How to Guest Post Properly to Build Your Readership

You may have heard that you can build your blog readership by guest posting on a prominent blog. But how do you get that prominent blog owner to accept your guest post? And what should you do to make the best possible use of this opportunity?

Never fear. Here’s everything you need to know about guest posting:

Go for the Big Guys

A lot of beginning bloggers are afraid to reach out to the big names for fear of being smacked down and perhaps mocked. I can see why, because if you tried to do this in the offline world, that’s probably just what would happen.

Imagine some stranger interested in marketing walking up and asking for a prominent place at the next Coca-Cola meeting to talk about his ideas? Yeah, not likely.

This isn’t the same world, though. In blogging, it’s a lot different. The big guys remember being little guys, and they want to help you out, especially if you have serious value to give to their readers.

These guys also have a more selfish reason for helping you: they’re really busy. They’re the big guys, after all. Taking the pressure off them to come up with a new post every day is a nice thing for you to do. Always remember that you’re doing them a favor in exchange for the favor of getting your writing in front of this big guy’s audience.

He gets something, you get something. Who wouldn’t say yes?

But Don’t Go Empty-Handed

That said, the big guys need to see that you have value to bring to their readership, which means you’re going to have to put some thought into what you’re pitching. Simply saying, “Hey, I blog about such-and-such, can I guest post for you?” isn’t going to cut it. You’re going to need to walk in with a proposal for a specific post.

Better yet, you’re going to need to walk in with that post already written and ready to go.

Consider the big blog’s readership. What do they want to know about? Why are they reading that blog in the first place? Whatever kind of advice they’re looking for, it’s best not to deviate from that general topic. You can bring a unique perspective to it, but you really shouldn’t guest post about fishing on a blog that’s all about vegetarianism.

That said, if you can figure out how your experience relates to the blog’s readership, that’s a unique post in the making. Maybe you’re a chef, but you’ve discovered a tactic from the kitchen that would be really brilliant for marketers to put to use.

Go knock on the door of a big marketing blog and hand them your post.

Do Your Best Work

You’re going to be posting in front of a much larger readership than your own. This is like the comedian who kills every night at the local comedy club finally getting his chance to go on The Late Night Show.

You only get one shot, so you better wow their socks off if you want them to seek you out after the show is over.

Work hard on the article, and make sure it’s your very best work. Think about organization, and triple-check for spelling and grammar errors. Make the benefits to your (borrowed) audience extremely clear.

Write your heart out.

Remember to Pitch Yourself

At the end of your post, you’ll get a link back to your own blog. You’ll also probably get one at the beginning if the blog owner introduced you to his audience beforehand. Some do, some don’t, but every single guest poster always gets a little one-to-two sentence paragraph at the end of the post to explain who they are and where they usually blog.

Don’t go for the obvious here. The impulse is to simply state what your blog is about, link to it, and run away.

What you want to do is intrigue the audience and bring them over to your blog to learn more about you. So craft a paragraph that talks about the most interesting thing you’ve done on your own blog. Try these:

• Johnny Cash writes about music, cocaine, and prison over at BluesJohnny, and you should check out his free ebook on how to get started in the music business with nothing but slicked-back hair and a dream.

• Karen Love is all about harmony, tweety birds, and never using curse words, but she also recently wrote a post about why you should sell your soul to the devil that’s well worth a read.

Remember to link to something interesting or free, and make sure to tell readers what you blog about so they know whether they should check you out. Which, if you landed that front-page position on that big-name blog, they should.

Happy guest posting.

James Chartrand is the Top Ten Blog pro writing great articles that teach you everything he knows about blogging. Check out his work over at Men with Pens, or be risqué and grab the Men with Pens RSS feed.