How to Be the Best Guest Blogger Ever
You already know that blogging is a great way to spread the word about your new book. But being a guest blogger is another thing to consider. Whether you’re going on a virtual book tour or guest blogging on a more informal, casual, basis, guest blogging is a smart book marketing strategy. It introduces you to people in your target audience you might not otherwise reach while it generates back links to your site that help with SEO (search engine optimization – helping your site get found in online searches).
Your goal with guest blogging is to communicate important information or opinions, or perhaps to entertain. If you do it well, you’ll generate fans and perhaps other guest blogging opportunities – which will then help you connect with even more people – and so on. The best way to reach your guest blogging goals is to be a great guest blogger. That involves more than writing a great article.
Here are five tips to making sure you are the best guest blogger ever…
1. Ask the blogger for guidelines; then follow them.
Some have them, some don’t. Ask, because if you don’t know what they’re expecting, it’s harder to meet — or exceed — expectations. Review the guidelines one last time before submitting the column to make sure you’ve followed them. Nobody wants to receive an article that’s 1,100 words long when they’ve asked for 500 words. (Not that I, um, have ever seen that happen . . . .)
2. Study the blog’s content and format.
Make your post easier to work with by incorporating the blog’s structural elements. How is the information presented? Does the blogger use long or short paragraphs? What about subheads and bullets? For example, I follow the headline style used by most daily newspapers – capital letters appear only in the first word and proper nouns. That means I have to change headlines on guest posts that use all initial capital letters. I’d rather not do that.
3. Don’t change the agreed-upon topic without talking to your host first.
Your host might have just run a post on your “new” topic or scheduled one for the following week.
4. Name the blog post file so it makes sense for your host.
Put yourself in the blog host’s shoes — what will help her find your post in her system once she saves the file you submit? Labeling it with your name and the post topic is always a good option. “Beckwith, book promo on shoestring” is more helpful than the generic, “guest blog post” that so many use.
5. Provide a head shot labeled with your name.
This will truly, truly make you stand out because most people label their photos for themselves, not for the strangers they will send them to. I’ve seen everything from a string of numbers automatically generated by the camera’s software to descriptors like “best shot” and “Mary outside.” While it makes sense to label the original image file so you can find it when you need it, you will want to save it with a new file name – your full name – before you send it.
…and it goes without saying that you need to write a great post. Make sure you have great content and have proofread it well before submitting it. Afterwards, be sure to share the post with your social networks. Be sure you don’t do this until after your guest post has been published and let the host know you have promoted his/her site and your work via your social media resources. I suggest doing this at part of your follow up “thank you again for the opportunity” email.
*This information was taken from www.buildbookbuzz.com
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