A Perfect Guide to an Effective Guest Blogging Strategy 2020

Have you planned to use a guest blogging strategy in your content marketing plan? No, now is the time to think about it. Over the years, we have listened to the speculations about the death of guest blogging. However, you will be surprised to know that this tactic remains among the most effective ways to promote yourself and your business. Yes it is true about the issue with guest blogging. It isn’t a magic trick for growth, but it also doesn’t have to be that way. When we say guest blogging, we are referring to a writing a piece of content for someone else’s blog as a part of an inbound marketing strategy. Some of the primary goals of guest blogging comprises bringing traffic back to website, building back-links and creating relationships with other bloggers and companies.

Before going further, let see how the goals could be achieved with Guest blogging. So, you are a business and you want guests to contribute high-quality content, but if you are a bit skeptical if you should do it or not, we are here to help you. Because content is key to achieve lead generation, search engine optimization, and industry thought leadership, guest blogging plays a major role in success of a website. Let’s see how:

1. Generating leads: Diving deeper into how-to topics and writing evergreen topics can get you more leads. You can also entice the visitors with your ideas to continue learning through links to more educational resources on your website.

2. SEO of website: If your website is properly optimized, you are able to gain more visitors on it. This can be done with properly written content that is optimized with keywords.

3. Thought leadership: With informative and effective content written on your website, you can build trust with your audience and establish credibility in your space.

In this article, we’re going to talk about how to create a successful guest blogging strategy to gain more visibility for your business and brand and improve lead generation.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

Step “0”: Planning

This is same as your most of the projects in business. Moving a prospering guest blogging campaign needs a full-proof plan with goals and tasks mentioned clearly for you before you start. So, prepare a project plan with this information:

Define goals: Underline the goals which you wish to accomplish with the launch of this project. What are looking for? Do you want to rank in the top spot or do you want to get more referral traffic for your business? Define your goals first and then strategize and plan ahead accordingly.

Timeline: Timeline is important for any project to be successful. Be sure when exactly you want to begin and end your campaign.

Targets: Be clear on your targets. Set weekly or monthly targets for the emails that you’ll send and the guest posts that you’ll write.

This entire process will help you achieve your goals in streamlined manner.

Step “1”: Know Your Goals

For any successful marketing strategy, it requires you to be clear on your goals. Same with the blogging, an effective strategy starts with knowing our goals and ways to get there.

The goals for a guest blogging strategy comprises:

• Driving traffic on website to get more and sales
• Spreading awareness of products, brand, and services
• Attracting inbound links to improving SEO
• Increase in number of email subscribers or social media visitors

Before going ahead with anything, it is important to set a goal in mind. This will help you to frame the bio correctly and ensure that the resource people see the same when you deliver what you promise.

Step “2”: Sourcing opportunities

Writing a guest post is not enough, before writing one should find a site that accepts guest authors and is actively looking for content. While looking for them, keep in mind different people do it differently. However, the most effective way is to come up with a list of content topics, before you do your outreach. Once you’re done, the easiest way to source guest post opportunities is via email. Create a template and use merge tags to dynamically insert your prospects’ first name, company name, etc. into your emails when you send them out in bulk.

Make sure to contribute to the sites which aren’t waste of time. You know most of the time, the blogs that you could contribute aren’t worth your time because they don’t have an engaged audience.

Find blogs worth contributing to by asking few questions such as:

• Do they share their own content?
• Does our ideal audience adjust with this blog?
• Do they give writers credit & a link to their blog?
• Do they have the potential to drive traffic?
• Do they have an engaged audience?
• Do they reply to the comments?

Initially, you may need to contribute to smaller blogs because it takes some samples of posts you’ve written for other sites to post on larger blogs.

Step “3”: Get ready with your guest post

Now that you have planned what you are going to write and have a list of websites that accept guest posts, it is time to get your posts ready. Now it is time to pick up the websites that are worth writing for. Start with smaller blogs because those are more likely to be accepted as your guest post. With some published by your side, you can level up.

Publish guest post on websites which:

• Have an access to the authoritative link profile
• Are in your forte and can align with your customers
• Post qualitative content
• Can bring traffic to the website
• Won’t bury link
• Have a high significance on social media followers

Now it’s time to…

Warm up Your Targets: Now that you want to guest post on a site, you have to get on that site’s radar screen. Here is how you can do it:

1. Sharing on Social Media: If you want to get your brand etched, share the stuff on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
2. Comments on Blog: Take some time from your busy schedule to leave insightful and helpful comments.
3. Emailing: Email the owner of the website a week or two before. This email will tell them how a specific piece of content could helped you.

Step “4”: Connect before you pitch

It is necessary for the Blog editors to get number of pitches from people whom they don’t know. Yes, it can be a true fact that your pitch could be the best in the world, however, it’s not a guarantee that it will get you the guest posting opportunity. A great pitch definitely helps to land in the opportunity you are waiting for. People are more likely to react in a positive way to the people whom they recognize. And, this could be as simple as:

• Replying on statuses of social media
• Commenting on blog posts
• Replying to email newsletters
• Sharing content
• Tagging the blogger

It is not always that you have to tell them to do something, or pitch them. You just have to engage them in a conversation. Also, connecting for a pitch is definitely a good idea because it encourages you to get to know the blogger better whom you’ll eventually pitch.

Step “6”: Write a great guest post

Guest posts are only of value when it provides value to the readers. A guest post should be comprehensive, well-written, data-driven, and interesting. One can add information about your business and a link of website in the author bio and a few other things, but a guest post should never considered as an advertisement. The editors generally allow one or two links in the article body, but always keep in mind that you shouldn’t try to sell. Link only to additional resources valuable to the readers. Coming on writing a blog post, it must be written keeping the audience in mind. Confirm few things, before writing a blog i.e. does your audience use a formal language? Will they understand jargon? Or are they willing to adapt your voice. Always ask the blog editor for details before writing a blog.

Setting guidelines for guest post:

Guidelines are for those, who will be accepting the blog. Setting clear and defined rules will help you attract writers. It will also ensure that you are treating guest posting seriously. Below mentioned are some of the suggestions, which could be included in guidelines:

• 100% original content will be considered.
• Submitted posts cannot be published anywhere else.
• Make sure to not cover the same topic that has been already covered unless you are presenting a unique angle.
• We reserve the right to edit, adapt and update your guest blog content.
• We reserve the right to reject contributions.
• Consider including photos, graphics, and screenshots in post.
• Posts must be well-researched and fully supported.
• Words must range from between 1,000 to 3,000.
• Post must be well-written and without any spelling mistakes.
• Posts should include no more than one link to your company’s website.

Step “7”: Following Up

Our work doesn’t end by just submitting the blog post. We must take follow up for every guest post that we send to the editors.

1. Respond to comments actively: Don’t just post and run. Take your time and respond to comments on other people’s post as they roll in.
2. Promote the post on Social media: Social media is one great platform which is effective and is a win-win. It will drive traffic to the guest post you submitted and gives you an opportunity to share blog post with your community.
3. Thank you note: We are just not posting for once. So, a little thank you note really helps you stand out.

Wrapping up

Guest blogging is one real big deal. A key for successful guest blogging is contributing them only to blogs which are a match with your industry. In this article, we have written proven strategy for your know how to approach guest blogging. A guest blog should be built on the right foundation with a clever strategy. Guest blogging takes determination, time, hard work and a lot of patience and it does takes some failures to ensure the next one is a success. Also, for the blog owners too, we have mentioned the criteria to accept only high-quality articles that meet your requirements and audience expectation. Guest bogging is all about making your audience happy.

So, what is your technique of successful blog post? Share with us!