Maximize Your Time with Guest Bloggers

This is post 26 in Connie Ragen’s 3o Days Blog Challenge.

When you operate a blog, with or without the online business to go with it, it takes up a lot of your time. Readers want fresh content on a regular basis. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with their voracious appetite unless you have help.

Blogging Help!

Seek out writers for your blog. Think of it as another writing project. If you are familiar with ghostwriting services, you can hire writers to write posts for you that you can then publish yourself. With this type of help, you are asking a writer or writing service, to provide you with content for your website or blog. The credit goes to you for the work.

Finding a guest blogger is different from outsourcing blog content. With guest bloggers, they are getting a chance to write for your blog but with the posts being credited to them. You’ve got a few options about how you approach a guest blogging situation.

1. You can look for an ongoing contributor who blogs on a regular basis for your blog. Some contributors will blog for free as long as you’re giving them credit and helping them with their own blog or website promotions.
2. You can hire a writer to write for your blog (this will require payment, especially if you’re looking to claim the content as your own). For a certain fee, you can assign them topics and ask that they write one or two blog posts per week. Usually one is enough unless you are truly busy and need more to fill the space.
3. You can ask other experts in your field to post occasionally to help relieve some stress from having to post yourself all the time. Most of these guest bloggers will oblige and do not require any more than a link or two to their site or products in their posts.

Benefits of Guest Bloggers

Now, you can breathe a little easier. You want to keep your blog fresh and new but there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day at times. A guest blogger can take that pressure off of you so that you can devote your time to other needs:

• Marketing
• Networking
• Administrative Duties

As long as your readers stay happy, you can rotate a guest writer in and out to provide them with interesting content. Guests can also respond to reader comments and build a relationship of trust with your audience. If they have their own traffic from their sites, you have a chance to impress their readership when they come to read the posts. They can also browse your work and take an interest.

At the beginning, you may have to review posts and schedule their publication just until you feel comfortable with the writers and their styles. Once you see they do a good job, let them publish their posts immediately or schedule them without your help. This will go a long way in saving you time.

The first time that you don’t have to write several blog posts over the weekend or in your wee spare time, you won’t want to go back. How long a writer will blog for you depends on your needs, but the extra time may lead you to make it an ongoing thing.

Besides the fact that you are benefiting, so is the guest writer. They gain a reputable forum for their work, possible networking opportunities and greater visibility.

Thank you!

Flex Your Writing Muscles through Guest Blogging

This is post 20 in Connie Ragens 30 Days Blog Challenge.

And my 5th post on Guest Blogging

Writing is one of those activities that really can get better with practice. Maybe you are a fair enough writer for your online content or blog, but you can always improve. Writing about a variety of topics for others is a kind of working out for those creative muscles. For me personally being from Denmark, I learn a so much from blogging, on my own blog as well as being a guest blogger for others.

Many writers have written on a number of topics and in a number of different medias before they decided on the one or ones they liked. If your business is writing, then in the interest of expanding your skills, guest blogging is a great way to do that.

What is Guest Blogging?

Guest blogging is when you write blog posts for others. Or if others write a post for your blog. It’s like being a guest on a late night talk show but with less name-calling and bad jokes. Blog owners won’t just choose anyone for their guest spots, so you must have done something right if they are asking you. Be proud, but still just say yes if the blog lives up to your “standards”.

If you agree to be a guest blogger, now it’s time for you to impress by writing what they need and want with your voice. If you are writing on a topic that you don’t have much experience with, you’ll need to start from scratch.

1. Do your homework. If you are running a general gardening website and another business owner asks you to blog for them on daffodils, you may have some work to do to become thoroughly familiar with that flower.

2. Follow any instructions to the letter. The blog owner may give you the blog post titles. Within their word count and the context of the title, deliver a product that will meet and, even better, exceed their expectations. If you have questions, ask them before you get started.

3. Read past blog posts on their blog for hints on style. Maybe you are a fan of the blog for which you are writing. You like the posts, but now you will reread them to see how they layout their information and get to the point in such a short piece. Do the same if you don’t know the blog well.

4. You can write a rough draft as a start. Perhaps you have written about the subject a while ago for your own website. Writing for someone else, you might want to add a different angle to the subject, and/or add some general definitions to words or concepts. Keep writing and editing until it is the way you want it to be.

If you are used to writing longer pieces of content or reports, a blog post is a nice change of pace. The tone is usually more conversational and fun but with an emphasis on the facts. It is a new style but one you may want to adopt to create your own blog for your business.

Enjoy!

Also read:
Damage Control – The Naughty Blogging Guest

Ressources:
Blog Ebooks

Damage Control: The Naughty Blogging Guest

This is post 19 in Connie Ragens 30 Days Blog Challenge.

And my 4th post in a series of posts about guest blogging.

It is relatively new to me to invite guest bloggers to write on my blog, and recently I have also started to be a guest blogger myself on others blogs. I choose my guest bloggers carefully, and read their posts before they get published, and I have not experienced any “bad things” like offended readers or mean comments.

Still as a blog owner you might fear that you will let the devil in the front door. So it might be a good idea to be ahead and think about some “what if” scenarios. Everyone who wants to blog for you is not right for your blog. And if the naughty blogger should come to visit, you’ll have to smooth things over with your audience.

There could be different reasons why you want to find guest bloggers. It could be because you need more time to attend to the other areas of your business. Or, you are looking for ways to increase your traffic. A new voice on the blog can stimulate growth and give faithful readers new reasons to love you. It can simply add some new dynamics to your blog.

Even if you use certain measures to choose your bloggers, there are chances that a bad apple will slip through the cracks. Actually, they may have a popular blog or have come to you on the recommendation of someone else. What may spurn the naughty behavior is not the post itself but the comments that go along with it.

All guest bloggers have a chance to interact with the audience. When comments are made, they can respond back. Now, everyone is not going to like your guests, but what you wish is an open mind.

Guests who post also have to watch their comments on the blog as well. These are your readers and new visitors who are posting comments. When the guest blogger gets out of line with their responses to irate comments or makes irate comments, there will be backlash for you.

What to Do?

When readers are angry, they will let you know in no uncertain terms. If you have a suggestion area on your website or blog, they will use it. While you monitor your blog as much as you can, something may slip through.

1. When you notice the incident, make an immediate post. Let your readers know that you are handling the situation and are sorry for any comments that may have offended them.
2. Pull any scheduled posts by that blogger. You don’t want readers to feel you don’t care by letting this person continue to post.
3. Talk with the naughty guest blogger. Were they having a bad day? As a business person, you are held to different standards. They may be personally offended by something someone says in a comment but can’t let it get the better of them. The guest also can’t use their posts as an open forum for stating disagreeable positions that may offend that blog’s readership.

You can plan for most outcomes, but in the event that a guest blogger irritates your readers, damage control is important. Be proactive and go to your readers instead of waiting for them to come to you.

Thank you!

Also read:
Choose the Right Guest Blogger
Guest Blogging A Powerful Way to Build Your Brand

Ebook Package:
Blogging for Profits & Creating and Writing Your Blog

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Create Quality Backlinks

Use Your Bio to Create Quality Backlinks when Guest Blogging

This is post 13 in Connie Ragen’s 30 Days Blog Challenge.

Search engines not only look at the keywords on your website and in your content but the types of links that are connecting you with others. Use your bio to help increase those quality links when you decide to guest blog for others.

Guest blogging gives you a chance to interact with other audiences. You have your own readership and they like your voice. But maybe others just haven’t found you because you are in a smaller niche market or you are more general and they are reading in a specific niche. Blogging for others can bring you both together.

When you blog for others, you will get a space for your bio. Now, they don’t want to draw traffic away from their website or blog so you may only be allowed to mention one website. Use that chance to the fullest.

Within that bio, what you say is just as important as the website link that you add. You have one chance to impress them enough to get them to click on the link and visit your website or blog. Mention facts about your business and yourself that will catch the reader’s attention.

What you are hoping to do is build backlinks. Backlinks are the inbound links coming into your website from other places. You don’t want just anyone linking back to you but someone who is interested in the same things.

Guest Blog for Whom?

Choose who you blog for very carefully. When you get the invitation or while looking for possible guest blogging spots don’t just do it for the money or because you are flattered to be asked. Check them out. If their website is reputable and based on a similar topic, you could have a winner.

Even money is not worth a bad association. Let’s say that you are asked to guest blog for a friend. They own a business in Internet marketing. Your blog talks about home-based Internet businesses. There is a commonality here that can work to your advantage.

When you include your website link in the bio, you know that those clicking on it are at least interested in Internet marketing. Some of them could be business owners, who visit your site and will trade links with you. Your readers who take advantage of the online business ideas will need the help of an Internet marketer to get their business growing.

Such quality backlinks help you in the networking arena and on the search engines. You are now being noticed by others who find your business worthy of their time and their name.

Also read:
Choose the Right Guest Blogger
Guest Blogging – A Powerful way To Build Your Brand

Ebook:
Blogging for Profits