Whether you are starting a new blog or looking to boost traffic for your existing blog, guest blogging is a valuable tool. Guest blogging is when a writer is allowed to post an article or story on a host’s website. It’s a mutually beneficial opportunity that allows the guest blogger to gain exposure and possibly take advantage of the host blog’s traffic to create links back to their own blog. It also allows the host blog to take a break from posting content, gain a unique perspective and possibly even benefit from the future growth of the guest blogger’s own blog.

Here are some essential tips for those looking to get started with guest blogging.

Identify Blogs Accepting Guest Blogging

If you are writing for a niche or specific topic, you might want to identify some of the well-known or high-traffic blogs in that area. This could be as simple as entering appropriate keywords in a search engine and seeing what blogs are returned high in the results. High SEO ranking is likely reserved to the high-traffic blogs. These would be your targets for guest blogging as they would provide you with the greatest exposure and back linking traffic.

You could also refer to directories that provide lists of sites accepting guest blogs. One such directory is BloggersPassion. There are others out there. It’s better to first confirm that a host blog is seeking submittals before wasting too much of your time and theirs contacting them.

Pitch Your Blog via Direct Emails

It’s important when emailing the blogger that you demonstrate an understanding of their content or niche. You should also make the request personable. If it seems like a canned or spam-like request, it will likely not be accepted and could wind up in their spam folder. Do a little homework in advance and come up with several possible topics that the blogger can choose from that would fit well. Make sure you are not duplicating content that’s already on the blog. Remember they want a unique perspective. When soliciting a guest blogging opportunity, you should also provide samples or links to some of your past work for the host blogger to reference so they can see your writing style.

Write Quality Posts

This may go without saying but the guest blogging strategy will not work unless you are producing unique, valuable, quality content that both readers and the host bloggers will appreciate. As mentioned earlier, much of the value in guest blogging will come from your unique perspective. Additionally, providing top-notch posts will result in having to exert much less effort in marketing your guest blogs in the future. Blog owners will welcome and possibly even solicit your articles if they prove to be of high-quality and demonstrate an ability to generate a lot of traffic for the host sites.

Be Sure to Provide Links Back to Your Own Site or Blog

Guest blogging will provide valuable back linking opportunities that will boost your traffic and also your SEO. Search engines look for the kind of organic traffic that will come from any readers who click on your link from the guest blog to your site. It will boost your ranking and possibly provide new subscribers to your blog or website.

Guest blogging is a mutually beneficial opportunity when executed properly. The readers win by getting your valuable content, the host blog gets free valuable content and you get exposure and hopefully increased traffic.