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.

20 thoughts on “Guide: How to Write a Guest Post”

  1. Pingback: Jakk Ogden
  2. Excellent article, and one I can relate to as an online marketer writing articles for clients. All literature whether it be an article, blog post on your own website or guest post should be pitch perfect. Bravo on the article once again.

    Jeremy.

    Reply
  3. Hi Jakk,

    I agreed with your points, You must write a interesting and informative post so that every blogger love to publish it on their blog. Write your blog after having complete research so that readers find up to date post and love to share it with their circles.

    Reply
  4. I agree with what you said in this post. The foremost thing we have to consider in guest posting is that you are posting on the right blog.

    Reply
  5. Great points. I have been doing a lot of guest blogging this year and have featured dozens of guest bloggers on my blogs this year as well. I like what you say about proof reading, this should go without saying but I am have been submitted many guest posts that needed a lot of editing.

    Reply
  6. I’m wondering if you’re currently accepting guest posts. I
    have a few articles I’d like to contribute, but wanted to check with
    you first.

    Reply
    • Hi Todd,

      TechPatio does indeed accept guest posts – you can read more about it here: Guest posting on TechPatio. Just use the contact form to get in touch with me and we’ll take it from there.

      Reply
    • Hi Todd,

      Not sure whether your comment was directed at me (who wrote the article) or Tech Patio, but you can submit guest posts to Technology Blogged by simply e-mailing writeATtechnologyblogged.com.

      Have an awesome day 🙂

      Reply
  7. thnx a lot for this post .. as i m new at blogging ,this post will greatly help me.. pls do post article like this again 😉

    Reply
  8. Jakk,

    Good post.

    I get approached almost daily by someone wanting to write a guest post. However, most of these are scams and are actually companies selling backlinks to their clients and their guest posts are trash.

    So for now, I’ve just ignored it.

    Reply
    • Completely true.

      However, content is content, and the people who contact me respect my website generally. When I first started out with my blogs, I got tons of rubbish articles, but now after a few years I get hardly any that are trash.

      Reply
  9. When to write post for guest posting, everyone should have to keep these points in the mind for successful guest posting otherwise there is a chance to be ignored by the blog owner.

    Reply
  10. Hey thanks you for sharing this comprehensive article. I completely agree with your blog post. According to my opinion, original content that tells the readers something innovative is simply the most important factor in guest blogging. Thanks for sharing it.

    Reply
  11. Great post. I also wrote a guest post in one of my friend’s blog, Now I think I would have read this before. Million thanks to the author.

    Reply
  12. Well this post is really useful for those who want to send their guest posts to other blogs. I saw many people didn’t follow these steps and they were fail because their post wouldn’t be accepted. Thanks for the share this awesome post.

    Reply
  13. Great post! i have never tried guest post yet. But I know this info will come in handy someday. 🙂

    Reply
  14. As per my experience on guest blogging, it is good practice to first have a look at posts of the blog in which you are going to request for guest post and write after observation rather than writing first and then search for the blogs which provide guest posting. Your post must match with theme of the guest blog.

    Reply
  15. Pingback: Customeragriya
  16. I am thinking of guest posting, but just got confused between, article marketing on sites like hubpages or squidoo and guest posting on good niche sites.

    Reply

Leave a Comment