5 Guest Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Susan Gilbert — January 19, 2017 Follow @SusanGilbert

Get The Most Out Of Your Guest Blogging Posts

Guest blogging is a journey and it requires some planning on your part. If you are willing to commit the time and the effort, you can produce content that will meet your goals while helping someone else achieve theirs as well. It’s a two way street.

Guest blogging is exchanging content between two websites, but the relationship is not always exactly matched. Some blog owners like to offer guest blogging spots because they are always guest blogging elsewhere. It can be quite hard to keep up your own blog supplied with fresh posts when you are crafting them for others as well. In this way, you are helping them out by accepting a guest blogging spot and you will be keeping up with your posts on your own site.

Choose wisely. All blogs are not equal and those that have a poor reputation or no reputation at all are not going to help you with your goals of increasing your traffic, building links and list building. Do your research on the top performing blogs in your niche before submitting a pitch.

According to an infographic on infogr.am small to medium sized blogs with a good number of followers and social media activity are a good place to start:

Guest Blogging Mistakes

To gain the best opportunities pay attention to these common mistakes and then avoid them entirely.

• Mistake #1 – Go into the process blind. Solution: Research the host blog thoroughly. This means understanding what the blog can offer you as well as what they are asking of you. Know the host guidelines for submitting a pitch, formatting your post, creating links and adding a bio box. Check out the site’s traffic through Alexa.com. Search for the blog on social media sites and see who is talking about it and how many fans and followers they currently have.

• Mistake #2 – Blatantly Advertising. Solution: When you guest blog, the purpose is not to shamelessly promote your products or your website. Certainly that was not the idea that you pitched to the host blog and you won’t be invited back if you persist. What can you add to the host site to build them up? By focusing on them, you are actually building your reputation and people will want to learn more about you. Instead, concentrate on providing relevant and rich content for the host’s audience. You are viewed as an expert and someone worth watching in the future.

• Mistake #3 – Not solving the blog owner’s problem. Solution: Create unique content and you might be asked back again to guest blog. As you research these host blogs, look for information that you can provide that solves a problem that readers might have. It will most likely pertain to the niche market. If it’s unconventional, it might just peak their interest. At the very least, it can put a new spin on an old way of doing a certain task. Avoid recycling the same old content.

• Mistake #4 – Unresponsive to comments. Solution: Remember you are a guest on a blog. You want people to comment. In order to gain the trust and curiosity of the readership, they’ll want to know more about you. Offer that when you respond to their comments. Provide concise responses to their questions that will perpetuate more talk and not just one word answers.

• Mistake #5 – Not continuing the journey. Solution: Once you begin guest blogging, keep it up. Commit to gaining guest spots on other blogs. You are gaining traffic from your posts, so keep up the good work.

Getting the Results You Want from Guest Blogging

Concentrate on building your list, and choose a blog that has a large but involved list of subscribers. Choosing such a blog means that the subscribers are actively participating in the blog and buying products, either at the recommendation of the blog owner or right from the blog itself.

Check publishing frequency – Blogs that publish new content every day or every week give your content time to be seen by their vast audience and other visitors as well. More views can lead to more tweets, pins, likes and social bookmarking recommendations.

Choose your links effectively – Do you want to include list promotions in your guest blog posts? Try to do it in a way that doesn’t sound like a sales pitch. Connect the dots for the readers. Show how your products and the products promoted by the host blog are complementary. Consumers can benefit from supporting them both. Explain how your business works to demonstrate that point.

Whatever promotional item you are offering to your list, make sure that you can contextually match it with your guest post. Highlight the same keywords that you are pushing in your guest post. With one of your links, send visitors to the page that shows a sample of that promotional eBook or special report. In order to read the rest, they must click and subscribe on your site.

Keep your goals in mind

What do you hope to accomplish with your guest blog posts? Define your goals and then work to incorporate them with research, engaging content that solves a problem and carefully choosing where to link within your content.

Guest blogging can open the door for new opportunities as well as establish your business as a leading expert in your field. With the right bio and links you will also begin to see an increase in traffic to your own blog.

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