Guest Posting Best Practices

Guest posting is fantastic. The best part about it is that its benefits go far and beyond simply link-building.

Yes, one of the biggest advantages of guest posting is it’s amazing ability to easily give you safe and Google-friendly backlinks. For free! High-PR backlinks are usually a pain to get; they certainly are not easy to get, and even though Google frowns upon buying links, high-PR backlinks from authority websites will usually cost you a dime or two.

Which is one of the biggest advantages of guest blogging; you get use it to build authority backlinks for nothing! But like I said, its advantages go beyond the ability to give you a valuable backlink.

For one, guest blogging allows you to build authority, and position yourself as an authority figure in your niche. If you follow the best practices mentioned later on in this post, you could actually build a name for yourself.

Secondly, guest blogging allows you to get more exposure and drive in traffic to your blog easily. 

And then there are plenty of other advantages, such as building your influence, your portfolio and increasing your credibility, higher SERPs, the chance to improve your writing skills, the chance to network and build relationships with authority bloggers and some of the best minds out there, increase your sales, increase your subscribers, and of course, enhancing your social media profile.

Here’s a list of a few best practices to follow in order to real all the benefits guest posting has to offer, and become the best guest blogger out there:

1. Don’t fear rejection: When it comes to becoming the best guest-blogger out there, it is essential to understand that rejection or getting rejected will be a part of the process. Most guest bloggers fear rejection. It might be a good idea to start small, i.e. start off with a small blog which has a relatively-lenient criterion for submitting guest posts, and slowly build your authority by ‘climbing up the ladder’.

2. Always give it your best shot: Think of the guest post as a post on your own blog, and give it your best effort. Do not skimp out on quality, or try ‘saving the best stuff for your own website’. Remember that your post might be checked for quality before it goes up, and when it does, it will be seen and read by hundreds of people. A quality post will leave a good impression on its readers, play a part in establishing your authority on the matter, and will also be a fair reflection of the quality of your own blog.   

3. Always put up a ‘guest-bio’ for yourself: And be comprehensive, without being too long. A good bio would start off with your name, a little about where you work and what you do/your profession, including some of your responsibilities – all this is essential to establishing your authority. Also include a few lines about your hobbies or something interesting about yourself, and throw in a link to your blog, as well as your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles. All this information will probably end up in the author-box on the blog – usually placed at the beginning or at the end of blogs. Here is a good example of what one of these author bio-boxes look like.

4. Devise a posting system: This includes a number of things, such as developing a schedule (e.g. one guest-post a week), developing a certain method of writing your guest posts which suits you the best. Make sure that you plan your posts in advance, and adhere to any rules that you might be asked to follow for submitting a post on the blog. As a blogger, you should already have a posting system for yourself in place, but if you don’t, developing one now might be a good idea.

5. Always respond to comments: Depending on the blog you post on, you may get anywhere between a couple of comments, to hundreds of them. It is very important to reply to all comments whenever possible, and be prompt when doing so. In most cases, the blog owner will expect you to do this, even if he/she hasn’t explicitly asked you to do it. If you’re busy, make it a point to log in at least once-a-day to respond to comments, even if it’s just a simple ‘thanks for your feedback’ reply.

6. Always thank the blog owner for the opportunity: Send in an email, thanking the publisher for the opportunity to allow you to put up a post on their blog. This is essential, as it leaves a good impression on them, allows you to stay on good terms with them, and could even lead to recommendation or a request to do more posts on their blog. Above all, you end up looking like a true professional.