Promote Your Blog or Website as a Guest Blogger

Guest blogging is a powerful way of increasing traffic to your blog or website and building your profile. Even a single guest post on an influential blog can turbo-charge your brand. Guest posts can also be used to promote your products and services to a new audience.

Advantages of guest blogging:

• It builds quality traffic to your website. This isn’t just a one day hit, as the guest post will continue to direct traffic to your site for months or even years.
• It benefits SEO. It improves your search engine ranking because each guest post builds a new quality inbound link to your own site.
• It builds your online profile and authority. Readers tend to give more weight to content on sites other than your own. This works especially well if you begin to see your name on many different sites.
• Helps you to build long-term relationships with publishers and bloggers in your niche that will continue to benefit your business in the future.
• Brand exposure and awareness is multiplied with each guest blog, because you are reaching readers who might never otherwise have seen your website, service or product.
• Guest blogging also helps you build your social media profile – if readers like your writing they’ll follow you on Twitter and Facebook.

Getting Started With Guest Blogging

Before you begin submitting guest posts, take some time to define your goals. Be as specific as you can – clear goals will help you to make the right choices when deciding where to submit guest posts and what to write about. For instance, are your goals related to increasing traffic or is it more important to raise the online profile of your brand?

Once you have defined your goals, it’s time to plan out your strategy. The first step is to decide what sort of blogs you would like to guest post for – consider factors such as topics covered, popularity of the blog, target audience, and location of the audience.

You can then begin planning suitable content for the blog. This should be appropriate to the blog and the target readership, as well as promoting your own blog or website.

Once your guest post has been published keep an eye on the comments. This will give important insight into how people feel about what you have blogged, helping you to improve your writing and focus your blogs more accurately towards their needs and interests.

Finding Sites that Accept Guest Bloggers

Many blogs and websites are keen to accept original, well-written guest posts. You can find suitable sites in your niche in several way:

• Explore leading blogs in your niche and get involved in conversations – commenting on existing posts is a good way to begin. Take the time to make well-informed, thoughtful comments and the blogger will notice. All bloggers appreciate considered discussion and after you have commented a few times they will begin to notice your name. This gives you a lead in to approach them and offer to write a guest post.
• Look for blogs and websites than invite contributions – some will feature a page such as ‘Write for Us’ or ‘Contributor Guidelines’. This will provide guidelines on what the blogger or website owner is looking for in guest posts.
• Connect with other bloggers and publishers in your niche through Twitter. Building relationships is key to successful guest blogging.
• Use online services such as Guestblogit.com or BloggerLinkUp.com that connect bloggers to good quality blogs looking for guest posts.

To get you started we’ve put together a list of sites we know of that are happy to consider guest posts.

Change and Grow – magazine site on health, well-being and personal development.

Sex for Girls – new magazine site for women, combining advice on
sex and relationships with articles on bedroom fashion and beauty, book reviews and an online shop.

Counselling UK – Online directory of counselors and psychologists throughout the UK.

28 Days Programs – personal development and CBT.

Horticulture Courses – Directory of horticulture and gardening courses, looking for articles covering garden design, landscaping, and home or commercial horticulture.

Gardening UK – articles and information for UK gardeners.

Virtual Ocean – Release messages and emotions into the digital ocean.

Online Business Mentors – Online business advice and articles for startups and small or medium-sized businesses.

The Mentor Guide UK – Directory of business mentors, including articles and features on business related issues.

Social Strategies – advice on social media marketing for business.

Explore Gardening – Online directory of gardeners and garden designers, as well as gardening articles and courses.

What is Therapy – Information and advice about different types of therapy.

Your Course Finder – Online directory of courses, including online, distance learning, part-time and full-time courses.

Signs of Infidelity – site focusing on relationships and break-ups, with diary entries.

New or soon to be launched sites:

UK Directory of Life Coaches – listing business, executive and life coaches around the UK. Articles cover life coaching, business coaching, executive coaching, personal
development and growth.

Directory of childcare around the UK – listing childcare providers by area. Articles offer advice on finding the best childcare, explain childcare options, explore ways of juggling family life and work, nd other subjects of interest to parnts with young children.