The Basics of Guest Posting
(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.)
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.)
I wouldn’t have said anything differently. I’d say you went into a bit more than the “basics”
Not a problem though. The more the better. I think I’m going to open my site for guest posting soon. Lots of benefits.
Awesome post! Guest posting is great! Brought nice amount of traffic to my blog
I’m for sure gonna guest post in future.
Looking forward to the next part!
Cheers
The Gooroo: Nah, you’ll see, within the context of this whole series this post will look a lot more like just “basics.”
And there will definitely be something near the end about accepting guest posts on your own blog (and everything that goes along with it). Keep an eye out.
Adrian: Thanks. Yeah, once you get it right and get a taste for the awesomeness guest posting can bring, you usually want to do it again.
This series couldn’t have come at a better time. Looking forward to it.
Danny: Awesome, I’m all about impeccable timing.
Hi,
thanx for answer!
Now, I’ve got a question and suggestion for your next post maybe
Creating Challenges with blogs. Maybe you have ever held a challenge, like the one ProBlogger had or whatever. How to do it? How to get a sponsor to give a prize for a winner? It would be great to hear your tips about it.
Cheers
Adrian: Consider it added to my future post to-do list for sure. In the mean time though, here’s the really short answer…
When your blog reaches a certain level of popularity (like ProBlogger, for example), it’s pretty common to have companies contact you about stuff like advertising, sending you a product for free to review on your blog, and of course, offering up a prize for a contest in return for the free promotion you end up giving them in the process.
Other times though a contest is really just a friend helping another friend promote their shit by making it a prize in some sort of contest.
And other times (the minority), it’s someone who went out and contacted a relevant company on their own and asked if they’d be willing to supply a prize for a contest in return for the free promotion they’d get by doing it. You’d tell them about your site, your traffic (assuming it’s at least ok) and how your audience is the kind of audience that would be greatly interested in this company/their products and it would therefore be mighty beneficial if they participated in this contest.
I’ll do a full post about it sometime in the future.
Thanx a Gazzilion !
I was probably gonna do it in a 3rd way or 2nd way. I have like 4000 visits a month so it’s not like I have a big blog. But I think I will go after some similar size blogs/sites and contact them with this idea.
Looking forward to reading your post!
Thanx again
No problem. And the actual amount of traffic you have means less in this case than how active that traffic is. As long as your small audience will care and participate, a contest can work just fine. In fact, you could even market the contest and use it as a way of building more traffic/links/wonderful things.
Yeah, I’ll get to a post on this one of these days.
Yeah, I was thinking of contest as a good way to attract new people. But you need good prizes for it. Which means good sponsors.
Cheers