You probably know that guest blogging is a great way to reach a new audience, increase your website’s exposure, and earn valuable links back to your site. But how do you go about obtaining guest blog posts? There are actually a handful of ways.
1. Cold Calling
Technically, the term only applies to telemarketing, but the same basic concept can apply to blogs as well. If you go to a blog, you like it, and you want to get a guest blog post on it, you can always try emailing them and asking if you can do a guest blog post for them. Find the contact page, and email away.
If there is no contact page, you can use any WhoIs service, such as WhoIs Source, to take a look at their publicly registered information, which will almost always have an email address for contacting the blog owner. In the event that the blog owner decided to use private registration, which is the only way to avoid putting some sort of email address in the registration, you might have to give up. Someone who goes to that level to keep their email address hidden probably won’t accept your request for submitting a guest blog post anyway.
Keep in mind that your request should be nice, professional, and, above all, sound like a person. Compliment something specific on their site, and be sure to explain why you believe that their audience would benefit from the guest blog post you are offering. Be upfront and honest, even if you want a keyword link for SEO purposes.
Having someone reject you because you want a certain kind of backlink is better than wasting all of the time to incorporate such a link only to have an angry blog owner reject it at the last second because he or she feels like you tricked them.
2. Guest Blogging Forums
If you want to look for websites that are looking for guest bloggers themselves, you can join a guest blogging forum. Guest blogging forums are places where people gather to look for content from guest bloggers and others gather to offer such content. As long as you stick to the topics that the blog owners want, it is much easier to get a guest blog post accepted through one of these.
MyBlogGuest is arguably the most popular, and probably the best, guest blogging forum. DigitalPoint’s Link Exchange Forum and Link Sales Forum aren’t technically guest blogging forums, but they can be used pretty much the same way.
3. Guest Blogging Mailing Lists
Mailing lists are a particularly passive way to get guest blog posts. You submit information about the type of post you would like to write about to a service like BloggerLinkUp, and everyone on their mailing list gets a copy of your offer sent to them in a newsletter-type email.
Then, you just wait for people to contact you and ask if you would write the blog post you described for them. Due to the passive nature of this method, it can be used simultaneously with other methods to get a slew of guest blog posting opportunities relatively quickly.
4. Google Search for Blogs that Accept Guests
This is one step above cold calling for guest blog posts. You can do a Google search for something like “guest post guidelines” or “guest guidelines” along with a word that describes your niche to find guest blog posts that actively accept guest blog post submissions.
For example, searching for “coupons guest guidelines” will immediately lead you to ”Cents”able Momma’s Guest Post Guidelines and Submission, which provides details on how you can submit a guest blog post to that high-value coupon blog. Even QuickOnlineTips has their own guest blogging guidelines.
Pick a method, follow any guidelines set forth by the target blog, and start writing away! Remember, if you write an article and a blog owner rejects it, nothing is stopping you from using that article somewhere else. If you’re not sure why guest blog posts are so good in the first place, take a look at The How’s and Why’s of Guest Blog Posting.
Guest Article written by Steve Miller, who is interested in guest blog posting and imported video games. You can email him here. Image credits to lowjumpingfrog under CC license. You can read our guest blogging guidelines and share your own quick online tips.