Here Are Some Insights Into Successfully Publishing a Guest Blog Post

You decided to become a guest blogger. If you want to raise your profile in the online blogging community, posting on another publisher's well-trafficked blog is a good plan. Doing so to generate leads for your business is equally wise and strategic. Guest blogging doesn't come with many costs beyond time commitments, and you could see an increase in visitor traffic to your pages.

Guest posting does require care. Producing weak content won't impress publishers. And even if they did run your material, readers won't likely react too enthusiastically. So, bring your proverbial "A-game" to the world of guest posting. Follow other helpful and established tips for success as well. Here are a few things to consider when planning on guest posting:

Determine the Reasons for the Guest Post

When you tell yourself the reason for publishing a guest blog article, you may find yourself making appropriate decisions. Are you interested in reaching a broad audience? If so, then you will want to seek out blogs with large readerships. When credibility is your concern, check out blogs published by authorities which people trust.

Take some time out to figure out what your goal is. Once you know why you want to publish a guest blog, you'll find yourself sending queries to the blogs that match your goals.

Don't Abuse Your Host

The blog publisher interested in allowing you to guest post probably realizes you want to promote yourself. The arrangement can be mutually beneficial to all involved. Unless, of course, you wish to create a spam-like post. Among the most critical guest post tips, is, "Do not take advantage of your host."

More accurately, don't try to take advantage of the host by presenting an overly promotional article. The blog publisher would likely reject such a post upon first reading. Anything that doesn't add value to the blog or create concerns with search engine terms of service has little chance of publication.

Create content of value. Let the valuable content promote you, and not boorish pleadings to buy services of products.

Draw Up a Brilliant Query Letter

Submitting a guest blog to the publisher and asking him/her to review it might not be the best plan. The publisher could be busy and unable to read the entire article. He/she may even consider a full submission to be rude. Consider it wiser to send a query email outlining the subject of your guest post.

The query email might affect the blog publisher. Upon reading a compelling two or three sentence description of the article, he/she may be highly interested in reading the actual piece. Had you sent a two-page blog entry, the submission could end up collecting virtual dust in an email folder.

Query emails and blog proposals do need to appear dynamic. Brush up on how to make a proposal come off as compelling. If you bore the publisher with a dull query, don't expect anyone to request to read the entire thing.

Tailor the Blog Article Appropriately

Remember, you aren't writing for your blog. The article goes to an independent publisher with his/her own requirements. Read all the entries published on the blog. Try to get a feel for the blog's style. You won't do yourself any favors trying to mimic the style, but you don't want to veer too far off from the blog's approach.

Make sure you know the readers, too. Readership is a bit like fingerprints. Readers look for a specific style in the blog's writing. They probably won't feel much enthusiasm for a writer who defies their expectations. Don't expect readers who feel no connection to your work to follow any links to your site.

Carefully read both the blog's writing and any readers comments. Use the insight gained to keep the readers in mind when revising and crafting the article.

And you are writing an article, not a novel. 1,000 to 1,500 words is usually good enough for a guest blog entry. 2,000 is max and pushing it. Anything over 2,000 words may be a bit much for a first-time submission to someone else's blog.

Do Your Part to Promote the Post

Don't leave everything up to the blog publisher. Take the initiative to promote the guest post you wrote. Hype the post on blog and social media pages. Mention it on message boards. Doing so not only helps you, the steps help the blog publisher. Since he/she was gracious enough to approve the guest blog, show gratitude by promoting the blog.