Doing Guest Blogs

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Technically there are several types of guest blogs including reviews and interviews.  However, today I want to talk a bit about writing actual blog posts for someone else’s site.

When I first started marketing on the ‘net in early 2001, I found that although I had a website, no one was showing up to it like I thought they would.  What to do?  What to do?

I was told about article marketing (there were no such things as blogs back then), and I decided to try it.

Article marketing is basically writing an article (blog post) that is generic enough to be used on a site that is not yours.  So you would write something about an insight about the Holy Spirit and then offer another site that content.  The payment was a linkback to your site.

This actually worked phenomenally well for me at the time.

First, I’m very good at crafting blog posts due to early training in writing quickly and succinctly.  Second, on my blog, although I write about things that happen in my life, they are not me-centric.  They are everyday things that have happened that pointed me to God.

At the time email newsletters were huge, and I happened to get an article placed on a very large newsletter.  I so remember that Friday morning.  I went to my email account (and I was doing subscriptions to my newsletter by hand — well before the CAN-SPAM laws hit).  I had 50 people wanting to subscribe, and they just kept pouring in.  I could literally watch as the sun came up around the world as each new batch would be from a different country.

By the end of the day I had over 300 new subscribers!  It was incredible.

Although I’ve never had a day quite like that one, I do attribute my early ebook sales success in August of 2011 to article marketing.  In July I sold 2 ebooks.  In August I hired a lady to go out and find places for me to post guest blogs.  I sold 63 ebooks in August due entirely to those posts.

So this type of marketing works.

However, I do have to say it is a lot of work.  You have to find a blog, pitch to the blog author, write the article, submit it with your bio, picture, cover, jump tag.  Then when it comes out, you have to promo it and show up on that blog to answer questions.  Sometimes there are no questions.  Sometimes there are LOTS of questions.

If you are going to do guest blogging, I suggest you start small with a couple a month and see how it goes.  If you enjoy it, you can do more the next month.  If it is just too much pressure, maybe it’s not for you.

But of everything I’ve ever done marketing-wise (except Twitter which is more promo than content), guest blogging is hands down the most rewarding if you hit the right blog with just the right article.