. Here’s how you do that:

• First and most obvious, look for some kind of “write for us” or “guest post” type link somewhere in their navigation. Check the header, sidebar and footer.
• Check the “About” and “Contact” pages. Lots of times blogs that accept guest posts will include a little mention of this fact somewhere on these types of pages. For example, the “Contact” page may say something along the lines “If you have any questions, feedback or would like to guest post, fill out the form below and blah blah blah.” Also check any sort of “FAQ” page for something similar.
• Search the blog (via their own search or Google or both) for phrases like “guest post” or “guest blog” or “guest blogging” or stuff like that.
• Go through the archives and look for posts that end (or begin) with something like “this post was written by Blah Blah from blahblahblah.com.”
• Email them and ask.

The End Of Part 2

And that wraps up Part 2.

At this point you know every single thing you’d need to know about guest posting up until the point where you actually contact a blog about doing a guest post, come up with the perfect idea for a post on that specific blog, create the perfect post, submit it, actually get it accepted and published, and go on to get as much out of it as you possibly can.

Hey, what a coincidence… that’s exactly what Part 3 covers: How to Write a Guest Post and Get it Published

(This is Part 2 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)

I’m going to start this thing off with a fact. And it’s the kind of fact that will make anyone who is currently thinking “a guest posting guide? nah, not really interested” instantly change their mind and eagerly anticipate reading the rest of this. Intrigued? Here goes:

Some of the biggest, most popular, highest traffic, highest earning blogs in your niche (and every other niche) got to that point as a result of one thing and one thing only… guest posting.

In many cases, the blogs that reached this point weren’t special at all. They were average, the writing was average, the content was average, the design was average, everything about them was average at best.

Yet, they were able to reach this almighty point of blog success. How the hell did they do it?

Quite simply, nothing but hardcore guest posting.

I’ve seen it happen a ton of times. Sometimes the success is deserved because their blog truly is great and they should have reached this point. Other times? Not so much. But, guest posting was the great equalizer. As long as you can guest post like a champion, how great your blog is sometimes only barely matters.

THAT’S how effective guest posting can be. It alone can make your blog a success.

Intrigued now? Good. Let’s do this thing.

What’s The Purpose Of Guest Posting?

Self promotion.

Simple enough answer for ya? It’s the honest truth. That’s really the only reason people guest post… to promote themselves, their blog, their site, their product, their service, or whatever else.

And it’s not a secret, either. Every blog you guest post on or are considering guest posting on is fully aware of this. It’s very understood that you didn’t just have some sudden innocent interest in helping them make their blog better by supplying it with great content for free.

They know full well that you’re only doing it to promote your own stuff, and they are perfectly fine with it (I’ll get to why later).

So, if you’re wondering if guest posting would be useful for you, or if it’s something you should be thinking about doing, here’s the question that will help you figure it out…

Do you want to promote something?

If you answered yes, guest posting is definitely for you.

If you answered no, then what the fuck are you doing on this blog in the first place?

How Much Good Will Come From Guest Posting?

Guest posting will damn near always make something good happen for you. Meaning, there are certain benefits that will always be there, and a certain amount of awesomeness that will always come from doing it.

However, the actual degree of awesomeness you will experience as a result of guest posting will greatly depend on a bunch of factors specific to your exact situation.

In order of importance, the main factors influencing the degree of success of a guest post are:

• The size and popularity of the blog you are guest posting on.
• The quality of your guest post, and how click-through enticing it is.
• What type of audience the blog you guest posted on has.
• How closely related your blog is to the blog you posted on.
• The quality (and relevancy) of your blog’s content, especially your most recent posts at the time your guest post goes live.
• The design and usability of your blog.

All of the above will play a large role in the amount of good that comes from doing a guest post. The lower all of the stuff on this list is, the lesser the benefits will be. The higher the stuff on this list is, the greater the benefits will be.

Of course, this guide is all about showing you how to make the benefits as huge as possible. Speaking of which…

What Are The Benefits Of Guest Posting?

Ah yes, the benefits. Here now are the 7 benefits of guest posting:

1. You get at least 1 link.

Every guest post comes with at least 1 guaranteed link (in the rare case it doesn’t, call the blog owner a douche and find somewhere else to post).

It will usually appear at the end of your post in some type of “This post was written by [insert your link here]” format, usually along with a short bio. Sometimes a blog will let you include more than 1 link in this spot, and if you’re really lucky AND it makes sense to, you may even be able to include a link within the post itself.

Either way, you will get at least 1 high quality link as a result of guest posting (assuming of course you guest posted on a high quality blog, more on that later), and as you should have certainly learned by now, link building is one of the keys to internet marketing.

More specifically, it is the key to SEO.

2. You get an immediate burst of short term traffic.

SEO aside, there is one other very obvious benefit that comes with getting linked to: traffic.

In the case of guest posting, it will be an immediate burst of short term traffic. The size of the “burst” will obviously depend on the factors mentioned earlier, but assuming the blog you guest posted on has any real traffic/audience of any kind (I’ll explain how to ensure this later on), there will be some sort of influx of traffic in the period of time directly after your post goes live.

Of course, this traffic won’t last very long (could range from a few hours to a few days depending on those aforementioned factors), and there’s two reasons why this is so. First, as more posts go up on this blog, your guest post gets pushed further and further down until it’s off the front page and out of immediate sight.

Second, no matter how big and popular the blog is that you posted on, their audience at the time of the post is finite. At some point all of their readers will have seen your post, and once that happens… there just won’t be any more short term traffic left to get.

But let’s get to what makes this traffic special.

See, traffic itself is practically useless. It looks pretty in Google Analytics (or whatever you’re using for stats), but in and of itself traffic is nothing. What you really care about are conversions.

What conversions? Whatever it is you are looking to convert your traffic into. Regular readers, RSS subscribers, email list subscribers, users, customers, clients, ad clickers, affiliate product buyers, social bookmarkers, whatever. Once you get someone to your site, what action(s) do you want them to take? That’s what you really care about.

And the thing about the traffic coming as a result of guest posting is that it consists solely of people who have already shown an interest in you. They read your post on this other blog and became interested and/or curious enough to click through.

This means that your conversion rate with this traffic can potentially be higher than it would be with traffic coming from any other source for any other reason.

So, the burst of traffic coming to your blog due to guest posting ends up being the perfect kind of traffic to convert into whatever it is you are trying to convert your traffic into.

3. You get some long term traffic, too.

Once the short term burst of traffic mentioned above comes to an end, your guest post still has the potential to continue sending traffic to your site in the long term.

Think about it. Your post might not be front and center on the blog anymore, but it still exists there. Maybe it will go on to get a lot of links, or go viral, or rank well on search engines, or become one of that blog’s most popular posts.

If any of this happens, it just means more traffic for you in the long term.

4. You, your blog, your brand, and your content get exposure.

Guest posting gets you out there in front of a (potentially) very large audience who never even knew you existed before that point. Forget just getting your link out there, it gets your brand out there. It gets a full sample of your writing out there. It gets what you have to offer out there.

Even if people don’t click through, they’ve now at least heard of you and been exposed to you. If they liked your post, they may even remember you. And the next time they hear of you, you’ll pop into their head as that person who wrote that guest post they liked. And this time, maybe they will click through.

5. You get some credibility.

There’s a bunch of ways to establish credibility online, and one such way is by doing a guest post for a prominent blog in your niche (or a related niche).

Why? Because if you get a post published on a blog people already respect and feel is a credible source of information, you sort of get some credibility by association.

The fact that they let something you wrote appear on their blog shows their readers that they’ve given you/this post their vote of confidence. This won’t go unnoticed.

And your own readers, assuming you tell them about this guest post of yours (more on that later), will also take notice.

6. You make a friend.

And if you picked the right type of blog to guest post on (more on that later), you make a friend in a high place. By guest posting for someone, some kind of relationship usually gets formed between you and that blog/that blog’s owner. It’s just good old fashioned networking, really.

Where you choose to take that relationship in the future is up to you, but the fact that it now exists is what’s really important. A lot of previously closed doors are now wide open.

7. It can cause The Ripple Effect Of Internet Domination.

I’ve seen it happen countless times. Sometimes it’s takes a bunch of guest posts on a bunch of different blogs over a period of time, and sometimes all it takes is one perfect guest post on one perfect blog.

And then, just like that, The Ripple Effect Of Internet Domination takes place.

Guest posting has huge ripple-starting potential, and if it actually does make it happen, the benefits from that point are endless.

(If you don’t know what The Ripple Effect Of Internet Domination is, then you obviously haven’t read How To Increase Traffic To A New Site Or Blog. Read it sometime.)

Why Do Blogs Accept Guest Posts?

Because getting completely free content that is to their exact specifications and liking is dA SHiT!

Not good enough?

Because it’s waaaay easier and waaaay less time consuming to copy and paste a great post into Wordpress and hit “publish” than it is to sit down and write that great post yourself.

Still not good enough?

Because blogging takes work, and having someone else just do it for you while you do something equally productive makes a lot of sense.

Better now? No?

Because the success of a blog partly lies in its ability to put out great content on a regular basis, and guest posting is tailor made for allowing that to happen in the long term without a hitch.

Still no? Fine…

It’s all of these things. Blogs need content, and guest posting supplies it. Blogging takes time, and guest posts save it. People hate doing work, and guest posters do it for you. People don’t like paying for stuff, and guest posts come for free.

Blog owners get and get and get and get… and they really don’t have to give anything (oh wow, a link!) in order to get it.

So why do blogs accept guest posts? For the very same reason guest posters want to do guest posts. To improve their own situation.

It’s really 2 selfish acts that come together to make it a win-win situation. Blog owners get what they want, and guest posters get what they want. Everybody wins.

Is Guest Posting Only For People With Blogs?

Hell no. You definitely do not need to have a blog in order to guest post on other blogs. Most people do, but it’s certainly not a requirement.

All you need, really, is something to promote. And in some cases, you don’t even need that.

For example, you could just have some non-blog site, like a web app, or a store, or a service, or anything else really. Hell, you don’t even need to have a site. You could just have a product or service to promote, or an event, or a Twitter account, etc..

The list goes on and on.

And if you’re really nuts, you can even guest post without having anything to promote at all. Sounds crazy, I know, but there are some sane reasons.

The first one that comes to mind is that you are doing it to form a relationship of some sort with this blog/blog owner for some purpose (general networking and making friends in high places, possibly becoming a full time writer for this blog, etc.).

Another reason could be that you will soon have some type of site or blog, and you want to try establish yourself in your niche early and sort of pre-build yourself an audience.

The people guest posting for these reasons are definitely in the minority, but I figured this was worth mentioning. This is the “ultimate” guide after all, so I’m not leaving out a damn thing.

The End Of Part 1

So you now know all the basics of guest posting. For example:

• The purpose: self promotion.
• The requirements: having anything of any kind to promote.
• The benefits: link building, highly convertible short term and long term traffic, exposure, credibility, networking, and the infinite potential of The Ripple Effect Of Internet Domination.
• The effectiveness: when done right, it alone can make your blog a success.

Part 2 will cover finding the perfect blog(s) to guest post on. Check it out: How to Find the Perfect Blog to Guest Post On

(This is Part 1 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)

Over the next few posts, I’m going to be taking you through every single aspect of one of the most popular, proven and all around effective ways of increasing traffic, links, subscribers and really just marketing your site in general…

The guest post.

The goal of this guide? To turn everyone who reads it into a total guest blogging badass.

Whether you barely know anything about it, have thought about doing it, or have already done it a bunch of times before but didn’t get as much out of it as you should have, this guide is for you.

Check it out:

• Part 1: The Basics of Guest Posting
• Part 2: How to Find the Perfect Blog to Guest Post On
• Part 3: How to Write a Guest Post and Get it Published
• Part 4: 10 Guest Posting DOs and DON’Ts for Maximum Success

Assuming you actually have credibility and your readers actually should trust you, a blog post like this is fairly easy to create.

If you don’t have any real credibility, and there really isn’t any reason your readers should trust you, you’re fucked… and deservedly so.

This is why it’s super important that the people who truly can create content like this actually do it. Wondering why?

It’s because content like this is one of the easiest ways to convert your blog’s visitors into full time readers, subscribers, users, and (eventually) customers.

So the question now is, how do you create content that establishes this credibility? Well, it’s pretty simple. Whatever it is your blog is about, you need to prove that you either:

1. Have a deep passion for it.
2. Have significant first hand experience with it.
3. Have above average knowledge about it.
4. Have had some amount of success with it.
5. Any combination of the 4.

Like real life examples? Good, because here comes two now.

Real Life Example #1

This very blog, Create. Market. Profit., is about creating, marketing, and profiting online (duh). So, let’s think. How would someone like me who has a blog like this go about creating the type of content that proves any of the things on the list above? What could I do to establish credibility with a single blog post?

Well, for starters, I could write up an insanely comprehensive account of how I significantly increased traffic to my brand new site or blog. I could take you from the very first day – where I was getting no traffic whatsoever – to the end of the third week – where I was averaging 4,000 unique visitors per day.

I could explain exactly what I did to make this happen and exactly how I did it. I could touch on the fact that it took the creation of awesome content that went very viral and got a ton of high quality links from some of the biggest blogs in the world and hit the front page of sites like Digg and Delicious numerous times… all within the span of a few weeks.

Hell, I could even include screenshots of my traffic stats for added emphasis and proof.

Of course, this is exactly what I did do.

But, what does a post like that do for me and my blog? I’ll tell you: it accomplishes every single thing on that list above.

Every person who reads that post instantly sees that I really do have first hand experience with this stuff. They see that I really have had some degree of success with it. They see that I really am fairly knowledgeable about it, and just putting together a post like that pretty much shows that I really do have a passion for it all.

And just like that, I’ve established credibility with a single blog post.

From that point on, readers of that post will automatically trust me a little more whenever they read anything else I write about any related subject (increasing traffic, creating content, link building, etc.).

Why? Because they know the credibility is there now. I’ve proved it to them. Just by reading that one post, they now know that I’m not just some guy talking about shit I don’t really have much knowledge about, experience with, passion for, or success with.

They now know that I have all of those things, and this instantly makes them (you) more inclined to read my blog, subscribe to my feed, follow my advice, believe what I say, try what I recommend, buy what I sell, and so on and so on.

Oh, and you don’t have to take my word for it either. You’ve probably read that post by now (if you haven’t, go read it sometime). Tell me, when you got to the end of it, was a higher level of credibility established in your eyes? Did your trust in me to provide you with quality information increase at all? Did you become a little more likely to read what I write, take my advice or value my opinion?

Yeah, that’s what I figured, and that’s exactly what I set out to do.

Behold the power of credibility.

Real Life Example #2

I did something similar with my post about How I Increased Adsense Revenue From $1,000 to $10,000 Per Month, and “credibility” was one of the main reasons I wrote that post in the first place.

Sure, I wanted to do an Adsense post explaining how you can increase your revenue, and I could have easily just written that list of tips I give at the end of that post. However, I recognized that this was a perfect opportunity for me to also establish credibility, so that’s what I decided to do.

Do you think I truly enjoyed discussing certain specifics of the amount of money I’m making? Honestly, I didn’t. It made me feel a little awkward and uneasy. But, I did it because I knew it would have the complete opposite effect on you, my readers.

A post like that makes you feel good. It puts your mind at ease. It allows you to let your guard down a little and start to realize that you’re safe to listen to what I have to say. Why? Because I am a credible source of information, and a post like this helped prove it.

That is the goal with content like this, really. To make your readers stop and think “alright, this guy really is someone I should listen to.” Credibility is the only thing that causes that to happen. And when that happens, trust can be built and a relationship can be formed.

And THAT right there is the sole difference between the people on your blog being “visitors” and the people on your blog being “subscribers.”

“Visitors” and “customers.”

“Visitors” and “whatever-it-is-you-want-people-to-do-on-your-site.” You get the picture.

Credibility is a game changer. So if you have it… show it. If you don’t, you’re in the wrong niche and you probably deserve to fail.

Now You Try

Looking at the examples above, some people might be thinking that I somehow have it easy. I blog about increasing traffic, so I just need to show screenshots of my traffic stats to prove I’ve done it myself. I blog about making money online, so all I need are some screenshots from my Adsense account showing money being made.

And then taaadaaa, credibility is established.

Honestly, it’s just as easy for you. Assuming you truly do have the credibility, it’s really the same with any other blog niche.

Follow my lead. This is essentially a blog about making money online. How do I prove to you that I have at least some idea what I’m talking about? Well, the easiest and most obvious way is by showing you that I actually do make money online.

How do I prove to you that I really do know how to increase traffic to a new site or blog? By showing you that I’ve done it myself and by walking you through the entire process of how I did it.

It’s not rocket science, kids. If you’re in a niche where you can show success-based proof (as in: “I’ve actually done it myself”), then do it. It’s the first thing every visitor to your blog will be looking for.

Here are some more examples…

• Have a blog about weight loss or fitness or something similar? Let’s see what you look like. Better yet, let’s see how it compares to what you used to look like. Let’s hear the story of how you did it. Let’s see a progress graph showing how much weight you lost or how much muscle you built over whatever period of time you lost it/built it. Show me that you’ve done it or are at least well on your way to doing it.
• Have a blog about knitting or drawing or art/crafts or design or Photoshop or anything similar? Show me the coolest and most impressive stuff you’ve made. Show me that you can do it/have done it.
• Have a blog about travel? Let’s see pictures of you in some of the coolest places you’ve traveled to. Let’s hear what it was like there. What hotels did you stay in? What landmarks did you visit? Show me that you’ve been there and done that.

The fact of the matter is people don’t want weight loss advice from a fat guy. People don’t want travel info from someone who hasn’t actually been anywhere. People don’t want to read a cooking blog written by someone who orders in 7 nights a week. People redoing their bathroom want to learn from someone who has already redone their own bathroom.

If you’re in a niche like this, the first thing your visitors will do is seek out proof that you’ve done it/can do it/are doing it. Give them what they want.

And if you can’t, be it because you haven’t actually done it yourself or in your specific case, in your specific niche, it just doesn’t really allow or call for a “success” type of post like this, then just move on to something else on that list I mentioned earlier.

If you can’t prove your success, prove your passion, or knowledge, or experience. It’s just as easy.

• Have a blog about TV or movies? Show me your badass DVD collection.
• Have a blog about sports? Tell me about the 5 greatest games you’ve been to live.
• Have a blog about comics and other equally nerdy stuff? Show me pictures of you at Comic-Con.

I could keep going and going and going.

(Need an example for your specific niche? Mention it in the comments.)

Content like this is not required, it’s just the fastest and easiest way to establish credibility.

Now, posts like this are not required for establishing credibility and building trust. Honestly, as long as you truly are credible and worthy of being trusted, it will come across in the quality of your blog’s content.

And, when people gradually read more and more of your content, they will just as gradually begin to realize that you are indeed credible and trustworthy.

The very big problem however is my use of the word “gradually.” It takes a lot of reading of a lot of content over a significant period of time before credibility is established this way. It definitely works, it’s just that it takes time to work.

And many times, visitors to your blog won’t be willing to put in that time.

On the other hand, creating the type of blog content that I am talking about in this post does NOT take time to work. It works instantly to establish some level of credibility and trust the second someone reads it.

In many cases, this instant credibility is all you need to convert your traffic into regular readers, subscribers, users, customers, or whatever else.

In just as many cases, a lack of this instant credibility is exactly what will turn them away.

The problem however is that a lot of these are things that people DO care about and DO focus on. Sometimes a lot. In fact, some of the big important people who write big important blogs about this stuff even recommend that you do.

What this means is that there’s a lot of people wasting a lot of time and effort on stuff that really just doesn’t matter. To show you what I mean, I have put together a list of 8 things that I personally don’t give a crap about at all. And really… neither should you.

And away we go…

1. Blog Post Length, Article Length, Or Content Length Of Any Kind

Various gurus of various related industries (SEO, blogging, etc.) will tell you that there is some ideal length you should be shooting for when you write blog posts, articles, and create content of any kind. Off the top of my head, I can remember seeing recommendations for this ideal length being 250 words, 500 words, 600-800 words, NEVER more than 1000 words, and so on and so on.

Basically, pick a number between 1 and a billion and someone has probably suggested that it’s the ideal length for the content you create.

There’s a few reasons these people makes these length recommendations, but the top two usually are:

1. You reader’s attention span. Meaning, the attention span of most of your readers/potential readers is (supposedly) short, and therefore your content should be short as well to both compensate for this and comply with what they (supposedly) want.
2. SEO. The thought here is that search engines have a preferred length of content per page, and having too little or too much will (supposedly) hurt your chances of ranking well.

This all sounds wonderful and everything, but guess what? I don’t give a crap.

I pay no attention whatsoever to the length of the content I create. Never have, either. And I think the people making these strict recommendations for content length are either greatly misinformed or mildly retarded. And the people who actually follow these recommendations? You’re just wasting your time and possibly hurting the quality of your content in the process.

Seriously. Writing with the intention of reaching a very specific number of words is dumb. Going back and editing your content so that it is within a specific word range is dumb. Purposely making a piece of content longer than it should be because it didn’t reach your goal number of words is dumb. Trying to shorten a perfect piece of content because it ended up being a bit longer than some guru recommended it should be is dumb.

Getting my point yet? It’s all dumb.

Sure, people on the internet do have short attention spans, but they have even shorter “crappy content spans.” If your content sucks, they won’t read it no matter how short it is or how close to the “ideal” number of words it was.

But if it’s good, they’ll read it no matter what. 500 words, 5000 words. Nobody cares as long as it’s good. That’s the only requirement, really. Make it good. As long as it’s good, it will be read no matter what length it is.

And please don’t misinterpret that as me saying people won’t care if something is longer or shorter than it should have been. They’d definitely care about that. But if it should have been that long or should have been that short… it’s perfect. Don’t go changing it because you heard someone say it would be better if it was longer or shorter for whatever idiotic reason.

That’s just… dumb.

I’m not just guessing here either. I know this from experience. I regularly create content that is 1000 or more (sometimes a lot more) words, and my readers read it and like it and subscribe to it and tell their friends about it and digg it and do whatever else people do when they come across great content. Why? Because it was great. They give even less of a crap than I do about how many words it was.

For entertainment purposes, and because I know people love real life examples, I just did a word count on the longest single-paged piece of content that I can ever remember creating. It has a ton of links, ranks amazingly on all search engines for all of its goal keywords, and is extremely well liked by everyone who comes across it (never gotten a single “I hate this, it’s too long!!!” email in my life). Do you know how many words it has?

About 16,000.

No, that’s not a typo.

So to all of the gurus who have said flat out that you’ll be doomed if you write something with over 1000 words: take your recommendations and shove them up your ass. I’ve gone 16 times over that “maximum” recommendation and it worked out as perfectly as it possibly could have. It’s a pretty extreme example, sure, but it proves my point nonetheless.

And for SEO? Yeah, there’s actually some truth to it in a certain context (another post for another day), but in the context of these silly recommendations, it’s just so unbelievably insignificant that even giving it a second of thought is just plain pointless.

In the end, the only thing you should be focusing on when you write is writing something great. As soon as your focus starts to shift towards length recommendations and the number of words you’re writing, it starts to shift away from just writing something great, and there’s a damn good chance that this will unknowingly affect the quality of that piece of content.

Want my personal “content length” recommendation? Whatever length makes your piece of content as perfect as it can be for the people who will be reading it, THAT is its ideal length. Making it any longer or shorter than that should be avoided at all costs. Gurus be damned.

2. Keyword Density

Ah yes, keyword density. One of the true keys to SEO… in 2001.

Today, or even the last 5 years? Nope, not at all.

Sure, one of the many things search engines take into account is the body text of your page, so it makes sense that your goal keywords for that piece of content should be used there.

But, as I very politely mention in the SEO Flowchart To Awesome Search Engine Rankings, your goal keywords should end up being used organically in your body text, not purposely. If they weren’t, you either picked the wrong goal keywords for this piece of content, or you’re a shitty writer.

Not to mention, focusing on keyword density tends to lead to you looking and sounding like one of the countless dumbasses who repeat words over and over again unnaturally in a pathetically hilarious attempt at reaching some magical keyword density numbers. You know, as though it actually matters or will help in any significant way whatsoever.

And, let’s pretend you live in some magical fantasy world where keyword density does significantly matter to search engines. Do you honestly think you’d rank amazingly and then get a ton of visitors and none of them would mind that you just used the word “mortgage” 14 times in a sentence with only 15 words? Dumbass.

So no, I don’t give a crap about keyword density. I do some basic keyword research, create the best content I am capable of creating, and my goal keywords get used throughout the content all by itself. How many times? Don’t know, don’t care. I don’t go back and count or run the page through some keyword density analyzer. I just create something my readers will love and do my best to get it seen by other people who’d love it too.

And it all ranks just fine. In fact, better than fine.

3. Blog Comment Reciprocation

Ohhh, here’s a touchy subject.

You know when you have a blog, and someone comments on one of your posts, and you see they have a blog too, so you click their name, go to their blog, check it out for a couple of minutes, and then comment on one of their posts to return the love?

Yeah, I don’t do that. I just don’t give crap.

I just have better/more important/more productive things to do than fake interest in someone else’s blog just because they commented on mine (which in some cases is just them faking interest in my blog in an attempt to get me to go to their blog and leave a comment faking interest in their blog which in turn sets off a never-ending time-wasting cycle of shitty comments from people just faking interest in each other’s blog).

No thanks, I’ll pass.

Waaaaay back in the day, maybe I did this a TINY bit (until I realized how completely pointless it was). And these days? No chance whatsoever.

I only comment when I have a legit reason to or a genuine interest in doing so. That goes for all blogs really, not just the blogs of people who comment on mine (and that’s how it should be). My days of faking interest just to be polite and/or make borderline useless friends within my niche and/or return the favor (or whatever else you want to call it) ended years and years ago.

I was very quick to realize that my time is better spent creating awesome content and getting it in front of the people who would like it, not struggling to pretend to care about a post someone just wrote because they pretended to care about a post I just wrote.

Don’t misunderstand me here. I am not saying you shouldn’t ever comment on your reader’s blogs. I’m just saying you should only do it when you have a legitimate reason to or a genuine interest in doing so, and not just because they commented on your blog and you feel obligated to, or want them to keep commenting on your blog so you comment on theirs in hopes of getting them to continue.

And don’t think “ohhh, it’s different for you because of the stage you’re at and I’m still kinda starting out so it’s different for me and blah blah blah.” It has nothing to do with that at all.

Commenting like this is just a big waste of time for 99.9% of the people who do it because it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. It might seem like it should when you’re doing it, but it doesn’t. It’s just another thing distracting you from the much more useful things you could be doing.

4. Hate Based On Nonsense

As creators of anything online, there are different types of hate that we will all come across at some point. Explaining these different types more thoroughly is already on my future posting to-do list. For now though, you should be aware that once any blog or site of any kind begins to get popular, there will ALWAYS be some amount of hate directed your way.

Yup, it’s the truth. And it happens to everyone. No matter how awesome your site is and how many people love it and feel that it is the single greatest thing in the history of the internet, someone will always hate it.

What you need to pay attention to when you reach this point is what the basis of that hate truly is, and then decide how to deal with it. Because when the hate is based on something legitimate, you will need to deal with it accordingly (I’ll explain how in that same future post).

But when the hate is based on nonsense, you need to be able to realize it, and then just not give a crap. Why? Because if you do give a crap, 3 things will usually happen:

1. First, it’s going to make you feel terrible. You’ll lose confidence in whatever it is people are hating on (your site as a whole, a specific piece of content, a product, your writing, your credibility, etc.), and that’s NEVER a good thing.
2. Second, you’re going to waste a lot of time (which could have been better spent on a thousand other things). Responding to hate that is worth responding to is NOT a waste of time. Responding to hate based on nonsense always is.
3. And third, you’ll probably only make it worse.

So, when someone sends you an email, or leaves a comment, or posts something on their own blog, or twitter or wherever else that in some way directs hate at you/your site, stop and think. Is it based on nonsense? If so, the very best thing you can do is not give a crap.

When it’s based on something real, that’s when you need to care. But if it’s just someone being a dick, ignore it.

5. Meta Keyword Tag

Why, in my day the meta keyword tag only cost a nickel. You could fill it with whatever keywords you wanted to and then rank fantastically for all of them on Altavista soon after.

But then, about a decade ago, search engines got smart and made the meta keyword tag count for something between “absolutely nothing” and “nothing.”

It certainly can’t hurt to use it, but it certainly won’t help either. These days I include it when I remember to, mostly out of habit. And even then, I usually fill it with stuff for my own amusement. Like if I write a post on this blog about making money online, one of my keywords in the keyword tag might be “money.”

I then laugh to myself for a second, reminisce about the days when that post would have ranked in the top 10 for the word “money” on a bunch of search engines that no longer exist, and then get right back to doing something that is actually worth doing. Fun times.

6. Reciprocal Link/Link Exchange Requests

On average, I must get at least 10 of these reciprocal link/link partnership/link exchange type emails each and every day, including weekends. No joke. You know what else isn’t a joke? The fact that I literally haven’t even opened one in about 6 years. Forget actually reading them (probably stopped doing that about 8 years ago), I haven’t even opened one in that long.

And do you know the last time that I actually exchanged links with another site? I do. I can even remember what site it was with and how it came about. Do you know what year it was? 2000.

So if I’ve gotten about 10 of these emails a day for the last 9 years, that’s nearly 33,000 of these kinds of emails that have been sent to me which went on to accomplish absolutely nothing for the various dumbasses who sent them.

Why? Because there isn’t any remote chance that anything good can come from exchanging links with the low quality garbage sites that are still dumb enough to send out these kinds of emails. Unless of course you enjoy being associated with bad link neighborhoods, because there’s a damn good chance that will happen.

Oh, and if you happen to be on the other side of this (you’re the one actually sending these kinds of emails), then may God have mercy on your soul.

7. The 948,311 Blogs About This Stuff

Uh oh, probably the touchiest one on this list.

Fine, 948,311 is just a rough estimate of how many blogs I think there are about internet marketing, blogging, SEO, making money online, and other related subjects, but it’s probably pretty close. Truth of the matter is I don’t really give a crap about any of them.

Why? Because there are SO few people saying anything that is new, different, unique, great, or special in any way, and SO many people who are just rehashing the same shit you’ve heard a million times before.

It’s just the same average content you could have gotten from 50,000 other sources of the same information.

Why exactly should I give a crap about them? Even better question: why on earth are you reading them?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying you shouldn’t bother reading any blogs about this stuff. I’m definitely not saying that. I’m just saying that you’re wasting your time reading anything besides the few blogs that stand out and are truly special.

Because honestly, everything else is just a lesser version of those few blogs.

My personal opinion is that the number of blogs in this niche that fit the “truly special” description can be counted on 2 hands. That would make the other thousands and thousands of blogs about this stuff completely pointless to read and unnecessary to subscribe to.

I know, I know. You “need” to subscribe to all of these blogs to “stay up to date” and “never miss a thing” and “have access to all of the useful information that’s out there.” I get it. I really do.

What you don’t get though is that there really isn’t this constant never ending stream of information out there that warrants this mindset.

All that’s really out there are thousands of blogs about the same subjects saying the same things.

The only difference is that a select few are doing it infinitely better than the rest in that truly special stand-out kind of way. Your job is to read those few and stop giving a crap about all of the others. All they’ll ever do is waste your time.

Want some examples of that select few? Alright… SEOmoz, ProBlogger and CopyBlogger are the first few that come to mind. There’s a couple of others, but I truly doubt I’d get above 10 if I really sat down and put together a list (another future post, perhaps).

Back to my point. If you’re currently reading more than a small handful of blogs about internet marketing, blogging, SEO, making money online and any other related subjects, it’s time to cut back. Keep the few that are doing it better and dump the rest. Despite what you may think, they aren’t actually helping. They’re just taking up more of your time.

8. Making Money (until I have something to make money from)

Yup, I did a whole guest post about this for John Chow, so I’m not going to repeat it all over again here. The take home point of that post was that you shouldn’t focus on making money until you have something that you can actually make money from. Until you have a great site with a nice size audience and a significant amount of consistent traffic, focusing on making money is a useless, distracting, judgment-clouding waste of time.

So no, I don’t give a crap about making money until the second I reach that point. This remains one of the very best tips I could possibly give to anyone trying to make money online.

The Point

Why am I telling you all of this? To let you know that I’ve spent a significant amount of time not giving a crap about any of these 8 things, and everything has worked out just fine.

So if there’s anything on the above list that you currently do give a crap about… feel free to stop with the peace of mind of knowing that it’s not going to hurt.

If anything, it’s going to help.

You know, if you read enough blogs about the same subject, you start to hear the same few things over and over again. Case in point…

It’s best to come up with some sort of blog posting schedule, and then stick to it.

What people mean by this is, decide early on that you’ll blog once per day, or 3 times per week, or every Tuesday and Thursday, or something similar. Basically, come up with both a frequency (how often you’ll post) and a schedule (when you’ll post) early in the life of your blog, and then stick to it consistently.

If you’ve been reading about blogging for longer than 15 minutes, you’ve probably already come across this recommendation quite a few times before.

Well, despite all of its popularity, I’m here to tell you that I purposely don’t do any of this, and a lot of people (and their blogs) would be better off if they didn’t either.

Come to think of it, I’ve actually never had anything close to a set blog posting schedule of any kind in my life. This doesn’t mean you should immediately break from your schedule and start doing this because it’s the “best” way to do it, I’m just saying that despite all of the conventional wisdom to the contrary… not having a blog posting schedule can work just fine.

And hey, get this. In some cases, this is actually the key to the success of your blog. That statement may take some explaining. Ok, here goes.

Having a blog posting schedule pretty much forces you to write at certain times on certain days. In most cases, being forced to write like this eventually leads to some really shitty content.

Content that has been created because it was time to create it, not because it had real value.

Content that was written because of what day it is, and not because you had a great idea for a post.

Content that is a lot more for your schedule, and a lot less for your readers.

This is bad, and when this starts happening, it will quickly turn your blog into complete and utter crap. And as you can imagine, it’s pretty tough to make your blog a success when it’s mostly comprised of crap.

This isn’t true for everyone, of course. In fact, some people need to have some sort of set blogging schedule to stick to or else they’ll end up rarely (if ever) posting. This would be equally as bad as posting shitty content often.

But even still, if you ask me, I think most people would be much better off if they had no set posting schedule at all, or at least greatly lowered the strictness of their current posting schedule. For example, instead of forcing yourself to blog once per week on Wednesdays only, just blog once per week… period. What day? The day you come up with the most high quality content to post.

Me personally, I don’t even do that. I completely avoid blogging schedules altogether. I’m a big boy, so I trust myself enough to know that I won’t let it reach the point where weeks/months/years go by without posting. Therefore, the only thing dictating when I post is me having a damn good reason to post. And that’s how it should be.

Meaning, when I have an awesome idea, or I’ve written something great, or I’ve in some way created something that my readers will love. That’s it. That’s when I post. Not a second before that. I don’t check my calendar. I don’t look at my watch.

If I have something that is truly of value to post, I post it. If I don’t, I just wait until I do. However often that happens… that’s my posting schedule.

The result? My readers get very high quality content 100% of the time. And they love me for it.

What’s that you say? Subscribers want consistency? They want to know when to expect your posts? They want your posts on the same days, at the same times, at the same frequency every week?

Bullshit.

There’s only one thing your readers/subscribers actually want, and that’s great content that provides them with some sort of value. If they get it on Tuesday one week and then Friday the next and then Wednesday the week after that, they won’t care at all as long as the content is good.

If they got 3 posts last week and 1 post this week, it will be perfectly fine with them as long as these posts were high quality and useful. As long as that’s happening, your posting schedule and frequency is the last thing your readers will give a crap about it.

So, here’s my very simple question to you. You know that blog post you’re working on now? Or that post you’re going to be working on next? Are you writing it because you came up with a great idea that will provide a ton of value to your readers, or because it’s Thursday (or whatever day), and it’s time for your next post?

If it’s the latter, you’re doing it wrong.