Guest Posting? Wipe Your Feet at Your Host’s Door Before Entering

You're a Guest: Behave—But Be Interesting!

You’re a Guest: Behave—But Be Interesting!

Guest posting on well-trafficked sites can be an effective way for freelancers to drive awareness of their blog, their services or a product that the freelancer is hoping to give potential clients/customers a peek at. Many site owners are happy to host a relevant post from an outside writer because it can give the site’s writer a break from their posting routines, expand on topics that are still relevant to the site’s audience, but that might be out of the purview of the site owner, and can spark renewed engagement for the site.

Guest posters can also bring a portion of their existing audience to the host site, which also holds some appeal for the site owner. There are some obvious basics you need to pay attention to when you solicit a site owner for a guest post, prominent among them whether your post serves that site’s audience, whether it’s written in the site’s style, format and tone, and whether it expands or breaks new ground with the site’s mission and message.

Take a look at this Why You Suck at Guest Blogging (and What The Pros Do Differently) post on Jon Morrow’s helpful Smart Blogger site. The post goes over what makes a lousy and what makes a lively guest post, and also supplies a link list, vetted by topic, of sites that accept guest posts, those links going to site guidelines. This BBT post is over a year old, so not all of the linked sites may still be accepting guest posts, but a good many of them will still be active. Morrow’s site has a rich vein of info on guest blogging, which ties in well to his guest blogging courses.

Wither Guest Posting?
And why, you slyly ask, am I blithering on about guest posting? Oh, with motives so ulterior: I recently published my book on finding and cultivating your writing voice, Think Like a Writer: How to Write the Stories You See. Before I published, I contacted the owners of a number of sites about posting some adapted material from my book as a guest post. Most of the site owners were people I have had favorable contact with in the past, which at least gets your post in the door in the first place.

Some of the hosts were from sites I’d tweeted about regularly, because they offered great material for freelancers, or were people I’d written to directly about topics in their post or newsletters, or were from sites where I’d commented regularly, and was known to the host. It’s always great to have some personal connection with the site host to be considered for a post, though of course you still need to provide them with good material, and to follow the guidelines.

I did sent pitches out to several sites I was moderately familiar with, but at which I hadn’t developed the personal relationship described above. Those pitches were reviewed and graciously declined, for various reasons. And some of my closer contacts declined as well, again for various reasons, all of them legitimate. And two of my posts won’t go live for a while, because of the host site’s guest backlog.

Posting for the Long Tail
All that is no problem for me: I want to keep incrementally putting out word about my book, and guest posting is a helpful method, especially when I was able to use (with occasional modification) the direct material of my book. Below is the list of posts that are now active at various sites. The list includes places like LinkedIn and Medium, where I posted under my own accounts; obviously they aren’t vetted by a site host, but you shouldn’t post there either if you material isn’t up to snuff.

Check any of these out if the feeling strikes. There’s useful writing info in all, and it’s even amusing at times. As you might have guessed, I got the most sales from the highly trafficked Writer’s Digest post (seen in my Kindle Direct reports the day of and day after the post), but also some fair attention from the others, and increased traffic to my site in general. The Make a Living Writing post just went live, so we’ll see what happens there.

Try some guest posting where you might find a receptive audience—it’s a good exercise to stretch your writing, and could get you useful attention.

Making Some Rounds on the Web

Writer’s Digest

Don’t Muzzle (or Muffle) Your Writing Voice

Make a Living Writing

Why Super-Short Articles Can Build a Big Writing Career

Writing World

Pedal Your Bike to Pedal Your Mind

Writer Unboxed

A Writer’s Eyes Are Always Open

Medium

Here’s to the Oddballs
When the Writing Grind Seems to Shave the Soul

LinkedIn

How to Write After Midnight
Stick in Your Readers’ Heads: Use Words That Work
Typing with Another Writer’s Hands