10 Tactics To Get Your Articles Published On Other Blogs
Every blog needs to shake things up from time to time. While readers are fans of a particular blogger and love reading their blog, a guest post proves to rake in results; building niche authority, constructive community feedback, and brand awareness— all just by publishing your articles on someone else’s blog.
According to Opt-in Monster, 62.96% of readers perceive blogs with multiple authors to be more credible. Now, no blogger is going to let you write a post on their blog just like that. There’s an approach to landing your first guest post, 10 to be specific. Broken into two parts, here’s what you can do to find your target blog(s) and how you can guest post for them:
HOW TO FIND YOUR TARGET BLOGS
1. Find The Right Blog(s) In Your Niche
Narrow your search to those in your industry first; whether it’s tech, beauty, or affiliate marketing, you’d want to identify a list of them. From there, filter the ones who accept guest posts. Feel free to use our useful list right here.
This search process takes place in many forms. Everyone starts with Google. Instead of having a formula of “guest post” + “niche”, it would be helpful to consider other useful terms. Remember, you’re looking for blogs who accept guest posts, so ask yourself, “what would they write to attract guest bloggers?”
You can start with some of our suggested keywords:
*Niche* + “Write for us”
*Niche* + “Guest post opportunities”
*Niche* + “Submit blog post”
*Niche* + “Guest posting guidelines*
*Niche* + “Contributing writer*
PRO TIP: Leave a meaningful comment on the ones you think could be a target for your guest post. It immediately puts you on their radar.
2. Prepare A Personalized Pitch
Never send generic pitches. Like cover letters, bloggers go through thousands of pitches a day, and yours must stand out. We recommend referring to previous blog posts to gauge the blogger’s style and interests and its audience. Every blogger is essentially looking to tick these few boxes:
- Samples of your published articles: to gauge your quality and style of writing
- Your idea for their blog: to have a clearer picture if their readers will enjoy it
- Your idea for their blog: to ensure no duplication of existing content
- What he or she will benefit from this collaboration (new readers, additional coverage, etc.)
Use stories or elements that will resonate with the blogger. Maybe you both attended an event way back or have a mutual connection- now’s the time to play that card. It immediately lowers their guard and opens to hearing you out because you are associated with them in more ways than just a guest post outreach opportunity.
Source: Pexels
PRO TIP: Optimize your email subject line by using words like “New” or “Now” or “in 2020”. These words have proven to pique interest and increase open rates.
3. Never Send A Full Article
Notice I used the word “idea” in the previous point? Some people think it’s because the blogger might “steal” your post and not credit you for it. It’s a fair concern. However, it’s more for the perceived scenario. When you pitch an article, it may appear like it was once written for another blog, rejected, and now you’re pitching it here.
Professional bloggers would always want to discuss guest post topics. Offering an article may indirectly imply that you don’t value the bloggers’ input. Aim to provide a solid idea, discuss the angle, and work on the outline together.
That’s what a guest post partnership is all about.
4. Be Aware Of The Nitty Gritty
The smallest things can throw people off. Email formatting or unfriendly emailing hours may risk your shot. Not everything is within our control, such as if the blogger was having a busy day or fell ill. Simple steps like these are ones that you do have control over:
- Email on a weekday morning (it’s when most bloggers are alert)
- Avoid sounding too formal (a good gauge would be to write like how they do)
- Keep to the guidelines, if any (some bloggers have guidelines, read thoroughly)
- Send multiple ideas (people like to have options)
5. Craft A Unique Follow-Up
A compelling follow-up just might change a blogger’s mind. Put yourself in their shoes; you’ve got a full-time job as a blogger, a family, chores- would you be opening every single email? Probably not.
When following up or pitching, it is always about the recipient.
In your follow-up, try to draw their attention back to the guest post pitch by:
Adding value
Building trust
Educating
Entertaining
Inspiring
Taking action
PRO TIP: Always reply on top of the initial email. Bloggers shouldn’t have to dig for your guest post outreach email.
HOW TO GUEST POST FOR THOSE BLOGS
6. Write An Original Blog Post
Once you’ve found your target blog(s), write a post exclusively for their readers, considering their interests, styles, and format. This post will serve the purpose of a portfolio, showing the blogger what you have done and what you could do more for them. It’s a “tangible” way of measuring your skills to help them determine if you’d be a good fit for them.
Source: Unsplash
PRO TIP: Rework the angle of a topic you have written and published successfully. If “10 steps to developing a growth mindset” has been published, try writing about entrepreneurs who attribute their success to having a growth mindset.
7. Repost A Post From Your Website
Imagine you’ve written a blog post that resulted in a high engagement, and you’d like to duplicate this success on your blog. This is achievable with a few precautionary steps in mind. Suppose your post is responsible for 30 new visitors daily — from your first page-ranked Google SERP link. Now, traffic flows from Google to your site leading to some degree of conversion.
Let’s say you choose to repost that post on LinkedIn or Medium. Instead of finding you via Google, third-party social media sites will likely funnel these posts. Most users will probably read your post there and not click on your backlink. Simply put, no one reaches your blog, and you will not see any web traffic or conversions due to that.
Third-party social media sites act as a redirecting tool and help with visibility. Sharing a piece of content on multiple platforms will increase its likelihood of getting noticed. Including a “read more” link to the full article helps drive traffic to your blog.
Watch out for penalties. Yes. Let me explain.
Google once slammed SEO expert Neil Patel, with penalties for duplicate content. It’s strange because Patel has been doing it for some time. He discovered that Google gives you credit for your post on a site with higher domain authority (DA). Hence, if you’re reposting a blog post on a site with a higher DA than your own, you’ll be getting a penalty.
If you want to more about DA in general, click here.
8. Write A Partially Original Post
Let’s face it. Nothing is original anymore; something is always “inspired by” something or someone else. However, references are a great way to make guest posting original (as much as they can be). Writing a partially original post can mean switching some of its vital points, altering its summary, or even changing the statistics and quotes. It’s like staying on-topic but making it yours.
Here’s a little sample of a partially original post (just the outline):
4 steps to wellbeing at work 4 steps to focus on mental health at work
- Strengthening friendships - Practice breathing exercises
- Continuous learning - Resolve conflict
- Keeping active - Participate in company activities
- Adding value - Be a team player
9. Write A Popular Post
Prepare for your guest post by picking what’s trending. Binge on BuzzFeed, Quora, and Reddit, and you’ll be up to speed. A key thing to note, not all trending topics are the same on each platform. Uh-oh. They wouldn’t differ too much, but yes, they aren’t all the same.
For blogs, a good way to gauge is to research a few blogs within the same niche. Check on their sidebar that lists out their past posts- if they are related posts, voila! You’ve found yourself a popular topic. All that’s left to do is write a stunning post about it.
PRO TIP: Insert your blog’s or website’s URL into sharescore.com to know how many times social sites have shared it. It provides a unique insight into two different kinds of shares that help plan your content strategy for audience engagement.
Sharescore.com created a tool called Share Count Recovery™ to recover missing share count you have been unable to track across various social media platforms. Once your URL has been analyzed in their search bar, you will find data on ‘shares without recovery’ and ‘with Share Count Recovery™’. ‘Shares without recovery’ refer to social share “footprints” by the URL itself with no domain changes before that are currently available for you to track. Alternatively, ‘with Share Count Recovery™’ showcases URLs that have gone through domain name migration or sub-domain migration as well. It tracks changes like ‘olddomain.com ⟹ newdomain.com’ or ‘free.wordpress.com ⟹ customdomain.com’, which you would not be able to quantify otherwise. In case brands have gone through a rebranding process- those brands will not lose their data. Their tool is able to do this as they fetch share counts using the official share count lookup APIs of each social network.
You can find a more in-depth explanation of recovery qualifiers here.
The results shown in the screenshot below is from the Kansas City painting business, Neighbourhood Painting & Restoration. It shows that their website is popular on Facebook and Pinterest as the share scores are high, though their blog receives fewer shares. Each share count comes from the official share count lookup APIs of each social network. With these metrics, businesses can identify and position their marketing efforts on social platforms relevant to their audience or where their followers are engaging most and improve the accuracy of share count by factoring in site migrations through this recovery metric.
Source: Sharescore
10. Write An Intro For An Infographic
According to visme.com, infographics, or infographic-like visuals such as charts, graphics, color design, and images, increases readership by 80%. It’s the preferred way to illustrate statistics or anything with multiple components to it, and we believe it would nicely go together with your guest post outreach. An intro copy should always accompany an infographic to describe the context and content briefly.
“To me, guest post pitches are all about establishing credibility and knowledge in a condensed, organized email. I look for these key things when reading pitches: an introduction, at least three original article ideas, and examples of past guest posts.” – Rachel Blakely-Gray, Content writer at Patriot Software LLC
There You Go
This article was your guide to starting guest posting. We’ve given you every reason to get started with guest posting. There is no reason to delay growing your influence and getting guest postings underway. Searching for blogs that accept guest posts is a drag. Need that list of blogs with all niches again? Keep it, and it’s yours.