Jack Gamble from Babeled sent me the following story about his success with guest blogging at ProBlogger and couple of other blogs. It is a great motivational story for any blogger that is trying to figure out ways to grow his or her blog:
A few months back, I stumbled upon HowToMakeMyBlog.com for the first time. One of the first articles I noticed was a post about how to land guest posts at popular blogs.
The article touched on a few simple steps Marko used to land two guest posts at Problogger.net, the king of the ‘how to’ blogs. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you check out the article in which Marko describes step by step how he went about guest posting for the popular site.
His article made me realize that guest posting was one key ingredient to marketing my blog that I had been ignoring all this time. I immediately began a campaign of guest posting using Marko’s advice as a template. In the weeks that followed I was amazed at just how effective Marko’s advice was when I was able to land guest posts at several successful blogs.
First steps to the first guest post
My first guest post was at The Art of Manliness. This popular niche blog is the brainchild of Brett McKay and is all about the long lost art of masculinity. Brett publishes a series called “So You Want My Job” which is basically a series of interviews about different ‘manly’ occupations.
In this case, I wrote to Brett directly, and offered to do an interview about my job as a Nuclear Engineer. AOM is a very popular site and I actually felt that there was little chance I would be taken up on the offer but I figured “what the hay, give it a shot.” Needless to say I was delighted to hear back from Brett when he told me how excited he was to do the interview.
Going for the ProBlogger top
After my initial success with Art of Manliness I decided to swing for the fences and I took a shot at Problogger.net. Although I am new to blogging and very inexperienced, I did have something to offer when I wrote about gravatars and how they can add much needed personality to a blog.
Again I followed Marko’s advice and I wrote the post, sent it attached in an email to Darren Rowse, the author of ProBlogger. I began the message by thanking Darren for all the great advice he had given me and humbly offered my contribution to his site. Again I was delighted to hear back from a popular blogger who was interested in publishing my content.
Even more blog posting opportunities
Now I really had some momentum and I began combing the blogosphere for guest posting opportunities. I was searching through blogs on StumbleUpon when I came across a blog called My Supercharged Life.
Although I had nothing to offer this site personally, it did appear to be a good fit for my fellow Babeler, Andrew Blanco. Andrew is co-author at my blog and an aspiring Yoga master, the perfect fit for My Supercharged Life. In this case, I first approached Andrew with the opportunity, which he gladly accepted. Then Andrew wrote an article about his first experience with Yoga and how it changed his life.
Once I had the post, I acted as the middleman and sent a message to the author of MSCL, Jeff Nickles. Again, I was successful in landing a guest spot, this time for my coauthor.
The effect on the blog authority, traffic and RSS subscribers
Shortly after Andrew’s guest post, I decided to check Babeled’s Technorati authority and, wouldn’t you know it, it had doubled! Granted, it had gone from a meager 14 to a slightly less meager 30, but this was still a great improvement for our little blog.
We are yet to see any PageRank improvement because we began our campaign of guest posting shortly after the last PR update, but we expect to move from a PageRank of 3 to at least a 4 next time around.
Another benefit to Marko’s advice was to use the Referrer Detector plugin. In this case, anyone referred to us from the site we guest posted for will see a brief message thanking him or her for the visit with a link to our RSS feed. I am happy to say that since we began this practice, we have enjoyed a slow but steady stream of new subscribers to our site.
The traffic from these three articles was a modest but nice benefit as well. We have seen just over 500 visits from the three guest posts and the multitude of sites that re-posted the articles. Of course traffic should not be your goal when you set out to do a guest post. The real benefits come through increased visibility to your site, which is difficult to measure in the short term.
Guest posting is blog-gold
I was so pleased with the results of our guest posting campaign that I felt obligated to send Marko a message thanking him for the good advice. Wouldn’t you know it, after sending the thank you message, I received yet another guest posting opportunity when he asked me to write this very testimonial.
Clearly the benefits are many when guest posting. Networking, traffic, PageRank, Technorati authority, and subscriber count just to name a few. As far as this Babeler goes, Marko’s advice has proven to be blog-gold and I strongly advise any aspiring blogger to hit up his feed and frequent this site. As you can see, it has already paid off for me.
Image by Catalystrxn
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m glad that this has worked well for you so far. I’m expecting my first guest post on a major blog to appear this week. Not sure how it will affect my sites or if there is enough there yet to hold any interest for those who follow back, but I’ve got my fingers crossed and some ideas in the pipeline. Hopefully I can capitalize on this.
Hi Marco,
I was searching for reference material for my project and accidentally clicked on your blog. Your writings are very innovative and inspirational.
I am impressed by the way your put acrss your ideas in such a creative way and will be back soon to read more stuff.
Naina.
I totally agree.
I’ve guest posted on Problogger twice – both times the opportunity came up by accident. I do it mostly for the feedback.
If your post is BS, thee readers will tell you and they’ll tell you why. Also, you can get feedback from the blogger. Personally, this is much more valuable than the resulting traffic.
I also like the networking aspect. I was offered most of the my guest post opportunities because of a prior friendship with the bloggers. I’m hoping that this will help whenI eventually start freelancing
- Jade
No question about it guest blogging is a fantastic way to get your name out there ,network etc. Marko always gives top notch blogging tips many of which I have implemented with positive results.
Guest posting is absolutely the one best thing a blogger can do to build community and authority in their niche. I’ve been fortunate enough to have guest posted a couple of times over at Darren’s TwiTip and the folks I’ve met there have been outstanding, faithful readers of my blog.
My advice for bloggers is to just get out there and do it. Don’t be afraid to ask. Most blogs welcome a guest with open arms.
Cheers
George
Definitely agree with you. Guest posting earns traffic, page rank, authority, and brand name.
Wow, I guess I always thought it was a “I know a guy and he asked if he could guest post” type of thing.
This is great info to know. Thanks
WOW! Guest posting sounds amazing!
It’s great to hear of your success, and I look forward to trying it out myself some day.
Right now though, I am finding it hard enough thinking of post ideas for my own blog. Let alone posting for others.
@Joel Drapper @Man Overboard – I have had similar thoughts when deciding to guest post or not. Some “how to” blogs recommend you do not give away your best work as a guest post, but then that decreases your chance of getting your article approved by a popular blog and also even if it is approved it might not create a lot of buzz and attention as it is not the best article. Then you will not get many clicks over to your site.
So there is some thinking to be done before you decide should you give away your work or not…
Joel,
You do point out the one down side to guest posts – lost content. You might find however, that participating in other blogs (either guest posting or commenting) will give you enough food for thought to fill your own site with content. One way is to use a guest post to jump start a series. Andrew did that on our site. For the longest time he wanted to start a series about Yoga. The opportunity at MySuperChargedLife was what jump started the series and he has since don three more articles on the topic with more on the way.
My first guest post was published yesterday at TwiTips. It has resulted in an increase of Twitter followers and a bit more traffic at my blogs, both of which are beneficial for me.
However, the biggest thing that it brings is increasing my personal brand and I think the long term effects will be much more valuable than what I’ve seen in the past 24 hours.
It has also given me more inspiration for blog posts about guest posting and twitter to follow. I recommend guest posting to anyone who wants to increase their exposure on the internet.
Remember that you can always post your article on your own site if it doesn’t get accepted as a guest post, but I would recommend trying to get it posted on other sites if your first attempt doesn’t go anywhere.
Great to see you’ve had so much success with guest blogging. I have learned through my research much of what you are saying, and have hired an online media consultant to ghost write on other people’s blogs for my website development company. So far, she’s written on 5 other blogs, and you are right, it has generated a fair amount of extra traffic to my blog and website. But I look at this as not just a way to market my company, but also to spread the wealth. Media in today’s world has become more and more interactive, and this is just one more example of how much we all have to share with each other and how much it can benefit us all in many different ways. I wish you continued success on your journey.
I think this is such a great idea, and in fact, I have done it many times myself. I not only get the satisfaction of sharing my expertise and knowledge in the fitness and nutrition field with a wider audience, but also, more promotion for my business. I highly recomend going this route, for anybody that is serious about marketing their business/products or services.
Thanks for all the kind words in your comments everyone.
Just out of curiosity, how many of you have a guest posting program at your own blogs? Can you share any up/down sides about this?