If you’re looking for a way to kick-start your freelance writing career, consider guest posting. Guest posting, also known as guest blogging, is the act of writing content for another business’s website. When guest posting, you ideally want to choose a business that is in your niche. For example, if you sell custom baseball gloves, you may want to guest post for a sports website.
The idea behind guest posting is to attract targeted traffic back to your own website. Guest posting can also help boost your domain authority using external links to high-authority domains. Many freelance writers use guest blogging as part of their content marketing strategy as it helps build brand awareness and acts as an essential part of your marketing funnel. It also creates trust with your readers, which is great for your brand’s reputation.
Today, there are tons of guest posting services on the web that will help you get a link to your website on someone else’s blog in return for payment. However, buying guest posts is not for everyone. Whether you’re just starting out as a freelancer or are a seasoned writer, skip the guest posting sites and create your own quality content.
Check out my beginner’s guide to guest posting online and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
What are the Benefits of Guest Posting
Guest posting can be a powerful marketing strategy that benefits both you and the company that is hosting the guest post on their site. In return for exposure, the hosting site is receiving a high-quality blog post that will attract readers. Some of the key benefits of guest posting online includes:
- Grow an audience with new subscribers, social followers, etc.
- Drive referral traffic
- Grow your personal brand
- Generate backlinks that will help with SEO
- Expand your network
- Increase your reach
- Improve your company’s brand awareness
- Build a professional profile as an expert in your industry/niche
Steps to Become a Successful Guest Blogger
1. Establish Your Goals
Before reaching out to a single company with your offer, know your goals. Every effective guest blogging strategy starts with establishing specific goals. For some freelancers, this goal could be to drive traffic to a landing page and increase leads and sales.
For others, it could be building awareness of your brand, goods, or services. Your goal could be to increase your social media audience or email subscriber numbers. Having a goal in mind can help you create a targeted bio and track accurate metrics.
2. Choose Hosting Sites
The truth is that most businesses will deny your request to contribute a guest post to their website. This is especially true for larger businesses with massive followings.
The key is to find businesses that are actively accepting guest authors or are looking for content. When searching the web for a guest post opportunity, use keywords to streamline your search. For example, if you want to look for a baseball-related website that is looking for freelance writers, you may type in “baseball” + “write for us” or “baseball” + “guest article.”
3. Send Your Pitch
An important part of the guest posting process is creating a successful pitch. You don’t want to make the mistake of sending the same copy-and-paste pitch to every business. Editors can recognize generic pitches and are likely to reject your pitch if they feel you are not devoted to the process.
When preparing your pitch, carefully read the submission instructions provided by the hosting site. Read through some of the content already published on the site to determine if you would be a good fit.
Next, gather some links to previously posted content to show the editor your writing style and skills. Include a topic or two that you would like to write about and a description of each topic. Keep your pitch brief but mention why you are reaching out to that particular business.
4. Write Quality Content
Writing a guest post for another company can be a little tricky. You want to create quality content that reflects the site’s current posting style and topics; however, you also want to choose a topic that will help you meet your own business goals.
Start by making a list of top pages from your website that you would like to promote in future guest blogs. Look at each page’s current traffic and consider your traffic goal. You can then create a guest post that aligns with your website page, along with relevant keywords.
When choosing a topic, think about different types of content, such as ultimate guides, thought leadership, how-to articles, and case studies. Follow any instructions provided by the hosting site in regard to word count, use of headers, or article structure. Optimize the content for on-page SEO and link to your own content, as well as other publications and studies.
5. Respond to Comments
It can take several weeks or even months for your guest post to get published. It’s important to be patient during this time and don’t bug the editor. However, you can send a follow-up email approximately two weeks after submitting your pitch if you don’t hear back.
When sending a follow-up email, try to use the same thread so that the editor doesn’t have to sort through hundreds of emails to find your prior communication. Keep the email brief, ideally under 50 words. Only send one follow-up email to avoid an instant rejection.
If your post does get published, you’ll want to visit it often to reply to comments from visitors. You can even write a comment when the post is first published to let readers know that you are available to respond.
Have you ever written a guest post? Share your experiences or tips in the comment section below!
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