How to Establish Yourself as an Expert Guest Blogger/Columnist
Blogging is a terrific way to establish yourself as an expert and drive business to your company.
If you are already blogging on your personal or company website, you are putting a human face on both yourself and your company. Your blog allows you to demonstrate your personal expertise, provide practical advice and provide your visitors with a reason to become clients or customers.
While it is terrific to provide this information to your website/blog’s audience, wouldn’t it be even better if you were able to broadcast your blog to a far greater audience? You can.
Extending Your Reach
There are thousands of websites that not only have their own blogs, but also welcome guest expert bloggers and guest columnists.
Being a guest blogger allows you to leverage the audience of the website for which you are providing content. In many cases, this can mean that you are reaching an audience that is many times larger than the one you reach with your personal blog or company website.
Being a guest blogger/columnist also gives your company and your brand greater credibility. When another site recognizes you as an expert, it tells potential customers that they are dealing with an industry leader.
The good news is that websites are often eager for content. Even the biggest websites welcome guest bloggers so long as the author has real expertise on the subject being written about.
Such content serves host site’s visitors and is an inexpensive or free way to enhance their own content offering.
By way of example, Blue Fountain Media’s Founder and CEO has served as a guest blogger on several sites, including YoungEntrepreneur.com. Because Blue Fountain Media has many entrepreneurial companies and start-ups as clients, this is a terrific venue for promoting our company and driving business.
Getting Started With Your Guest Post/Column
If you don’t already have a blog on your own site, start one now! The key to any great blog is that it provides specific, clear and helpful information. A well-written blog is both entertaining and informative. Don’t hit your readers over the head with marketing messages. If you provide a useful service to your visitors, they will see you as a trusted source. More importantly, they will see you as someone with whom they would like to do business.
Even if you don’t currently have a blog, begin writing several blog posts (drafts), so you will have something already written when you begin to pitch websites and bloggers.
How to Find Websites to “Pitch?”
The answer to this is pretty simple: “Google” your area of expertise or specific topics about which you have particular expertise. If you are looking to pitch to a blog, do the same search on Google, but use the advanced search settings just to search blogs.
No matter what your area of expertise, this search should give you a fairly large list of sites to “pitch.”
Once you have this initial list, you can narrow it down by getting the answers to the following questions:
- Does this website already feature guest bloggers?
- Would this website’s audience benefit from my expertise?
- Would I be able to convert this website’s visitors into clients/customers/visitors to my site?
How to “Pitch” Websites
The best way to start is to prepare a standard pitch template, one that can modified for each outlet you are pitching. Every pitch should have the following elements:
- A clear opening sentence expressing your interest in being a guest blogger. Websites want you to get to the point quickly.
- A paragraph explaining why you and your company are qualified to be an expert blogger
- Company/expert background and accomplishments
- List prior writing and speaking engagements
- Provide a compelling argument as to why your expertise will be of interest to the website/blog’s audience
- Provide links to articles/blogs you have written
- Provide a list of specific blog postings you are prepared to write for the website/blog
- Provide as much specific detail as you can
- For each pitch make sure that you “personalize” it for the target site. Make specific reference to blog posts/articles you have enjoyed on the site. Name the writers you enjoy the most. This will let the target site know that they are not part of a mass mailing. The more detailed you can be, the more likely you will get a response.
After The Pitch
Remember, you are not the only person “pitching” the target site. Be patient, but don’t drop the ball. If you haven’t gotten a response after a few days, send a follow-up e-mail. Don’t be a pain, just remind the editor of your submission and ask if there is any other information you can provide or ask if there is a good time to talk.
The fact of the matter is that not every site is going to be interested in having you as a guest blogger. If you send out a dozen pitches, you may be fortunate to get one of two responses.
In Conclusion
If you have real expertise in your field and you have the ability to deliver that expertise in a well-written blog or article, you will have an excellent shot at having your blog picked up on several key sites. If you find your submissions are getting no response at all, take a long look at what you’ve written. Have trusted colleagues critique your writing. Take the time to edit and re-write if necessary.
The rewards of being a guest blogger/columnist can be great, but you need to earn that distinction.
Blue Fountain Media works with clients on a wide variety of web design, marketing and social media issues. If you have questions relating to blogging or any other web-related issues, please give us a call at 212.260.1978.
