Guest post: how to get the most out of it? Guest blogging: what is it? guest posts for promotion.

About that how to write ... guest post ... It was prepared Tatiana Ivanko- the author of a very interesting project "Real Parents", in which she raises controversial issues related to children, and tirelessly improves her and ours, the readers, parenting skills. Tatiana is a constant and active member of our community, for which many thanks to her! 🙂 And now the word to Tanya.

What is a guest post and why is it needed?

It is beneficial for the blog owner, because allows you to take a break from writing articles and at the same time not get out of the rhythm of updating, as well as infuse a fresh stream of information and a vision of the issue by another author, which also helps to keep the interest of readers and subscribers.

But there are also disadvantages to guest posts.

First, you give yours and forever. 🙂 Give an article with unique interesting content to another blog. Or they could publish it, and it would also attract new readers, and also add popularity to the blog.

If you write guest posts in order to get links from other sites, then there should be many such posts, not just one. And here again the question arises - maybe it's still better to publish these articles at home?

The traffic to your blog will increase, but this effect may be short-lived, just for a couple of days, and your target audience will increase slightly. In a few days, clicks to you from the site will stop altogether, because the article will go to the archive, and new articles will appear in the top.

If you, after weighing all the pros and cons, decided that you still want to "light up" on another resource, then try to get the maximum benefit from the publication of the guest post.

Where to publish the guest post?

If your blog is only a couple of months old, do not try to publish on very "pot-bellied" sites right away. You will most likely be refused. Submit articles to sites that are above you in position, but not very far. Go to the goal gradually.

If you still want to try to publish an article on a promoted site, then first take part in the life of the site. Comment on articles. And not just “Interesting! Thank you! ”, But with meaning. Share ideas, make friends with discussion participants, become familiar with the authors of the site. Then you will have more chances. When submitting an article, talk about the benefits for the site owner: “It will be interesting for your readers,” for example.

What rules must be followed in order for a guest post to be successful?

1. Thematic content of the site

First of all, the site on which you will post your post should be the same subject as yours. If you have a "mom" blog, then placing a guest on or on the site of some "mom" magazine is one of the best options, because the target audience is almost one hundred percent suitable, and the chances that they will visit you are quite high. But a women's website with a general theme (which may include the topic of children) is already a less successful option and the return will be less.

2. Statistics and frequency of updates on the site

Before offering your article, take a close look at the site itself. Pay attention to attendance (counters are usually at the bottom of the page).

See how often the site is updated. If new articles are posted several times a day, it is unlikely that your article will be particularly noticed by visitors to this site. It seems to me that if a site is updated 4 times a day, and its traffic is high, then it gets mainly from search engines. It is unlikely that these are regular subscribers, although there may be exceptions.

3. Registration of guest posts

See, if possible, what guest posts by other authors look like on this site. How is the author presented? In addition to the name (or nickname) and the site, there should also be a description in 2-3 sentences of the blog of the author of the guest post, so that readers can get an idea of ​​him and understand what else can be read from him. There should be intrigue in these two sentences, they should be written in such a way that they would definitely want to come to you. If you see that the author is not represented, then do it yourself in the introduction to your article.

4. Links and tags

What kind of guest post links does the site provide? To do this, you need to open a guest post, press Ctrl + U (to view the source code of the page), and then use the search (Ctrl + F) to find the URL of the site presented in the guest post in the text of the code. If next to url do not stand tags “nofollow” and “noindex”, then the links are open, and this is exactly what we need.

Even if the links are open, they should be discussed separately. How many links to your resource can be placed in the text? This is usually 1-3. And will links specifically to your post be open, without “nofollow” and “noindex”? I suggest checking it out after posting.

Check if it will be possible at the end of the post to offer to subscribe to the RSS of your site? This is a very good marketing ploy, although not all site owners will agree to it. But, as they say, for demand they don't beat in the nose!

Now for the post itself.

5. Characteristics of the text

Guest post text must be unique. Those. it should not be published anywhere else - not on your blog, or on other sites. At your place, you can make an article announcement and leave a link.

Also, the text should be interesting and engaging, so that readers want to follow the link to read you more.

6. Funny pictures

It is very good if the post will be accompanied by illustrations or photographs. On the photos for the post (if they are yours, of course), you can put your own signs, for example, the website address. Discuss this with the site author.

7. Literacy!

8. Communication with readers

Be sure to participate in the post-posting discussion and respond to comments. This will have a very positive impact on your blogging reputation.

Good luck writing articles!

When was the last time you used guest blogging?

What were your results in numbers: new subscribers, an increase in traffic and external links, an explosion of brand mentions on the Internet and in social networks, concluding new deals, increasing the level of knowledge, bringing your topic into a trend?

If you have any difficulties on these points, read the article carefully, armed with a pen and a notebook ...

A competent guest post performs several functions: it attracts a new audience to the brand's info-space, “pumps” the knowledge and expertise of a person, launches a viral wave, helps to fight negativity, shape public opinion, introduce new trends, and so on and so forth.

However, consider one "BUT": if you still use guest blogging exclusively to build up a link base to the site and do not pursue the quality of the material, then rather reeducate.

SPAM texts with a large number of links and zero readership will bring your resource one continuous negative in the form of penalties from Google.

Simply put, the goal of a guest post is to create an informational buzz around a brand or person. Not for the sake of links, but for the sake of influencing the info-environment.

29 essential tips to help you write a good guest post

Moment number 1. Create a database of resources that can be potential sites for your content:

1. Ask influencers what blogs on your topic they recommend;
2. Pick up key phrases in your topic. Search for resources on them using the services Yandex Blogs, Yandex News, Google News, Google Alerts, in social networks;
3. In a regular Yandex search, you will find collections of the main resources on the given topics;
4. Use the Buzzsumo tool. Select the "influencers" tab and study the list of key experts in your topic;

1. Try to search the Clout service. Pick a topic and the resource will offer you a list of influencers.

Moment number 2. Track where competitors are posting guest posts.

Do this using advanced search in Yandex and key queries. For example, in the form of the name of a competing company.

Moment number 3. After preparing a list of potential sites for your needs, study the audience.

First, ask yourself a few questions:

• Who are these people, what are they doing?
• What posts spark discussion? How does the audience react to them?
• Which reactions are more: neutral, positive or negative?
• What content is shared on social media?
• Is commenting accepted here, or do readers prefer to vote for the post with likes?

Carefully read the information "About the blog", here resource owners voice their position in relation to guest blogging.

Moment number 5. Contact the site management and suggest topics to choose from.

People often make the same mistake: they write a post, and then they send it en masse in the hope that someone will agree to publish it. Move from the opposite: first, find out the information requirement of the resource.

Moment number 6. Sell ​​your idea to the blog owner.

Especially if you want to publish on a millionaire resource or an opinion leader's platform. Talk about the value your material will bring to the resource. Show examples of successful guest posts. In other words, write a sales proposal, send it by e-mail or speak over the phone.

Moment number 7. Strictly adhere to the rules for publishing guest posts.

Moment number 8. After you decide on the site and receive permission to publish the material, once again sketch for yourself a portrait of the readers of the resource.

So you will focus on the audience, its problems, needs, expectations. Often a culture of communication has already been formed on blogs: somewhere polite communication is accepted, somewhere people are used to heated discussions, and somewhere trolls are walking in crowds. In any case, the peculiarities of the readers should be taken into account.

This tip will also help you determine the direction of the article.

Moment number 9. Make sure that the topic of the post is in trend.

To create information noise around your brand, it is desirable that the topic touches on something new, controversial, outstanding, unusual. We strive to ensure that the guest post causes a stormy reaction.

Moment number 10. Check again that the topic of the article matches the content direction of the site.

In other words, do not talk about love relationships on the pages of the business resource.

Moment number 11. Analyze the titles of the selected resource.

See which ones caused a stir and which ones were left unattended. Based on this information, sketch out your own headline.

Moment number 12. Create material in the "How to" style.

Common phrases, commonplace truths and self-praise are unlikely to arouse the interest of the audience. Try to keep the material useful, practical and solve the specific problems of the readers.

Moment number 13. Think juicy illustrations

Vivid pictures will increase the viral potential of the material. And competent descriptions (alt-tags) will work for promotion on social networks.

Moment number 14. Prove your authority in the text

Come up with your theories, talk about your cases, question generally accepted statements, tell your story. Write your article in such a way that it will definitely increase your credibility in the eyes of your readers.

Moment # 15... Read the text again and ask yourself, "How will it affect my reputation?"

We repeat this point as it is important. Guest material should be cooler than the articles you write for your resource. Here they are used to you, they know and trust you. And there you just have to conquer the audience.

Moment number 16. Tie up a discussion in the comments

To do this, you need to call for comments, and then carefully respond to them. The emergence of fresh replicas can be tracked in Google Alerts or in special monitoring services: IQBuzz, Wobot, Babkee.

Moment number 17. Choose the right keywords for the material

Moment number 18. Think about what word will become the anchor for the link to your resource.

Moment number 20. NEVER. Never send people from a guest post to the home page of your resource.

So you will lose them. This rule applies to both Yandex Direct ads and social media targeting. Ideally, the link from the guest post should lead to a custom landing page. Perhaps a narrow selling page on your home site. Not to the main one.

Write the scenario for readers' behavior after studying the guest post in the general guest blogging strategy.

Moment number 21... Give your guest post readers something useful

For what? Because we want to increase the viral potential of the material:

• PDF book;
• Selection of articles;
• A selection of videos;
• Free subscription;
• Check list;
• A mental map.

Moment number 22. Think about what your signature will look like.

What do you want to reflect in the information about yourself: USP, contacts, titles, achievements ... What? Check out The Art of Email Signatures for inspiration.

Moment number 23. Get involved in producing a guest post.

Moment number 24. When promoting a guest post, talk about the blog owner and its resource

See what happens: you repost an article mentioning the author of the blog. He, in turn, will repost this note to his audience. A new audience shows interest in the publication, shares it on social networks ... And so on. A chain reaction is triggered that will lead to hundreds of new subscribers.

Moment number 25. Take advantage of the hype surrounding the guest post

Tell readers that your story has received 1000 likes and 800 shares. Let us know that you will reveal in detail the topic from the guest material on the pages of your resource.

Moment number 26. Pay attention not only to monster blogs, but also to start-ups

It has been proven that the owners of new resources spend more time and money in their promotion. Why not take advantage of this?

Moment number 27. Guest blogging is part of a content strategy that addresses specific business challenges.

If you publish "smeared" posts without a specific goal, then the effect will be shaky and indistinct. Incorporate guest posting into the overall content strategy of the project. For example, guest blogging can do the following tasks:

• promoting a trend,
• promotion of the person's expertise,
• launching a virus,
• fight against negativity,
• an increase in the number of subscriptions.

Moment number 28. Consider regularity when incorporating guest blogging into your strategy

Let's say one guest post for five internal ones. This will help you prepare strong material.

Moment number 29. Guest blogging is a powerful networking tool

By publishing your materials on third-party sites, you will establish warm relations with resource owners, with active commentators, with experts in social networks. Remember this opportunity. And do not forget about the posted material, respond to comments, communicate with readers.

Did this material benefit you personally? Have you had a good or bad guest blogging experience? Let us know in the comments.

Hello, friends!

Sometimes I come across speculations about the effectiveness of guest posts. After reading such "opuses" I had a desire to express myself ...

Let's start from the very beginning. A guest post is an article that is published on a third-party blog.

The purpose of such a post is to interest readers of another blog in their e-diary.

Everything is clear here, but to ensure the integrity of the picture, I thought that this point should be noted.

And then, they did not become readers.

Everything! You have to scream that guest posting is an ineffective tool.

It reminds me of a bowling player who, after a series of misses, says - "This bowling of yours is bullshit!".

You need to start with yourself, otherwise there is no way. I declare with full responsibility that guest posts are an effective tool.

And now I will consistently argue my point of view. When my blog first came to this world, there were only a few living diaries on the topic of copywriting on the Internet.

* Now every day there are more and more of them ...

Most of them simply dangled like a dead weight and did not update for several months (or even years).

And, before me, the question became acute: where, then, to publish guest posts?

As a result, during the first months of my blog's history, I published more than 10 guest posts (the vast majority of them appeared in diaries not related to the topic of writing texts).

Therefore, I can argue my point of view.

The very first rule of thumb for writing an exciting guest post is to think about the readers of another blog. If they are your goal, then you need to focus on them and focus on them.

You must clearly understand what they are interested in, what information is the most important and valuable for them. What questions do they ask?

If you want to attract their attention, you need to know what. As they say - a good writer worries about whether he was able to correctly understand his readers.

For example, if I were publishing a guest post on a blog targeting a female audience, I might look at topics like this:

• copywriting as an opportunity to earn money for women on maternity leave
• Why are there overwhelming majority of copywriters women?
• how much can a girl earn by writing articles?
• Why do many clients prefer freelance girls?

How can such hot spots be identified? Actually, there is nothing difficult - take a close look at the other blog, see what topics are the most hotly discussed.

Be sure to read the comments and look for information and things that would be interesting for your visitors to read. This way you can get information about the current topics.

It is very risky to write within the theory of probability, comforting yourself with the hope that your post will be liked.

This is already a gamble, which professional authors rarely go on (and even then - for the purpose of experiment).

Alternatively, you can agree on the topic with the author of the blog. He feels his audience better and can give you an idea.

The next point is to study the format of publications in another blog. If the author is used to focusing on large-scale analytical articles, readers expect a similar approach in subsequent publications.

If you go the other way, it will be very risky.

At the very least - they won't understand you, at the most - they will throw stones at you (and the blog owner will get it too).

The next criterion is that you should not write just an article for the sake of a link. Your task is to prepare valuable material.

The reader got acquainted with your post, noted several useful points for himself, imbued with confidence in you and safely went to visit you.

But this can be a problem. If you are poorly versed in the topic of the blog you are leading, you are unlikely to be able to provide valuable information.

Because the only rational way out is to rewrite or some kind of "clone" of the bourgeois article, using a translator. But, I think that for a guest post, such actions are unworthy.

They will simply form an opinion about you as a beginner who is poorly versed in what he writes. What is the point, then, to go to your blog? Continue reading the same wretched material? Excuse me ...

And the last - a very difficult task: to combine in one post the topic of your blog and the specifics of the diary where the publication is planned.

Here you need to try ...

Therefore, when composing a guest post, pay attention to the questions I have indicated - and you will succeed!

I'm sure of it. In principle, you can try to convince me in the comments ...

I will gladly support the discussion!

We promised that there will be a separate detailed article about many items, today about item 6 (guest posting).

What is guest blogging?

When it comes to guest blogging, most people immediately ask again about the meaning of the term. Many of us already know that a strategy for promoting our own blog on forums is to leave comments and posts that contain a link to the site, but what exactly is guest blogging?

Guest blogging(or guest blogging) is the process of writing content for another blog in the hopes of getting quality backlinks, traffic, and relationships with the owner of that very blog.

Who might find guest blogging productive?

Guest blogging undoubtedly has several benefits, which I will now tell you about. True, I want to make a reservation right away that many people ask why guest blogging is mainly used by people who receive income from online sites and similar projects. Since the essence of guest blogging is that you give away unique content for free in order to possibly get backlink / traffic or recognition, this niche is one of the most effective from this point of view.

The problem is that it is often very difficult to find blogs whose main theme is not online profit generation, but this is also the beauty of this strategy, as some blogs allow you to get much more value from your guest posts.

In general, anyone can use guest blogging, in any niche: as long as there are blogs that are similar to your site, you can write guest posts.

Benefits of guest blogging

There are several reasons why a webmaster might resort to guest blogging, and I strongly believe that the reason why you write a guest post determines the type of post and the focus of the blog for which you are writing it. I have previously written about the main benefits of guest blogging, but I think it will not be superfluous if I highlight my personal reasons for creating such posts.

1. High-quality traffic generation
2. Growing the number of subscribers
3. Backlinks
4. The ability to earn trust in the resource

I think I have highlighted the most important benefits of guest blogging and since this is not what I would like to focus on today, I want to continue my story.

Getting Started on a Guest Post

When I started out with guest blogging, I made a terrible mistake that many bloggers have. I have published many guest posts on several blogs and have not thought about the benefits or consequences. Many people think this is a good method, but I would like to warn you that it is quite dangerous. You should not take on guest blogging just because many people do it or because you think that it should be done, since in promotion, a rare business can be put to good luck, everywhere you need effective planning from start to finish.

• The first thing you should know before getting started with guest blogging is why you need it.

Above, I have listed the most important guest blogging benefits, which include traffic, links, subscribers, and increased trust. With all these benefits in mind, all you have to do is determine what exactly you need guest posts for, and when you determine the reason for yourself, you can get to work.

• Completion

Despite the fact that I painted a canvas of text on guest blogging here, you will understand all this much better from the inside when you try it yourself, and maybe now is the time! You have read to the end of the article, and now you can follow the tips above and start writing your guest post.