Get New Readers For Your Blog By Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging Have you fed your new blog with many quality posts and yet find that your blog is not read by others? Content is surely king but it isn’t enough to increase your blog subscribers. People need to know that your blog exists and for that you need to promote your blog.

There are many ways to promote your blog and get new readers. Some include commenting regularly on other blogs having similar content to that of yours, advertising on popular blogs in your niche and submitting your posts to Digg, Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us.

But one of the best way is to guest blog on popular blogs in your niche. By guest blogging you get visitors to your blog who are already interested in the topic you write and therefore are more likely to convert to regular readers whereas visitors from sites like Digg, Stumble Upon and Del.icio.us mostly will just read your post once and never return again.

Every blog has their own set of readers, and guest blogging on it exposes your blog to them. Though not all of those readers will check out your blog, they will surely notice your blog name and the next time you guest blog on the same blog or another blog they read, they will want to check out your blog.

While regular commenting and advertising on blogs in your niche will help you get new readers for your blog, you can get more new readers if you guest blog as it is the post that readers pay more attention to and not the sidebar or the comments.

Before you Guest Blog

Before you guest blog, you need to make your blog ready to convert the new visitors that you will you get by guest blogging to regular readers. You can do this by

writing more quality posts
getting your blog a good design
offering subscription options above the fold

Once you are ready

Once you are ready, find a blogger who owns a popular blog that has content similar to that of your blog and check the previous guest posts on it to find what type of posts the blog owner likes and then contact him/her.

If you are not sure what to guest blog, check the posts on the blog you want to write a guest post on to see what all they have covered on the topic and what they they have not covered completely.

When you contact bloggers, make sure you let them know the the title of your post and if they are interested you can send them the post. While it is a good idea to link back to your own blog posts on your guest post, don’t over do it (one or two links should be fine).

Note that all bloggers you contact may not accept your guest post, simply because they get many requests from other bloggers too or maybe because they prefer accepting guest posts from people they know.

So it’s a good idea to get yourself and your blog noticed by these bloggers before you contact them.

To get noticed, you can -

leave meaningful comments regularly on their blog
write a blog post linking to one or more of their posts
email them saying how much you enjoy their content (making sure you mention your name and your blog)
chat with them if possible (check their about page to see if they have mentioned their Instant Messenger IDs)

Darren has shared some great tips on how to pitch to bloggers, be sure to read it.

Always be polite when you contact bloggers and if they still reject your guest post, try another popular blog owner and if they all reject you can still publish that post on your blog. Thus the time you took to write the post is not wasted.

After getting your guest post published

Once your guest post has been published on their blog -

write a post on your blog welcoming the visitors from that blog
link to some of your popular posts of your blog in that post
link to your Top Posts page too if you have one
make sure you keep updating your blog regularly and these new visitors will convert to regular readers

If you get the chance to submit another guest post on that blog, bring back the previous welcome post to your blog’s homepage using the WP-Sticky WordPress plugin (if you own a WordPress blog) or you could just write another welcome post.

Other advantages guest blogging offers is that you get a link back to your blog which will help you increase your blog traffic. The blogger you write a guest post for may also subscribe to your blog’s feed and may link to some of your future posts if they like them, getting you even more new readers for your blog. You also become much closer to the blogger and they may even accept more guest posts from you.

Have you guest blogged before? If so, did you notice any big jump in your blog’s feed count after that?

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Posted on November 13th, 2007 | Category: Blogging | 28 Comments »

28 responses so far, Leave a comment

knupNET

November 14, 2007 at 2:42 am

I have not guest blogged before but would enjoy the opportunity to. My blog(s) are just now getting to the point where I have a solid reader base. I think it’s a great way to hit a new group of readers and bring a little different feel/perspective to a blog. Thanks for the post.

p.s. – if you are ever looking for guest bloggers John – send me an email! Thanks!

Fab

November 14, 2007 at 5:32 am

Very informative article. Inspires me to research more about guest blogging. Thanks.

Innovations & Interesting Ramblings

November 14, 2007 at 9:39 am

Very neat post on guest blogging and its advantages…i like the way you have put it

scrnews

November 14, 2007 at 1:44 pm

I like this idea, because it is almost sure that will bring me more traffic, but I think it�s hard to be accepted from a famous site, for no money. However I will search for it a little more now. Thanks!

David Bradley

November 14, 2007 at 2:20 pm

I’ve just opened up a guest blog slot on Sciencetext.com and have had two guest posts so far, one on the ins and outs of Yahoo Pipes from Wayne Smallman and an earlier one on Apple Mac insecurities from Jenny Oliver PhD

knupNET, or anyone else for that matter, if you have an idea for the site you’d like to pitch please get in touch via the Sciencetext site.

John, do you fancy swapping guest posts between JohnTP and Sciencetext?

Michael Woo

November 14, 2007 at 4:44 pm

I’d like to guess blog for you Let me know if you are interested..

Sumesh

November 14, 2007 at 5:29 pm

Well, I’m planning along similar lines, and since JohnTP.com accepts guest posts, this comment is towards what you said on this post.

zparacha

November 14, 2007 at 10:44 pm

I was actually thinking of inviting some bloggers to guest blog for my blog. After reading your post today I might hold on to that thought for a little longer. My blog is still in infancy. May be I should try to first get some more traffic and then invite guest bloggers. But then again this a Catch22 situation What would you suggest?

Michael

November 27, 2007 at 8:49 pm

Thanks for the informative article.

Idetrorce

December 15, 2007 at 4:22 pm

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce

Maximus

December 20, 2007 at 1:02 pm

I would like to see a continuation of the topic

jhonny

December 21, 2007 at 3:06 pm

yeah. I know this

Jenny

December 27, 2007 at 8:10 am

Easier said then done though.

Nikita

January 4, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Wow! amazing
I like that!

Asian

January 11, 2008 at 8:40 pm

If we add comment to somebody blog and we give our URL, does it count as link back?
I have read about no-follow tag in wordpress URL that said it wont count as link back?
Is it true?

Arnel

January 17, 2008 at 7:44 pm

Great tips…. I’ll sure follow some of them….

thanks!

Moin

February 2, 2008 at 1:43 pm

Yup, This does work!! As I’ve stepped into the world of blogging, I’ve experimented this… and people do link up ..

Nice post John!

MoiN
http://www.anewmorning.com

lax

March 20, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Good site and Good tips
guest blogging is this much easy and useful i came to know from u great man..
thanks.

Normal Joe

April 16, 2008 at 11:32 pm

Good post John, it makes sense to do guess posts, but many people don’t talk about or explore this fact. While it can be difficult to get the open door for guest posts, once you do, you will be able to gain exposure to a new audience…..IF you content is good.

Thanks for this post, and your site. I will definitely be linking to your from my site.

Joe
http://www.IMwithJoe.com

Thanks for sharing them..

Gloria

June 9, 2009 at 2:19 am

Thanks for the tips! This was a lot more helpful than most blogs that talked about guest blogging!

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