Getting Started IV - Guest Posting

Photo courtesy of  Celeste

Once you've written a fair amount of work on your own, developed your social media networks, and started building a platform, a powerful tool for quickly building your resume is through guest posting.

Guest posting is simply volunteering to write content for somebody else's site and getting author attribution in return. Some sites will even pay - and this is where you can really start earning an income. But don't expect to be paid for awhile. It takes time to earn the reputation that warrants getting paid.

Finding a Site to Guest Post

Many, many sites have a "Write for Us" type page where they explicitly ask for people, such as yourself, to contribute to their site. If you find a site you think you could write for, look for a link on their home page. Some of the keywords you can look for include:

• Contribute to...
• Write for us...
• Guest post...
• Pitch an idea...

The vast majority stick with the write for us to make it easy for writers to find them. 

You can also do a quick search on Google for sites in your genre and add the "write for us" keyword into the search. Google also has a Blogs filter that allows you to filter by sites with a blog. 

Read the Posting Guidelines

Before you do anything else, find the site's guidelines for sending them an article. Some ask that you only send topic ideas for approval - meaning that you don't write the article first. Others will ask for a complete article. 

Other common guidelines include number and size of images (if needed), format for sending in your work - Word, HTML, etc - and grammar/voice type instructions. They may also include a point of contact. 

So definitely review the guidelines for a guest post before you send anything into the site. If you don't follow their guidelines, it usually signals to them that you don't care about the details. That's not a good way to start off your relationship!

Research, Research, Research!

You've found a site, they have a "Write for Us" page, you've reviewed their submission standards and guidelines - now it's time for some research. Spend some time reviewing the topics they've published over the last few months. What you want to do is identify topics that they could use. 

If they just published on a topic you would propose, they're going to reject the article idea or ask that you resubmit the idea at a later date. So take the time to understand the kinds of topics that the site might need. Site editors will be thrilled to accept an idea that they've been meaning to write about! 

You should also read through at least a few articles to understand the tone and layout of the articles on the site. It's important to match their brand as closely as possible while keeping your own identity. 

Sending Ideas/Articles

This is what we often refer to as the "pitch". You're contacting the editor for the first time and pitching your ideas to them. The hope is that they'll like your content and allow you to publish a guest post. 

There are three components to every pitch - you can fine-tune your own process, but this is what's worked for me time and time again:

1. Short introduction telling the editor who you are and what you do: "Hi, My name is Justyn Hornor and I'm a technical writer specializing in WordPress, search engine optimization, and content marketing."
2. Sell your ideas. "I have some article ideas I think would be good for your site that include..."
3. List your resume/references. "I've had over 1,000 guest post articles published, but here are some of the pieces I'm most proud of..."

If you have these pieces of information you're going to connect with what the editors are looking for quickly and let them know you're (hopefully) qualified to write for their site. Here's what a complete pitch email might  look like:

Hi,
My name is Justyn Hornor and I'm a technical writer specializing in WordPress, search engine optimization, and content marketing. I have some article ideas I think would be good for your site that include..."

I've had over 1,000 guest post articles published, but here are some of the pieces I'm most proud of...

• Article title with link
• Article title with link
• Article title with link
• Article title with link
• Article title with link

This is just one way to go about pitching your ideas, but it works and has been highly effective for me. You can list a lot more than a few links, but I try to limit to about five. 

Don't be ashamed or embarrassed if you don't have any guest posts. But you should definitely link to some of your own blog posts so they can see your style and writing ability. If you write well, they will notice. Some will give you a shot and some won't. 

Handling Rejection

You will get reject letters or no response at all, so just get over that fact and be prepared. There are likely hundreds of sites you can guest post on. Even if you have to post an article on a friend's site, you will eventually start getting some guest posts in your name. Don't worry about rejections. It happens to me all the time even to this day. 

Just keep at it and you'll start getting guest post acceptances. Before long you'll have a nice list of pieces on 3rd party sites signaling that other people trust your work. In the next post I'll discuss some details on how to make sure you get author attribution so you can take advantage of getting these all-important guest posts. 

Before moving on, you may want to check out the "HTML for Bloggers" article to get some basic HTML down. You'll need it.