Guide: How to Write a Guest Post

I have been a blogger for almost 5 years now and in that time I have published over 800 guest posts across my websites and written over 100 guest posts for other blogs. I like to think then that due to me having the best of both worlds in this topic I can shed some light on what you need to do to write a solid guest post.

Find below some of the main points you’ll be needing to pay attention to in order to write a decent guest post. Always remember that a guest post which links back to your website is essentially an advertisement, and as such it needs to reflect everything that you believe in which should include; quality, credibility and most of all a bit of humour, because nobody likes a robot.

Choose the right blog to guest post on

There are two ways to go about creating a guest post. The first way to go about creating a guest post is to write the post before even researching for a particular blog to submit it to, and the second way of creating a guest post is to reverse that and find the ideal blog before writing your guest post. I always do the second option and research for a decent blog first, but there is no right or wrong way to do it. I have found from experience that the second option is more efficient than the first one.

You will be wanting to find a blog which generally covers the same topic as you, has a large number of visitors, holds an equal or higher Google PageRank to you and most of all you’ll want to find a blog where the visitors of it are interactive to the point where you know your post will be read.

When choosing TechPatio for me to guest post on, for example, I took in to account its PageRank, interactivity and the quality of the posts overall in comparison to my website Technology Blogged.

Write your guest post

Pick a topic which you know about and search your chosen website for any posts that they have currently on that topic. Now if you had an idea for a guest post which has unfortunately already been covered, simply stick to your topic and come at it at a different informative and useful angle. For me, I always find that submitting guide and list posts work incredibly well.

Make sure that you structure your guest post properly too. An introduction, main body and conclusion is in 99% of cases the way all guest posts should be formatted. This allows your writing to flow properly and also allows the reader to get your point in as short a time as possible. If you lead website visitors on too long, they tend to get bored and go elsewhere.

Proof read and edit your guest post

I can’t stress enough the importance of proof reading. I personally receive over 15 guest posts within any given week for my website and practically all of them are littered with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Now I don’t know about you but I’m extremely quality conscious of my blogs content, so expect the blog owner of the website you are submitting a post to to be the same.

You need to watch out for any sentences which don’t make sense, any sentences which just rattle on about nothing and most of all you must check that all of your words are spelt properly. Below is a short checklist of things I instantly look for in a guest post submitted to myself, and if a guest post doesn’t match them, I send it and the guest poster back to the drawing board:

• The guest post can not be of spun format (which is really easy to tell, as stuff just doesn’t make sense)
• The guest post must have correct spelling throughout
• The guest post must be grammatically correct throughout, with the proper use of commas and full stops.
• The guest post must have capitalizations for names and places, including brand names and companies
• The guest post must have proper paragraphing

If you are reading this article whilst writing your own guest post for a website, please make sure that you follow the check list above. The whole point to a guest post is that the blog owner can upload it ASAP, and there is nothing more annoying than them having to either send it back to you or sort stuff out for you.

Create an author Bio

All blog owners have different requirements regarding external links within a guest post however a universal rule is that an author bio is accepted. Now remember, the reason you are writing a guest post is to get exposure back to your website, so make sure it reads well and that you follow the point above and proof read it. An example of a decent author bio can be found at the bottom of this post. Overall, I always inject a little bit of humour in to them and for the most part keep the external links within an author bio down to one, as more than one in my opinion looks a little bit spammy.

Remember to provide sources

Now this goes without saying but if you write a guest post for another person’s website which includes facts, figures or statistics, you’ll need to provide sources to them in order for your post to have any credibility at all. Depending on your facts figures or statistics, you could link back to a blog post on your own website covering the topic or link back to a Wiki. Either way, sources add credibility to your writing and they are also fair to any external sources who did the hard work.

Overall

As mentioned in the introduction to this article your guest post is essentially an advertisement telling the world (or a blogs readership at least) to visit your blog. As such, make sure that your guest post is well-written, informative and credible to the point where you at least look like an authority in the subject.

Good luck to everybody looking guest post in the near future. Happy blogging!

Author Bio

Guest article written by: Jakk Ogden is the founder and owner of technology news website Technology Blogged. During the day you’ll find him operating his blog empire whilst at home, and at night tormenting his cats with any soft toy.