How to Write an Excellent Guest Post

Guest posting is one of the few blog marketing tactics that benefits not only the guest poster by exposing your writing to a new audience, but also the blog that is featuring the guest post because it gives them a chance to take a break from writing while still giving their readers new content. And it’s largely due in part to this mutual benefit that so many bloggers attempt to guest post for others, and that so many bloggers accept guest posts on their site. However not all guest posts make the cut when it comes to being published. If you want to ensure that your guest post has a good shot at being published, then follow these guest post guidelines:

1. Get to know the blog you’re guest posting for – Before you even pitch an idea to a blogger for a potential guest post spend some time on the site getting a feel for the type and tone of the articles that are written and read through some of the comments to get a better understanding of the audience. Once you have a good idea of what the blog’s readers respond to you can brainstorm topics accordingly.

2. Write on a topic you’re particularly knowledgeable about within the blog’s niche – Your guest post should showcase your best writing. The easiest way to ensure that you’ll write well on a topic is to write on something you know inside and out. The topic also needs to fall into the blog’s niche; otherwise it’s likely that no one will read your post in the first place.

3. Write in list form – For the most part, Internet readers are not in-depth readers, they’re skimmers. Because of this, your post needs to be easy to scan while still allowing readers to pick up on the main points of the post, and the best way to do this is to write in list form or in short paragraphs with headings.

4. Teach the audience something they don’t know – The point of a guest post is to get readers back to your site, right? This means you need to prove to the audience that your blog is full of resources that they can benefit from reading. To do this, write on a topic that teaches the audience something. If they learn something from you they’re more likely to click over to your blog and see what else you have to say. 

5. Make sure the post is unique to the blog – Do your homework ahead of time. Do not simply reuse a post that you’ve already published on your own blog and do not write on a topic that has been covered recently on the blog you’re writing the post for. If you can find a similar topic on the first page of the blog, skip it and write about something else.

Guest posting is a great way to get exposure to new readers and to form a relationship with another blogger. However for guest posting to be effective you have to be willing to put in the time and effort to write a post that is worth reading. And if you’re unsure how to start writing one, think about the type of posts you like to read and then try using the same format.

About the Author:
This guest post is contributed by Debra Johnson, blogger and editor of live in nanny. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: – jdebra84 @ gmail.com.