I’m very pleased to welcome back Margarita Ibbott of DownshiftingPRO, our sponsor for this month’s Productivity and Organizing Blog Carnival.  She’s here today with some excellent advice for anyone who would like to be a guest blogger for other websites. 

There is an art to creating compelling guest blog posts. Perhaps it’s wanting to bring your perspective to another audience, sharing your expert knowledge or building your backlinks. All of these are legitimate reasons but there are others to consider which would deliver a win-win outcome for the collaboration between bloggers.

Creating compelling guest blog posts can help you strengthen your writing chops. It can push you to really think of a topic that you are an expert on. Perhaps you want to highlight the benefits over the drawbacks that others may not have considered. You are providing a public service announcement, or you want to spotlight an area of your business. My collaboration with other professional organizers provided the opportunity for the guest post writer to be seen as an authority on hoarders, virtual organizing or setting up family routines.

When you want to bring focus to a particular topic or speciality, you may seek guest posts with a common theme that will help build out that particular topic. So as a complement to my content, I turned to guest posts as a way to start building authority. As I pivoted from travel writing blogging back to organizing and specifically downsizing, I put out a call for compelling guest blog posts about:

• downsizing
• empty nesters
• moving elderly parents into a retirement home
• selling items on-line
• tackling sentimental items

The variety of guest posts built a series of post with ‘downsizing’ as a keyword to attract traffic from those seeking to learn more about this particular topic. It will help Google identify that this is a topic I want my blog to be known for. As I continue to write throughout the year, I will continue to build out that ‘pillar content’ both with my own blog posts and those offered by the guest writers.

What is in it for the guest post writer and the host?

What is in it for the guest post writer? There are many advantages for them. As I stated earlier, it will help develop writing skills and exposure on a different blog. If the blog has a higher domain authority (a Google measurement of the quality of a blog and the topic authority), it will help boost the other’s domain authority number especially if it is in the same or similar niche. Google reads it as a good backlink and not as spam or a bought link. It is authentic and healthy for both blogs.

For the host, it provides a variety of voices and perspectives. Having variety may attract more readership because those that follow the original guest post writer may find a new blog to read. Remember, trying a collaboration is an exercise in #bloggerlove. You are not competing but complimenting. It also builds your community.

The benefit for both domains to create compelling guest blog posts is, lastly, in the promotion of the content. Once I publish the guest blog posts, I ensure the post receives plenty of promotion on all of my social media channels. I promote the post on Instagram stories, pin multiple pins to Pinterest, post on my business Facebook page and send out multiple tweets on Twitter. With the guest poster then re-sharing all of those posts (and commenting) on the posts, it shares the content to their audiences. Once again, a win-win scenario.

12 Tips for Creating Compelling Guest Blog Posts

Here are my top twelve suggestions to create compelling guest blog posts:

1. Search out good blogs with decent domain authorities to boost your own standing.
2. Ask for at least two do-follow (organic) links: (1) to your home page and (2) to a related but not competing blog post. Remember it is the owner of the blog’s prerogative which links to put in the post. They may change the keyword focus if it competes with other keywords that they rank for.
3. Ask for a specific word count. Google prefers at least 600 so do not submit anything less than that. Know that the owner of the site may edit, add or delete word count if there is an issue. Don’t take editing personally. It may just have to do with word count and flow. Editing is always good.
4. Stick to the topic that was agreed upon and honour the timeline (or deadline). The owner of the site may have scheduled that post and needs that content on that particular day. Even though you are doing this pro bono, you should still meet the deadline. If you are delayed just give them a heads up!
5. Ask if they have a particular KEYWORD that they want to rank for or that you want to write about. If you are not comfortable selecting a keyword, let them figure it out. I have a special plugin that helps me with keyword selection, density and use. I will use it to guide me for maximum SEO.
6. Proofread your post. Avoid having to create work for others. Ensure you are providing working links, if you change domains be sure to let the owner know so there are no broken links.
7. Provide images that you own. If you do not have access to good photographs, request that they use stock images that they have paid for and which will not violate the original image owner’s copyright. Include at least one Pinterest-worthy image that they can use or that you can produce a pin for promotional purposes.
8. Do not submit affiliate links unless you specifically ask if you can. I do not accept amazon links on my website. I also do not accept links to any digital products on other people’s sites. If you add a link selling your product, that becomes an automatic no-follow link and would be tagged as sponsored posts. This is not what this exercise (of guest posting) is. The benefit of the backlink is a do-follow backlink, so changing it to no-follow defeats the purpose. Unless you have an agreement to promote something on each other’s website, please don’t assume you can add a monetized link.
9. Provide a short bio and image to accompany the guest post (see below for example). Keep it short and precise with the correct links included. Also, provide the link to the post that you want to link back to. Don’t make the person search for it.

10. Get an idea of the publishing date. It may change but keep a lookout for when it is published. Don’t worry if there is a delay. We all get busy (or there may be a specific day that it is posted – mine was Mondays).
11. Share, share, comment and share. I cannot say this enough. Once the post is up, drop by, leave a comment on the blog post, on the Facebook page, re-tweet the tweet and share on Insta stories. Sharing the love is a win-win.
12. Ask them to guest post for your blog. With that, the blogger love cycle begins all over again and it will ensure that bloggers support bloggers!

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