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How to Get Your Guest Post Published on a Pro Blogger's Blog

July 22, 2009 By 19 Comments

It is a known fact in the blogging world that the fastest way to grow your readership and attract new newsletter subscribers is to get one of your articles published on a pro blogger’s blog. By leveraging their large traffic and rss subscriber count, you are able funnel their traffic to your site by providing quality content on their large blog. One problem…large blogs are bombarded with hundreds…if not thousands…of pitches, guest post ideas and random emails on a daily basis. With hundreds of eager bloggers all begging for a spot on the Internets largest blogs, how do you stand out from the rest and get your article published?

Robb Sutton’s Recent Guest Posts

Before we jump into how I seek out high profile guest posts on large blogs, I want to show you that these methods actually work. Over the past week, I have been putting the push on robbsutton.com and Ramped Reviews to get more exposure for the blog and the eBook. As mentioned before, there is no substitute when it comes to traffic from high quality, large and targeted audience blogs.  While there are other guest posts currently in the works, I wanted to point out two at this time (some of you may have found this blog through these recent articles!).

Now…I think you would agree that both Darren and Yaro are leaders in the industry when it comes to blogging and how to build a credible blog, so with subscriber counts in the 110k+ and 70k+ range…they can provide an extreme amount of positive exposure for your blog and newsletter if you blog is related to blogging and how to build a successful blog. I have seen fantastic results through these to guest posts and I am going to continue to find other blogs to market my content through.

How to Get Your Guest Post Published on a Pro Blogger’s Blog

Let’s jump right into it. I know you are just foaming at the mouth thinking about all of that targeted traffic you can generate through guest posting.

Guest Post Beginning Research

Before you even type that first word of your guest post, you need to do some market research and seek out top blogs in your niche. Obviously, if you are blogging about gardening, hitting up a high profile blog on blogging is not going to do you much good. Hopefully, at this point in your blogging career, you have a pretty good idea who the top bloggers in your niche are. If you do not…go to Google and start to search for popular terms in your niche.

Once you have found 3 to 5 top blogs in your niche, take a look over their sites and see if they feature guest posts on their blog. Many top blogs do not publish guest posts. You can still contact these blogs, but just know it might be a waste of time. Ideally, you want to contact blogs that are guest post friendly and have large subscription counts.

The Contact Phase in Guest Posting

Once you have your 3 to 5 blogs picked out, it is time to contact the bloggers and pitch your guest posting ideas. Before you start writing your pitch email, there are a couple of things you need to complete.

  1. Read their blog – You need to know exactly what kind of information that blogger is posting on their blog. Your guest post ideas need to fit into what their target, core audience is already reading. Submitting an article on how to grow vegetables to a blog that specializes in flowers is not going to yield the results you are aiming for.
  2. Prepare 2 to 3 article ideas – Once you know what the blogger’s readers are looking for when it comes to content, come up with 2 to 3 article ideas to include in your pitch. This will give the blogger a choice on article topics that will best suite his or her needs.
  3. Read the about page – If you are not a regular reader of that particular blog, read the about page carefully to get to know the blogger and their goals. You need to have a personal interest in who they are and what they are trying to accomplish with their blogging.

Now that you have this information ready, it is time to contact the blogger with your pitch. Pitch emails for guest posting articles need to be short, sweet and straight to the point. High profile bloggers get thousands of emails, so you do not need to waste their time with a long, elaborate email filled with a bunch of unnecessary information.

Joe Blogger,

I would like to submit a guest post for your blog Ramped Gardening to help promote a new eBook I just published titled “A Beginners Guide to Happy Gardening” (or your blog/blog title here). I see that you write a lot of how to articles on vegetable growing, so I have a couple of ideas I wanted to throw by you.

  • How to grow the biggest tomatoes in any soil.
  • How to prepare your soil for the winter.
  • A beginners guide to the tastiest strawberries.

If one of these would fit the needs of your readers, I would like to write a guest post and get it back to you no later than a week from today.

Thank you for continually putting out great content on your blog. The article on “Why I Grow My Own Vegetables” really hit home with me as I too am tired of over processed grocery store goods.

I have attached a copy of my eBook to this email and I look forward to hearing back from you.

John Blogger
Growing for Dummies – dummygrowing.com
john@dummygrowing.com

As you can see by the email, there is a personal connection and no fluff. Just straight to the point with examples and proof that you are not just sending out mass emails to the world. Your goal with any pitch email is to start a dialogue on content.

I Just Heard Back! Now What?

You sent your pitch email to the top blogger in your niche…he responded with a great email back and picked a topic for you to write about…now the pressure hits. It is time for you to deliver the goods. Guest posts on any blogger’s blog should be some of your best content. This is your first impression on their readers, so if you want them to click your blog’s address or perform some call to action, you better bring your A game. You also need to bring your best content because your content is going to have to be approved by the blogger and it reflects on the other bloggers blog!

After you have completed your amazing guest post that is going to be soak up by readers like sun on a desert, you need to email it off to the blogger for review. Typically…and this might be overkill…I submit guest posts with two files.

  1. Plain Text Document – I submit a plain text document (created with a simple text editor like WordPad or TextEdit) as an attachment to the email with zero formatting. The blogger can copy and past the contents of this file into their post screen and apply the formatting necessary to match it to their blog.
  2. Formatted Text Document – I submit a second html formatted text document that has all of the headline tags, list tags and any other relevant tags inserted. Before I submit this attachment, I check several of the bloggers articles by using view page source source in FireFox. By looking at each of the posts code, I am able to determine which of the H1, H2, H3, etc. tags that particular blogger uses and format the post to their needs.

Then I send the email.

Joe Blogger,

Thanks again for the opportunity to guest post on your blog. I have attached the proposed guest post for your review. Included in this email are two files.

  1. A beginners guide to the tastiest strawberries – formatted.txt: A text document that is already formatted according to the tags that you use on your blog.
  2. A beginners guide to the tastiest strawberries.txt: A plain text document ready for formatting.

Please let me know if there is any further information that you need.

John Blogger
Growing for Dummies – dummygrowing.com
john@dummygrowing.com

Congratulations! Your guest post is live!

You did it! All of your hard work is paying off and your guest post is live. Your amazing content is engaging with Joe Blogger’s readers and they are visiting your site and signing up for your newsletter and rss feed. Life is great as you continue to watch the stats climb on your own blog…but you are not done yet.

You job as the guest poster is to keep the conversation going. Watch the comments section of your guest post and respond to the conversation that takes place. By engaging with the blogger’s readers, you are showing that you take guest posting (and their blog) seriously, and you are adding to the value of your guest post. The more you engage with their readers, the happier the blogger will be with the results of your efforts.

After the dust has settled and the guest posting event has come to a close, write a short email thanking the blogger for publishing your guest post. If you had a great experience over this time period, mention that you would like to try this again sometime in the future. If the partnership was beneficial for both parties involved, a future guest post will be welcomed.

Guest Posting on A-List Blogs

That is the nuts and bolts of how I approach guest posting on pro blogger’s blogs. While some of these actions might be going overboard, I have found that it is extremely efficient and rewarding. The next time you go to propose your guest post to a top blogger, really sit down and contemplate what you can bring to the table. The more value you present in your content and your interaction with other bloggers, the more long term relationships you will grow for future success and partnerships. Blogging is all about fostering and maintaining relationships with your readers and other bloggers, so you need to treat every one of these partnerships with respect and professionalism.

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Blogging Honesty: Would you subscribe to your blog?

July 16, 2009 By 4 Comments

Simple question with a more complex answer: Would you subscribe to your blog or even read it from time to time if it was not yours?

The first instinctive answer that jumps to your mouth and quickly responds before you have had time to think about the question is…”Yes! Of course! Why wouldn’t I?” Why is that your first instinctive answer? Because it is natural to believe that your blog, which is an expression of yourself, is unique and interesting enough that you would just devour the content and spread it to the world if it was not yours.

The reality…it is very easy to get stuck in the trap of not taking an objective look at your blog. You are blinded by your own creation in the pursuit of greatness completely ignoring the fact that you might be bland and unoriginal. When you start to take an objective look at your blogging attempting to look from outside the creators mind, there are certain questions that you need to ask yourself in the quest to produce a long lasting blog that attracts new readers and subscribers.

Blogging Honesty Questions

Are you unique?

As you take a lot at your blog from the outside, does your content look like a carbon copy of another successful bloggers work? Are you providing something unique and different for your readers that they can not find anywhere else? There are hundreds upon thousands of blogs on the web that attempt to replicate the success of others, and while this is not completely a bad think in and of itself…this imitation often falls into the carbon copy category as the blogger struggles to find their own voice and direction. Take a true objective look at your blogging and reach to find ways to deliver unique content to your readers. By continually providing unique content that can not be found on another blog, you are going to carve out your own niche and following that some other beginner blogger may someday attempt to replicate.

Are you publishing quality or quantity?

Are you throwing up posts on a daily basis because that is the advice you have received? Does this content sometimes fall below the quality line but you post it anyway to keep with a schedule? One of the biggest mistakes beginning bloggers make is publishing sub-par content in an attempt to keep with a schedule. As you look through the content on your blog, are there articles that need to be edited, cleaned up or redirected? First impressions are vitally important in any peer to peer relationship, so keep that in mind as the article you publish today may be your first impression on a potential subscriber. Do not publish content that does not meet the cut just so you will keep a schedule.

Does your blog represent you?

Is your personality coming through on your blog? I fall into this trap pretty regularly. As I draft blog posts, I have to step away from the form of writing that has been beat into our minds our entire lives…term papers and reports. Let’s be honest, throughout our professional and educational careers, the powers that be have advocated EXTREMELY BORING writing. A blog should be an expression of who you are and the more you bring yourself into your blogging, the more people will be attracted to what you have to say! Your blog content has to be an extension of your personality and life and not a reference manual with footnotes. Not only is it ok to stray away from normal writing styles and language…it is encouraged!

Challenge Yourself and Your Blog

Contrary to popular belief, blogging is not easy. Blogging…technically…can be viewed as an art form. Like most art forms, blogging is based off of self expression and your unique voice, attitude and content comes with practice. To really grow as a blogger and find the success that other pro bloggers have realized, you need to continually take an objective look at your blogging to make the necessary improvements that are required for success.

Image by tim caynes

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Your Blog Content: Meat and Potatoes or Parsley?

June 29, 2009 By 2 Comments

When it comes to blogging, your content is everything. You can not expect to grow a readership and make any money online by writing and publishing substandard, light content. Blog readers are able to see through, with painful accuracy, poor blog content and this can ruin your reputation in the blogosphere leading to an unsuccessful blog that eventually falls off the end of the Earth.

Over the years, I have seen many “services” that promise unique content that will automate your blogging, but I have rarely ever seen a blog become successful using these auto generated methods as they are rarely as unique as they claim. When it boils down to it, there is no replacement for self written, quality content that engages your readers. When it comes to publishing articles on your blog, you need to take a look at your content/writing and really analyze what you are offering your readers in your quest to become an expert in your niche.

Is your writing meat and potatoes or parsley?

Funny question…but it does have a point. When you publish content on your blog, are you providing information that is heavy and full of useful “nutrients” or is it decorative crap that has absolutely no value to the reader? When you provide information/articles that are useful and provide value to your readers, your content will attract a bigger following and allow you to grow you blog from a weekend hobby to a viable business. Often times, you might find it hard to get into your meat writing grove, so here are some examples of blog posts that will provide meat and potatoes content.

  • “How to” Articles – The more you can teach your readers how to accomplish some task…the better. How to posts are an incredible way to provide direct worth to the readers of your blog. Your readers will end up looking to you as a resource in your niche and this will further promote your brand in your industry. How to articles…when done correctly…take a little bit longer to draft than most other forms of blog writing, but the long term benefits and link bait are worth their weight in potatoes.
  • Lists Articles - Are there 10 things you can’t live without in your niche? Are there 7 hot spots that everyone related to your industry should visit? Publishing these sort of list articles are another way to provide serious nutrition to your blog. Recently, I saw a blog in the cycling industry do a top 50 cycling blogs list that brought him traffic and links that surpassed his expectations. Other bloggers and readers love to pass list posts around. Again…they take a little bit longer to draft up…but they pay off in the long run.
  • Review Posts – High quality reviews on products related to your subject matter are another great way to provide some serious worth to your blog. Review posts provide a insight into products that your readers are interested in purchasing (affiliate revenue) and they are SEO gold as you strive to find new ways to pop on that first page of Google.

As you can probably tell by the list above, meat and potatoes articles take longer to publish than a fly by night, this is how my day is going journal entry. If done correctly, providing high quality, nutrition filled articles will grow your blog faster than you can imagine. The extra work that goes into providing this wealth of information for your readers is what separates the successful blogs from the un-updated failures that plague the web.

As you write your next blog article, read through your draft and ask yourself, “is this meat and potatoes or parsley?”. If you are writing worthless decoration, make the changes necessary and provide some meat and potatoes content that will blow your readers away. It does not matter if you have 4 readers or 40,000, quality content should be your goal with every click of the publish button.

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How To Articles Boost Traffic and Subscribers

May 8, 2009 By 1 Comment

I will save you from the temptation of slapping up a cheesy quote telling you how important teaching is for long term growth and mental stability. We have all heard them a thousand times and don’t care to hear them again. Wasn’t there one that involved fish or fishing? The fact is that when you teach a reader how to do something, you are rewarded with higher subscriber counts and increased traffic. To this day, my how to posts are in the top five for traffic every month and the more how to articles I write, the more benefit I see on my blog. By teaching readers to perform a task, it builds upon your credibility as an authority in your niche and provides the necessary link bait to further promote your blog.

[Read more...]

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Struggling To Find Post Ideas?

February 9, 2009 By 3 Comments

So you are sitting in from of the add new post screen and you are completely drawing a blank…it happens. Even the greatest bloggers in the world draw a blank sometimes. It is all part of the writing process. You aren’t going to have that new, amazing idea every time you sit down ready to throw down some content on your blog. While it is easy to let writing block get you down…it is important to keep your head held high in your search for that amazing bit of content that will connect with your readers.

What do I do to keep the ideas flowing?

Hopefully you are blogging on a subject that you are passionate about. If you are, then you are engaging in this subject on a regular basis. My best post ideas…whether it is about blogging, mountain biking, the economy, etc…come to me when I am engaging with that subject matter. If I am blazing down some killer singletrack in the mountains or talking to another blogger about blogging, I normally have a wall of post ideas that hit me in the face. [Read more...]

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Why You Should Never Blog For Money

January 28, 2009 By 2 Comments

I hear it all the time. “I am going to start a blog and make tons of money!” Every time I hear or read this comment, I just have to laugh.

Over the years, I have seen a lot of businesses come and go. One of the #1 reasons that I have seen most businesses fail, online or brick and mortar, is because they got into it for the dream of making huge amounts of money.

When you get into an industry solely for the money, you lack the passion to keep that business running through the tough times…specifically the first year. Unless you are in the top ½ of 1 percent of all startup businesses, you are going to spend the first year or two making almost nothing, and in most cases…you are actually going to show a loss! [Read more...]

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5 Easy Steps To Reviews That Equal SEO Explosion!

January 18, 2009 By 8 Comments

We all know that product reviews are incredible sources of search engine traffic. Web searchers are researching products for pleasure or research by the millions on a daily basis. If you follow these steps…you too will have product reviews that appear on the top of the front page begging for views by the general browsing public. It is not a hard process…you just need that leg up on your competition…and here is how.

5 Steps To SEO Product Reviews

Step 1 – Multiple Post Product Reviews

In most cases, you will see blogs and product review sites release one product review article at the end of the reviewing period and move onto the next. Google and other search engines spider your content looking for sites that are an authority on the keywords that people are searching for. I have adopted a multi-post process that has brought my product reviews above the typical one post only reviews. [Read more...]

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