Guest posting has quickly become one of the most commonly used methods of content marketing. It is one of the favoured methods of building links, increasing search visibility, increasing referral traffic, and helping to increase brand visibility. But, as with most things, there are a number of pit-falls and mistakes you may be making which could be having a negative effect on your guest posting campaign.
If you are guest posting for your website then you should familiarize yourself with these 9 potential mistakes to make sure you’re not doing anything which could be hindering your efforts.
1. Not Setting Clear Goals
The first thing that can set you up for failure when guest posting is not setting clear and defined goals before you start your campaign. For example, if your goal is to try and rank for a particular keyword then you should make sure you’re creating content relevant to that keyword. Not only that, but you should also be looking to have your content published on blogs which already rank for keywords in that niche and which have good metrics (Page Rank, Domain Authority, Trust Flow). Whereas if you are looking to increase your reach, or attract new audiences, then you need to focus your sights on blogs that already have a huge following which is aligned with your new target audience.
2. Leaving Insufficient Time & Not Enough Prospects
Guest posting is a long process, and one in which not everybody you send a post to will always send a response, let alone publish your post. There will be many times when you contribute a piece of content to a blog and you don’t get a response for days or weeks, if at all. You need to make sure you leave yourself adequate time for your guest posting efforts, and ensure you have enough prospective blogs to outreach to.
You should allow 4 – 6 weeks to get a post published, although you can usually speed up that process by proposing your post idea to a few blogs at a time and then initially working with the quickest to respond. You will still make new relationships with the other bloggers and can work with them on new content ideas for a post for their blog. If you do outreach to more than one blog at a time, then make sure you only send your post idea and a small description, not the entire post or you could end up with duplicate content being posted and angry bloggers who are unwilling to accept contributions from you in the future.
3. Not Following the Blog’s publishing Guidelines
This is a quick way to get your post rejected from any blog. If you don’t read the blogs publishing guidelines then you cheat yourself out of lots of useful information which could help you create the perfect post for that blog and ensure that your post gets published; most blogs will only publish the contributions which they consider flawless when it comes to following their guidelines, so make sure you’re fully aware of any policies or guidelines before you start writing your post.
Some blogs don’t have public guidelines, in those cases you can always take a look through the blogs previous posts and get a feel for the writing style, their linking policy and so forth.
4. Not writing for the Blog’s Audience
Knowing your audience is key in business, and the same goes for blogging too. Often when you’re guest posting you will be contributing to blogs with a slightly different audience than your own – helping you to extend your reach and move into new markets – this can make it somewhat challenging when producing content as you will need to ensure you’re writing for their audience (your new target audience), and not writing for your current audience.
For example, you might provide a service which you have been offering as a business to business service, but now want to make the move and start taking your service straight to consumers too. For this you would need to change your approach and make sure you were writing for your new target audience (consumers) and not your original target audience (businesses).
5. Using Recycled Content
Lots of people seem to think that because they’re contributing a post to a blog which isn’t their own, that they don’t have to work so hard on the quality. But, if anything, that’s the complete opposite way you should be thinking. Guest posting is a way to entice people onto your blog or website and hopefully convert them. To do that, you need to be providing excellent content which your audience is going to find useful and make them want to check out your own website or blog, not sending out the same recycled content over and over again.
6. Using E-mail Outreach Templates
For an editor there are few things worse than receiving an e-mail from somebody who has clearly not even read through your blog’s previous posts before sending a standard template e-mail to you asking if you will publish their post. In order to get a spot to contribute on a popular and worthwhile blog you need to approach them with respect and show that you have a good understanding of what their blog is about, what their audience likes, and prove to them that you can contribute something beneficial to their blog. If you’re currently using a standard outreach template to enquire about guest posting opportunities then you should stop that now.
Get personal with your outreach e-mails, show the editors that you have something worth contributing and you’ll get a much better response rate and much greater results.
7. Not Sending Follow-up E-mails
Guest blogging takes patience, it’s an extremely popular method of marketing and all of the most desirable blogs often receive hundreds of guest post requests on a weekly basis. This means that it’s not uncommon for some e-mails to get lost in the masses or overlooked by the editors. If you find that a week or two has passed and you haven’t received any response from the blog which you’re contributing to, then you can always send a short follow-up e-mail to check in with the blogger and make sure they received your submission.
9 times out of 10 when I’ve sent a follow-up e-mail after not receiving a reply from my initial e-mail, I have always received a response within a day or two, so make sure you always follow-up with your submissions.
8. Not Responding to Comments
Another thing you might have noticed is that some bloggers will contribute a great piece of content to a blog and then disappear; they don’t hang around to answer questions or join discussions on the post, they just ‘submit and forget’. If somebody takes the time to write a comment on your post, or they ask you a question, then you should answer it! It gives you a chance to communicate with your readers, build more relationships, and keep your post active.
9. Not Keeping Records
Keeping good records of your guest blogging campaign will make it easier for you to keep track of where you have already contributed, as well as any wins and rejections.
Personally I always track the Blog Name, URL, Submission Date, Contact Details, a space for Notes, Alexa, PageRank, DomainAuthority, TrustFlow, Social Account Followers, plus the date the post was eventually published and the URL of the published post. Having all of this information recorded in an Excel sheet or a database will make it easy for you to get a quick overview of your guest blogging campaign, plus will help you to quickly identify potential blogs for your future guest blogging projects.
If you have been making any of these mistakes, then hopefully this post has helped you to realize the damage it could be having on your guest blogging efforts and will allow you to take the necessary steps to ensure you don’t make any of these mistakes again!
Have I missed any guest blogging mistakes which you think should be on the list? If so, please share them in the comments section below!
via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/blogging/make-9-guest-posting-mistakes-0725134?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=make-9-guest-posting-mistakes
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