10 tools and tips for guest bloggers

Hello to all link builders and internet marketers trying to increase positions and brand awareness through the most safe technique. For the love of sharing and increasing knowledge in the industry, I have compiled a list to improve your link building conversion through guest posting. Looking at the way people are currently using guest posts worries me, and I have to admit that I feel like the internet would be better if people would stop thinking about easy/dodgy wins and start investing in building a healthy link profile. Here we go, some lovely tools and tips for guest blogging:

• Microsoft Social Connector or Rapportive
  You are pitching some guest blog titles and you are not including the name of the receiver? Use one of these two tools, the first for Outlook and the second for Gmail, they are free, and they will get you the name of your target in 2 seconds. Remember you aren’t talking to a website but to a person, so quote his name and offer him great stuff.

• Google is your best friend
  Use Google for 3 reasons mainly: 1) searching for prospects 2) inspect the website/website owner editor 3) find  contact details. It is great to pull out prospects with the query such as, keywords+”guest blog” and variations. After that search operators like “site:” help you finding names and email of editors and website owners. At the end if you can’t find any details look for Twitter profiles of website owners/editors/community managers using the following query: Twitter+name of the editor+name of the online magazine. Amazing where you can get with this query!

• Reputation first
  I hate to be called a link builder and I think this word is outdated after Google Penguin. I try to establish relationships with people rather than thinking about building links on their website. As a consequence of the good content I provide to them I require a link back as this is what I am paid to do. Bloggers want to be pitched by freelance writers and support knowledge sharing. The last thing they want to see is that you work in SEO and you are purposefully looking for links rather than supplying quality and relevant content. Clean up your profile to look like a good boy/girl in front of them. *Magic tips: I quote my real interests in my Twitter profile. I try to be creative for example a couple of days ago I sent a picture of the salad I grow in my garden to a food blogger together with a guest blogging enquiry. I have just received his last reply here: “I would love a guest blogger! Tell me more about what you’re thinking!”.
• 

• FollowerWonk
  I have talked about this tool too much and even written an actionable article on how to use it for link building here.
  

• Stalk other guest bloggers
  Sometime you may step on some of your competitors guest blog post, so look at their name and start stalking them. Alternatively google ‘competitor brand name’ guest blog.

• Killer emails
  Experiment on your email in order to improve your results. Think about an email template that you can personalise according to your receiver needs and interests. As PPC do A/B testings, you should try this with your copy. Remember to sell well your content (bloggers need to benefit from the deals having good content, you share the content on social profiles, you give them images or infographics), don’t look too cool saying you are providing bespoke articles) and be extremely kind (example: Please let me know if you would be happy to consider a guest post from me and I’ll get something written up and sent over to you. I also share all of my guest posts on my social profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon) in order to drive more traffic to your site. Look forward to hearing from you, please feel free to send over any questions you may have.)

• Relevant content
  More relevant content you pitch, higher is the chance that you will success. To do so, it is important test how different content works and this is possible just with the practice. Reading loads of related blogs will give you an idea of the audience.

• Lists
  Starting guest blogging for a new client isn’t as easy as you thought and you will take time before seeing great results. Look first for broad lists of blog prospects by using the following query: ‘list of ‘keyword’ blog’ or ‘top ‘keyword’ blog. Moreover inspect blog rolls, directories, link-ups.

• Newsletters
  BloggerLinkUp is a great newsletter to find prospects for your link building activities. Newsletters can be a great way to inform you on content ideas for your blog posts, subscribe to the most relevant so you can brief the copywriter properly.

• Twitter
  Build up your authority getting to chat with bloggers, retweeting and collecting contacts. If you would be interested to guest blog for somebody, retweet his stuff and if you can get in touch with questions and observations. If somebody start following you, look if they have a blog where you can share your guest blogs. Look also at the followers of people that your previously guest post for as you may can exploit the relationships with your previous lead.