Some guidelines for guest bloggers
Have you ever considered guest blogging? Everyone has an area in which they’re expert. What’s yours? If you already have your own blog, snagging some gigs as a guest blogger is a logical next step.
For y’all who are just starting your online adventures, blogging is the art of creating interesting and/or informative content. Write about what you know best, on a regular basis. Once a week is a good goal for frequency, as it shows the crawl spiders that you’re active on your own website.
Once you get rolling, look around for opportunities to submit a guest post. But first of all, and most important, remember:
It’s not all about you.
We all love to talk the most about… ourselves. Yes, we do, admit it! That’s why social media is so huge and there are so many posts about how people feel, their daily challenges, how wonderful their kids are, how horrible their spouse is. On and on.
But those millions of posts aren’t relatable for anybody else. Figure out how to write so that your readers will connect with what you say. It’s hard for me to avoid being rude sometimes — please forgive me — but isn’t it your goal to be a successful blogger? Okay then. Turn the spotlight around and shine it on your audience.
Be friendly but not pushy.
Absolutely you want to make sales! Of course you do (so do I). But people use online ad blockers for a very good reason. And the mute button on the remote spares us from the din of commercials. Keep promotion of your product out of your guest blogging.
Let your content do the talking. When people discover that you aren’t focused on selling, but on informing and/or entertaining, they’ll relax and read what you have to say. Then they’ll be more likely to make an order from you.
Make the editor’s life easy.
Use spell check, and make sure the grammar is as close to perfect as it can be. Verb tense agreement goes a long way toward building your reputation as a solid resource. Word usage, too, is extremely important. Proper use of their, there and they’re, for example, marks you as a literate person who knows what she’s talking about.
Write in a conversational tone, like you’re sitting down for coffee or other beverage. Think about how your audience talks. I’m not saying you should use expressions that most people have to go to the Urban Dictionary to decipher. Unless, of course, your readers totes get it. (wink, wink)
There are times to use sentence fragments, contrary to what we’re taught in school, or should have been taught. Not everyone speaks in complete sentences. In fact, it would be interesting to find (or conduct) a study about that very thing.
Stay within the word limit suggested on the website’s guidelines. For 20 years we did motocross racing articles for Cycle News. No matter how small or large the entry for each race, our editors set a limit of 500 words. Thank you, Nate and David, for teaching me how to do that!
Write about their interests.
Keep in mind the focus of the website you want to accept your guest blogging. If it’s about essential oil benefits and usage, the editor will be hesitant to accept a post about motorcycle racing in Tennessee. Right?
Presumably you’ve chosen your target websites because they interest you somehow. Well then, turn that around and write about what’s on their radar. You’ll have a much better chance of acceptance and being published.
Also, diversify your offerings from simply writing to video, infographics (pie charts, maps, et cetera) or podcasts, for example. There’s a growing trend toward posts that require more than reading. We lead such busy lives that one look at an infographic can tell us the main point of a 500 word article. People can listen to podcasts on the go. Videos are almost like watching a show.
It’s all about catching people’s attention. You have roughly 3 seconds to do that, before your reader clicks on to the next bit. So make it good! You can probably even throw in a few memes here and there, just for fun. People get bored with self improvement and education. Watch for some memes as blog posts here in the near future!
There’s more about guest blogging to tell you, and I want your success. Watch for the next post, about how to get guest blogging gigs. And if you have questions, just reach out and I’ll get you some answers.