Show notes
Note: you can listen to this episode above or load it up in iTunes. How to Grow Traffic to Your Blog Through Guest Posting and Creating Content for Other Blogs, Forums, Media and Events Today’s episode is about how to find new readers for your blog. It’s the question I get asked most by bloggers, so this is the forth of a series of podcasts on this topic. In part one we looked at two really important questions to ask before you go hunting for readers to read your blog. In part two, we talked about how to use two types of content to find readers for your blog. In part three, we talked about building a blog that readers will want to return to again and again (a ‘sticky’ blog). In part four, we talked about how to find readers for your blog through commenting and relationships. Today, we talk about how to grow your readership by posting and creating content for other blogs, forums, media and events. hands up by Ricardo Tavares on 500px In This Episode You can listen to today’s episode above or in iTunes or Stitcher (where we’d also LOVE to get your reviews on those platforms if you have a moment). Today we talk about: 6 different channels you could be creating and guest posting content How to choose the most appropriate channels for guest posting content How to build a strong portfolio of content to show people what you can do How to pitch irresistible content to other blogs, forums, media and events How to make it impossible for people to miss your guest content once it’s published Further Reading and Resources For Finding Blog Readers Buzzsumo – a tool you can use to see what content performs best for any topic or competitor Why You Have a Better Chance of Landing a Guest Post Than You Think (and How to Do It) A Quick and Dirty Guide to Your First Guest Post How to Get Your Guest Posts Accepted Every Time How to Guest Post to Promote Your Blog Stat-Driven Tips on How to Pitch to Big-Name Publishers in Your Niche Full Transcript Expand to view full transcript Compress to smaller transcript view Hi there. This is Darren Rowse from ProBlogger. Welcome to the ProBlogger Podcast. This is a podcast for bloggers who want to make the world better through their writing, who want to grow their audience, and build profitable businesses around their blogs. Today, we’re going to continue our series on growing your blog’s readership. I’m going to particularly focus upon techniques around creating content for other destinations on the web including, but not limited to, through guest posting. You can find today’s show notes at problogger.com/podcast/37. If you enjoy today’s show, we’d love to see your review on iTunes. We had some really great ones come in so far. Here’s one from James. He says, “James here from Borderless Blog. I took the challenge,” he’s talking about the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, “and did many of the things Darren suggested and had the best month I’ve had yet. I look forward to continuing to implement his advice to take my blog to the next level.” There’s Carrie from Carrie Harris Photo. She says, “I’ve been blogging for over five years. I’ve learned a lot during that time. This podcast does re-energize me to take another look at my blog and find areas I can improve in terms of content, design, and layout. It’s perfect for beginners and experienced bloggers. I always look forward to new podcasts from ProBlogger.” Thank you so much, Carrie, and thanks to you, James. I’d love to see your reviews, too. Do feel free to leave your blog’s name. I’m more than happy to check out your blog if you do that in your review. I do read them all and value them all. Let’s get on to today’s episode. Today, we’re talking about how to grow traffic to your blog through creating content for other parts of the web. Also, we’re going to touch on some other methods as well. I want to encourage you, if you haven’t listened to the other episodes in this series, to go back a few episodes. It started in episode 33. In that, we talked about identifying who you want to reach before you go hunting for them. In episode 34, we talked about two types of content that will help you to grow your readership. In 35, we talked about how to build a sticky blog so when people come, they get hooked. They keep coming back again. In the last episode in episode 36, we started getting more specific with how to drive readers to your blog. We talked about commenting on other blogs, forums, and working in social media groups. We also talked about relational marketing—how to build your traffic by getting to know other bloggers, even collaborating with, and working with those bloggers. Today, as I’ve said already, I talked about content creation for other blogs, forums, media, and maybe even getting up as a guest interviewee on a podcast or even speaking at a conference. One of the best ways that you can showcase the value that you’re able to deliver on your blog, to people who aren’t yet readers is to find other destinations on the web or offline that you can showcase what you do. To do this effectively, you really do need to go back to that exercise I mentioned in episode 33 about creating a reader avatar and thinking about where they’re hanging out online. I’ve talked about this a couple of times in the last few episodes. I won’t go into great detail. Ultimately, you want to create a list of the type of blogs, podcasts, forums, Twitter accounts, Twitter chats, hashtags, Facebook pages, YouTube accounts, and the mainstream media that your ideal reader is already following and engaging with. If you can identify these destinations that your ideal reader is already hanging out, watching, and involved in, then you’re going to be in a much better place to find that type of reader. I’d also extend this to, where offline are they hanging out? Where offline are they watching? Newspapers or magazines? What conferences are they attending? What meetups do they attend as well? Once you’ve got a list of all these places, you then need to start to think about, “What opportunities are there to create content for these places?” That may seem like a big question, a hard question, but what you’ll find is that with many of the things on your list, many of the blogs, many of the forums, many of the people that you’ve listed in terms of the influences, many of the Facebook pages, there’s actually an opportunity for you to create content and build a presence in this places. The most obvious of these and the most common of these is through guest posting on other blogs. It extends much further than that. Pretty much everything I want to talk about today relates to guest posting but also to things like writing articles for mainstream media, contributing articles in forums, being interviewed on other people’s podcasts, being involved in Twitter chats or Twitter parties on Twitter, or even speaking at other people’s events. Each of these strategies is really worth a podcast episode on its own and we will get to that in future episodes, but today, I want to talk about some general principles that I think apply to all of them. What you’re trying to do here is to leverage someone else’s exposure and profile to put yourself on to their site. That might seem a little spammy but most people will be more than willing to let you have some exposure on their site if you add value to it. I loved the analogy that John Murray uses. It’s like being the warm-up act at the concert. He says, “Guest posting on someone else’s blog gets you exposure.” If you are the warm-up act for a band like One Direction, people go to the concert to see One Direction—not that I’ve ever been to a One Direction concert—but if you’re good and you’re the warm-up act, you’ll gain some fans as a result of that. They’re there for some other reason but if you can contribute some real value in that forum, people are going to notice and they’re going to want to check out who you are. The warm-up band is going to sell some CDs out the front if anyone actually buys CDs anymore. Let’s talk about some principles about how you can contribute content to other parts of the web. The first thing is you want to choose the right destination. You want to really think about submitting content to the right places. There’s a number of things that you want to factor in this decision. As you look at the blogs on your list of the blogs that your ideal reader might read, you want to be asking yourself, do they have the right reader? That’s probably the number one question. Do they allow outside contributions? Do they allow their guest posts? Do they allow people to come in and do interviews or contribute infographics or whatever it might be that you’ve got to contribute? Do they have traffic? You don’t have to choose a massive blog to do this. It can actually work quite well on a smaller blog if they’ve got the ideal reader. But you obviously want them to have some traffic to make it worth your while. The last thing is, can you add value to it? Is the topic of the blog that you might want to submit to, is it something that you feel that you have something to say to? Can you actually contribute something of value there? Or is it beyond what you’re able to contribute? You want to actually dig around on their blog and get a feel for it. Get a feel for the fact that people are reading it, people are engaging, people are interested in the type of things that you got something to say on. If the answer’s no, you might want to continue to search. One way to find blogs where you can submit guest posts is simply using Google. Identify the keyword for the type of blog that you’re trying to reach and then just do something. Search for “guest post by” and then use the keyword as well in the search. You’ll begin to see destinations that accept guest posts. Similarly, you might use the keyword in the search and then put “guest post guidelines.” Many of the blogs that accept guest posts will have a page where there are guidelines. That’s a simple tip for finding the type of blogs that might accept guest posts. Again, don’t just think about guest posts; there are other ways you can create content. Another one that we get pitched for occasionally at ProBlogger is infographics. You might be a designer, you might have some design skills, or you might want to hire a designer to create an infographic. Again, that’s another way to get on a blog to create something that’s useful for that blog for that blogger, for their readers, and also get some profile as a result. The second thing I’d encourage you to do is to think about your goal for the content that you are creating. What is it that you want to get out of it? Also, what do you want to contribute to it? Ultimately, your goal when you’re creating content for another blog, a forum, or some other destination on the web is that you want to create the best content that you possibly can. I actually heard someone speaking about guest posting recently. They said, “Your best content should be on your blog. You can just write anything anywhere else on other sites.” That’s almost the wrong way to work around. Of course, you want great content on your blog so that when people come to your blog, they’ll see it. You also want to put your best, your very best content, on other people’s blogs. Otherwise, no one’s ever going to come to your blog if you’re just submitting average content as a guest post. Don’t do what you’re doing half-heartedly. If you’re writing a guest post for a blog or an article for the media, make it the most polished and useful thing you’ve ever written. Go all out. If you’re going to be interviewed for someone else’s podcast, come prepared to deliver the most valuable and practical insights you can at every turn. If you’re creating an infographic for someone’s site, make it the most beautiful, easy to read, but helpful infographic that you possibly can. If you’re preparing a talk for a conference, make it the best talk you possibly can. Work on your slides, work on your delivery, work on your presentation. Ultimately, you want to create something that’s going to impress people, that’s going to stand out by the quality but also usefulness. To do this, you want to do some research on the blog that you’re submitting to. I would really encourage you to go back through their last 50 or so posts. Really do some analysis on the blog that you’re submitting to, the conference that you’re speaking at, or the podcast that you’re going to be interviewed on. Who reads it? What voice or style does the blogger, the podcaster, or the writer presenting? What is the reach of the different topics that are covered? What topics seemed to connect best with people? What type of posts gets the most comments? What type of posts gets the most shares? What level is the blog being pitched at? Is it beginner ‘s stuff? Is it advanced? Is it intermediate? The more you understand about the blog or the media or the podcast that you’re submitting to, the better position you’re going to be in to deliver something that is something of high value, that is going to impress both the blogger that you’re submitting to but also their readers. So, dig deep. Do your preparation. There is nothing worse as a blogger who gets pitched for a guest post than getting pitched by people who obviously have no idea what you’re doing or who just know the topic and who spend no time at all researching what you’re on about. The third thing I’ll say is that it takes time to get on blogs. Your first pitch to a blog is probably going to get rejected. It’s just the way it is. It takes time to build your reputation. It takes time to build relationships with other blogs that will allow you to guest post or to get on the radar of podcasters who might interview you. You may get lucky and have a yes the first time you pitch someone but do come prepared that this will take some time. It needs to start on your own blog with great content. What I would encourage you to do is to see every piece of content that you create as being almost like your portfolio that you can then present to these sites that you want to appear on. That needs to start with great content on your own site. That’s the place that someone is going to go and look to see whether you can write, to see whether you can do what you’re offering your services to do. Your own blog needs to have great content. You might want to start writing some articles for forums. Many forums on your niche will accept tips and articles for you to submit. You don’t even have to ask. You can just say, “Here’s something I’ve written about this topic. I hope you find it interesting.” You can contribute to that to a forum. That could add to your portfolio. It helps you to improve your writing and actually can drive some traffic back to your blog as well. I’ve seen a number of bloggers who’ve grown their readership purely through writing articles for forums. It also gives you another link that you can share when you’re pitching someone. “Here’s the article I’ve written on this other site.” You can start to approach the other bloggers. You might want to start with the big bloggers but I would encourage you to submit some guest post ideas to medium or even smaller bloggers. Again, it’s adding to your portfolio. If you could go to someone and say, “I’ve appeared here, here, and here,” that’s more impressive than you just saying, “Here’s my idea. Could I be on your blog?” Show them that other people have accepted you. Gradually over time, as you begin to appear on some small or medium blogs, some of those larger bloggers will be more likely to feature you because they can see the quality of your work. They can see someone else actually agreed that you’ve got something worthwhile to say. Of course, once you get those bigger blogs on the side, all kinds of doors can open up to you including more mainstream media work as well. I’d encourage you to keep a record of your best work. Just keep a list somewhere so that wh…
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