Guest Blogging: Simple Tips for a Higher Success Rate

Guest blogging is becoming an increasingly popular method used by bloggers and website owners for increasing site traffic. In order to get this going there a couple of things to consider. First off it is finding a site that is open to accepting your articles. Secondly you need to pitch together an idea that is going to be of interest to the site and its readers. Once this is established you move on to writing the article, keeping the style of the platform and it’s readers in mind. With these steps clearly outlined and well discussed, it is important to now move onto the missing link: How are you going to get bloggers and websites interested? With a number of emails hitting inboxes everyday, why are they going to open yours? Here are some tips to giving your guest blogging future the best shot:

Get Personal

When you are reaching out to contact a cyber space stranger, make sure that you do your homework and find their name. If the bloggers name is available somewhere on their site and your introduction to them is simply “Hello” you are not getting off to a great start. By taking the time to do your research, you are showing the site that you are genuinely interested in writing for them and that you have spent time looking around their platform. Even if your “Hello” is followed with site compliments, discussing how much you love their content, a simple name will make a huge difference to this. Often sites will not offer you these types of personal details, if this is the case then there is nothing to worry about, it suggests that the editors prefer to remain anonymous, so in this respect a “Hello” is great!

Keep it short 

The first point of contact needs to be short and sweet. With a whole load of mail to open everyday, the recipient is not going to want to read through a mountain of paragraphs, the likelihood is that they will just click delete. Granted you feel that you have a lot to say but you will have time for that later. Initial contact should be brief, say hello, explain why you are contacting them and that you have a “fantastic” “fitting” article that you think would be a “perfect” match for their site. Say you would love to hear their thoughts and could they let you know and then sign off, done! Under your name provide your site link so that if they are interested they can have a look and get a feel for your writing. However, don’t provide a whole array of links from previously published articles, these may well showcase your creativity, however they are likely to have your mail sent directly to spam and you do not want that.

Note: If needs be you can always do this later.

Keep it simple

The subject line of an email can really throw people of balance. This is the first glance of your email and there is pressure for this to be catchy and interesting enough for the recipient to open it. As a guest writer you are in the most part offering a service in exchange for a link, this is a simple deal which does not require a complicated introduction. Start off by telling it how it is, for example:

Guest Article for anne’s-aneries

This tells the receiver why you are contacting them, if they accept or are open to guest articles they are likely to take a look and if they are not, it will most likely end in the trash! It is likely however that your initial contact may go unnoticed, don’t instantly mark this as declined, you should still aim to follow this up. If you have had no response for a couple of weeks you should send out a checking in email, subject:

Just checking in

Shoot out a quick email asking them if they received your previous email and ask for their thoughts. If they missed your initial contact this provides an additional opportunity or they may at least respond and tell you that they are not interested.

Keep note  

Always keep a note of who you have contacted along with the contact dates. You can not assume that your mail is going to take priority so if you have got in touch and not heard anything, give the site a couple of weeks before following up. Apply this rule for when you have received contact too. You may send over an article for consideration and then not hear anything for a while, refrain from badgering them with emails and give it a couple of weeks. Being pushy could be a turn off that stops the editor from ever reading your words.

I hope that these simple tips are useful and will help you on the road to successful guest blogging!