How to Create a Profitable Guest Blog Strategy

If you’re using content marketing, then a guest blogging strategy is an essential tactic to boost your traffic and content marketing ROI.

Guest blogging is a great way to build brand awareness because the content you post on other blogs tells new readers about you. Those new audiences may visit your blog. This means guest blogging can help you attract new subscribers and boost lead generation.

In fact, guest blogging also helps you build trust because when a trusted, authoritative site publishes your content, some trust will rub off on you. And regular guest blogging can help others see you as an expert, which is great for your business.

But have you put everything you had into creating guest posts, only for them to fail? You look at analytics and wait for visitors and subscribers to arrive. Months later, and your guest blogging efforts have gained no traction.

Sounds familiar?

Here are three tips to help you create a profitable guest blogging strategy.

1. Contribute to Sites That Aren’t a Waste of Time

Most blogs you can contribute to aren’t worth your time because they lack an engaged audience. So, start by finding blogs worth contributing to. Vet each blog and before you pitch them on a guest post idea, ask yourself these questions:

• Do they have engaged readers? Pay close attention to quality comments because loads of spam comments is a red flag.
• Do they respond to comments? This is a sign the blogger engages with their readers and the blog is active.
• Do they regularly promote their content? If they don’t put an effort into sharing and marketing their own content, they’ll not promote yours.
• Does your target audience align with this blog? You need to have a “target audience” you want to reach and the blogs you contribute to should speak to the same audience.
• Do they give writers’ credit or a link to their blog/landing page in the author bio? You’ll put a lot of effort into creating content, so you should at least get a byline with a link to your blog.

2. Respond to All Comments

This is second nature to most bloggers now. And it’s crucial because when a reader takes the time to leave a meaningful comment, it’s sensible to reply – if only to thank them. Better yet; add to the discussion and keep it moving.

Even if the blog owner doesn’t respond to comments, you should. Blog comments help you learn from your readers, gain feedback, and know them better.

3. Promote Your Guest Posts

Don’t just rely on the blogger to drive all the traffic to your post or share it on social media, because this isn’t enough to get you the results you want.

Some bloggers get a great guest blogging opportunity and never promote their post at all. Yes, guest blogging does help you reach a larger audience. But when you guest post to a popular blog, your usual promotional efforts will have more impact.

So use every promotional strategy you can, including your personal network, influence marketing, niche bookmarking sites, social media, and email outreach.