There’s a secret to my success, and I’m going to share it with you upfront: guest blogging.
If you can create engaging content, you can build a thriving freelance or solopreneur business. And not only does becoming an engaging writer make it easier to go about finding enough of the right clients and sell stuff, but it also helps you:
- Build your authority
- Connect with your core audience
- Share your expertise
Plus, this goes not only for aspiring writers but for anyone who wants to help fast-track the development of their own personal enterprise.
When I first ventured into the online world, I immediately knew I wanted to be a writer. But creating engaging content is not an easy task — especially when you’ve never written anything online before.
Unfortunately, I had almost zero confidence in my writing skills.
I was paralyzed by the fear of other people’s judgment, about not being good enough, about not having anything interesting to say, and about not being able to handle the work (even if I did finally manage to get started).
Ultimately, I was scared to fail. And that fear led me to some severe procrastination.
So, how do you get started when you have no confidence in your writing skills?
Smart Strategy Makes It Easier to Start Writing
My first thought for getting started with writing was to start my own blog. It seemed like a great way to practice and develop my skills.
The problem was when I thought about writing my own blog, it was always in the back of my mind that I would be wasting my time. Mainly because I knew there would be very little traffic and it would take forever to achieve any significant results.
You see, I didn’t just want to develop my writing skills. I wanted to use my writing to grow my business — I knew content marketing would be a great way to get more clients by driving traffic to my site and building my email list. And I didn’t see how writing for a blog that no one would read would get me any closer to those goals.
The crippling doubt led me to procrastinate even more, and I continued to put off getting started with blogging.
That is until I decided to pursue guest blogging.
What Is Guest Blogging and How Does It Work?
Guest blogging is a content marketing strategy designed to leverage the high traffic of popular websites to boost the traffic to your own site. Here’s a quick rundown of what it involves:
- You pitch your blog post ideas to a popular website that attracts the same audience you want to target.
- You craft a relevant, engaging piece of content in the hopes it will get accepted and published on that site.
- You urge readers to visit a landing page on your own website using an Author Bio (or by line) at the end of your post.
- You capture new visitors with an irresistible lead magnet and turn them into subscribers, with the ultimate goal of closing sales and turning them into clients or customers.
Guest blogging can work incredibly well for content creators who are going freelance and want to build their online audience. As soon as I realized I could get more eyes on my work by writing for well-established sites, I knew it was the content strategy for me.
It was just a matter of figuring out how to do it — and do it well.
Benefits of Guest Blogging
Guest blogging opportunities can help build and expand your brand, both for the website host and content creator. This mutually beneficial relationship can do all kinds of things, from boosting organic SEO through quality backlinks to increasing recognition, authority, and traffic all around.
Let’s take a look at the advantages of guest blogging for both parties.
Host Benefits
For those savvy online entrepreneurs who are running multi-author publications (aka guest posting sites), the main benefit is that it makes it relatively quick, easy, and inexpensive to expand content offerings.
The best guest bloggers bring to the table expertise, fresh perspectives, and add value for the site’s audience overall.
Welcoming guest bloggers can also help attract new audiences, support rising stars in a given industry/niche, and take the onus of being the sole content creator off of the founder.
If you have a content-driven site and are considering making collaborative content marketing your thing, be sure to check out Copyblogger’s guide: Should You Publish Guest Blog Posts on Your Website?.
Guest Blogger Benefits
As we’ve been discussing, the benefits of guest blogging are myriad. Whether you’re just starting or you’re an established content creator, it can help drive high-quality traffic to your site, grow your network, build your credibility, boost your social media presence, and expand your freelance portfolio.
It’s also a great way to sharpen your writing and marketing chops. Be sure to read and respond to the comments on your posts and social media comments about your posts — it’s an excellent way to build your online reputation. Plus, constructive feedback can help you hone your skills.
Ultimately, guest blogging can be a great way to generate high-quality leads and build demand for your services.
So, what are you waiting for?
How to Guest Blog: Getting Started
Guest blogging is remarkably effective. As mentioned, freelance content marketing can be a boon for your business.
But to have any success with it, you need to be able to do it right, which means you have to:
- Learn to write content that is worthy of the sites you want to write for
- Know how to pitch your ideas effectively and to the right people
- Have a strategy for converting the traffic you send to your site into subscribers to your list
To do all of these things, I recommend seeking guest blogging tips from someone who has done it before rather than winging it. It will help you get started and give you an idea of how the entire process works.
I took Jon Morrow’s Guest Blogging course. He’s a former editor of Copyblogger and the man behind Smart Blogger. He knows his stuff and creates some of the best free content around for helping you get traffic.
This online program is excellent. It provides step-by-step guidance for:
- How to find your ideal audience
- How to locate your target blogs
- How to craft killer headlines
- How to pitch irresistible content ideas
- How to write popular posts
- How to get the most from every post
Aside from the core content — you also get:
- Access to the Big Black Book (an incredibly valuable resource for finding blogs and editors to contact in your niche)
- The option to attend fortnightly coaching calls to discuss any challenges you might have; and
- Access to pitching templates, the student workbook, and past student case studies.
After taking the Guest Blogging course, I was able to make some huge leaps in my business and achieve goals that previously, I would never have thought possible. It’s also one of the many courses I’ve taken that I’ve actually completed.
If you want to discover how to get started writing amazing blog posts before investing in the course, check out the Headline Hacks cheat sheet.
How Do You Know if Guest Blogging Is for You?
Now that the case has been made for the benefits of guest blogging and how you can ramp up quickly, how can you be sure it’s something you can do (and want to do)?
Guest blogging isn’t about getting paid the big bucks, so you don’t have to think about communicating your freelance rates here.
Most often, you won’t be paid, and in fact, lots of sites charge you for the privilege of guest blogging on their site. (I’d say skip the guest blogging opportunities where you’re asked to pay and stick with providing your work for free in exchange for the promotion.)
So, think about guest blogging as a way to get serious about setting business goals. After all, contributing content to the right site(s) can extend your online presence, grow your brand, and unlock bigger opportunities.
As you consider guest blogging, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- What are some of the top blogs you can contribute to in your industry/niche?
- Do you have great ideas for what you can write that your desired audience/the site’s existing audience will be interested in?
- How engaged is the audience with each site’s content (check out comments, likes, shares, etc.)?
- Does the site/site owner do a lot of promotion on social media?
- Who else is guest blogging on the site?
- What is required by the site’s guest blogging guidelines? And are you comfortable with what’s stipulated?
Once you’ve taken a good look at your options, you should be feeling more confident about your prospects as a guest blogger.
5 Guest Blogging Tips to Help Boost Your Skills
Here are a few things that happened after I finished Jon’s guest blogging course (and will happen for you, too).
1. You’ll Discover How to Write and Create Popular Posts from an Expert
We’ve already discussed how writing well can make you more money online. And receiving first-hand lessons from someone who has built an incredibly successful business from blogging is invaluable when you’re starting out. You could think of guest blogging as another one of your freelancer tools.
Choosing to learn from Jon Morrow was one of the best decisions I ever made. He is a phenomenal teacher and an exceptional content creator. He breaks down the entire writing process and makes every step feel doable.
He also doesn’t coddle his students. Jon makes it perfectly clear where you’re likely to fail. And how you can conquer the many mental traps that most new writers fall into.
2. It Will Help Increase Your Confidence and Provide a Method for Achieving the Results You Want
Writing is a process. And when that process is broken down into well-structured lessons, it’s much easier to practice your skills, develop your voice, improve creativity, and discover the art of creating popular content.
When you have a simple process to follow, it makes getting started (and following through to the end) that much easier.
Not only can each lesson of Jon’s course help you gain more confidence in your skills as a writer, but you’ll learn how to navigate the tricky (often overlooked) parts like pitching and creating a strategy that turns your readers into engaged subscribers.
3. It Will Help You Navigate the Pitching Process So You Can Get Published
Learning to write is one thing, but actually pitching your ideas is a whole other ball game.
One of the things Jon mentions in the course is that most people give up when it comes time to pitch. Either they chicken out completely or fail to follow up with their contacts. This is why he dedicates an entire module to pitching your ideas in a way that will get you a yes more often than a no.
The first time I went through the course, I’ll admit I stopped at the pitching point. It’s scary to send people your ideas (especially when you have a fear of rejection). But with the helpful guidance of Jon and the course community, I was able to get over it and just pull the trigger.
And just so you know — my first pitch was awkward, and it got rejected. But after that, I didn’t fear rejection as much, and it made it easier to try again.
4. It Gives You the Tools and Platform to Gain More Traffic and More Subscribers
Guest blogging was the first marketing strategy that yielded positive results for my business — it truly answers the eternal question of how to get clients.
It worked remarkably better than social media ever did, and I gained ten times the amount of subscribers from one post than I had ever gotten from using Instagram or Facebook.
With guest blogging, you get to use someone else’s platform to drive traffic to your site and help you build your own audience. And you can do it in a non-sleazy way because all you’re doing is providing value and sharing your expertise through your writing.
Jon’s course not only helps you to write, but it also turns your writing into a results-driven marketing strategy.
5. It Allows You to Build New Relationships and Make Connections with Your Mentors
If it weren’t for guest blogging, I would never have started working with Brian Clark here at Unemployable. Through the Guest Blogging course, I gained the confidence to approach my most influential business mentor and ask to write for him.
And while it was intimidating (especially given that Brian is the founder of Copyblogger and who Jon mentored under!), I knew that my ideas were likely to be well-received with my newly developed skills and knowledge, and my content would be better crafted than most. And they were.
After writing a few guest posts for Brian over at Further, I gradually built a relationship with him and proved I could follow through on my work. That ended up being the entry point for working with him regularly.
Go Forth and Guest Blog!
To sum up, if you’ve been hemming and hawing about writing more, or are stuck for ideas when it comes to bringing in more leads and clients to your business, then guest blogging is an excellent marketing strategy to consider.
And if you do get around to publishing a post — share it with me over on Twitter. I would love to check it out.
For more tips on how to build not just a business but a personal enterprise, check out the Unemployable podcast and subscribe to the Unemployable newsletter.
