How to Be the Perfect Guest Blogger

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This isn’t necessarily the perfect formula for a guest post request. However, I thought it would be useful to start a thread on this, share some ideas and maybe turn it into the perfect formula!

Here are my thoughts:

Name: Always address the blog owner by name – take the time to find a name if you can’t. “Remember that a man’s Name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

Praise: Personally, I think general praise can suck – it’s been abused by spammers too much. However, if there is something you genuinely like about the blog, and which is specific to the blog, praise it. I don’t know about you, but I love my websites, ugly though they are, and praise creates a warm feeling inside and makes me more likely to say yes. (But only when the praise is genuine.)

Personalise: Don’t use the same template for every blog. You can keep some parts, but definitely tweak it so that it fits the site and the person you want to write for.

Proof: Link to other guest posts you have done. Shows that you know what you are doing, and offers [social?] proof.

Also (just had this idea now, as I was writing this – which is part of the reason I am doing it ) why not link to discussion/links to your guest post?

Demonstrate your research: Show that you have studied the blog before you approach. You could do this by pointing out that you have searched the blog and noticed that the topic of your blog post hasn’t been mentioned yet. Or you could refer to the guest post guidelines. (And, as Ann mentions below, make sure you follow them religiously!) Or perhaps to a guest post you have read on the blog.

Explain and expand benefit: How can your post benefit their blog/website?

For smaller blogs you could explain that you will promote it on social media, and push it out to your followers. If it is likely to get links (my recent post on dofollownet has already generated several!) explain that too. But don’t make claims you can’t or won’t keep.

In general, focus as much as you can on the blog and the blog owner, and what you can do for them, rather than what they can do for you.

Use the word because: When explaining benefits consider using the word because. Tests show that it increases positive response rates.

Call to Action: Politely tell what you want them to do.

Follow up: Especially if you get a half promise (e.g. I’ll look at it after my holiday)!! It took two reminders before my post on Problogger was published.

How can we improve/tweak this to make it better? If you have any ideas, please leave them below.

And also:

Bypassing spam filters

Your pitch should bi-pass an automatic spam filter. This is huge. If your email gets into a spam box, you’ll never hear back. To make sure, it is safe:

• Personalize it;
• Refrain from bolding, capitalising, etc
• Include the minimum number of links
• Refrain from attaching anything (this is about the very first email. This is why I usually don’t send the post prior to discussing it).

And as you have a guest blogging strategy?

Article by Dennis

Dennis Polishchuk - Expert of search engine optimization, Google Adwords, internet marketing, SMM promo and author of russian SEO blog - SEO Delo.