Guest blogging is getting bigger than ever. More and more businesses and individuals are sorting to this content marketing strategy. Are you planning to do this too? Then, there are 10 major mistakes while doing guest blogging that you must know.
Guest blogging implies publishing a blog on a third-party website. When you guest blog for good websites, it can be really beneficial for your search engine optimization and overall image in the industry. It helps people look at your business as a thought leader. Hence, it improves your trust score as well. Moreover, it helps earn valuable backlinks which can boost up your search rankings. Thus, guest blogging is a great marketing and SEO tactic.
However, it all depends on how you go about it. Guest blogging can work out for your business only if you approach it in a certain way. Just like everything else in digital marketing, there are certain dos and don’ts of guest blogging. And that is what you’re going to learn today.
10 Big Mistakes commonly made while Guest Blogging
#1. Not having a strategy
In whatever you do, the first and foremost thing is to have a strategy. Without a perfect strategy, you can expect success in digital marketing. The same is applicable to guest blogging.
For many, it doesn’t work out for this reason. They don’t have a clear strategy for guest blogging. In order to have a strategy, it is important to identify your goals. Why are you even doing guest blogging? Is it for brand awareness? Are you seeking to rank for a particular keyword? There can be a number of reasons. And based on that will be your guest blogging strategy. For example, if you are trying to rank high for some keyword, you will first have to find what sites rank high for that keyword. Next is to find which of those sites accept guest blogs. Then you’ll have to research them and pitch accordingly. And there are a variety of other things.
Hence, it is important to approach guest blogging strategically.
#2. Not pitching the right website
Many times guest blogging doesn’t work out for people because they don’t know whom to approach. In order to achieve your objectives of guest blogging, it is important to identify whom you want to pitch.
This mistake is generally made due to improper strategy or lack of any strategy at all. I have already talked about how it works in the step above. You strategize according to your goals and your pitch the right blog accordingly. Therefore, if you are finding no luck in guest blogging, there is a good chance you are pitching the wrong blog.
#3. Not having a targeted approach
Some people do guest blogging just for the sake of it. It is not just about having your blogs featured in a third-party website. There is a lot more to guest blogging. Again, it comes down to strategizing properly.
You need to have a targeted approach when pitching websites for guest blogging. This implies that you should pitch your content to only those websites that post content within your niche. It is important to make sure that the website you pitch entertains your target audience. This ensures that your content reaches the right people.
#4. Not doing enough research on the site
When you are going to pitch a blog owner for a guest blog, they expect you to know enough about them. While this is a basic thing to do, many miss this point. For example, there is a website that clearly states it’s open to guest blogs. Now if you go messaging them something like, “Do you accept guest blogs?”…that’d be really stupid.
But surprisingly, many would start with such a question.
Things like this make blog owners drop your pitch in the trash. Therefore, make sure that you have done enough research on the website. Make it a point to read every bit of information relevant to guest blogging on a particular website before pitching it. Make sure you don’t have a question, answer to which is already available on the website.
#5. Not addressing the blog manager correctly
This is one very common mistake guest bloggers make when pitching their blogs. Starting your pitch email with something like “Dear sir/ma’am”, “To blog manager”, or “To whomsoever, it may concern” leaves an impression that you don’t know who the blog owner is. This can send your email down the trash.
Therefore, make sure to pitch a bit personally by using the name of the blog manager. This isn’t necessarily a technique that will win you a guest blog but not following this can definitely decrease your chances.
#6. Not following the guidelines
Websites that are open to guest blogs post certain related guidelines. These guidelines state what sort of content the blog accepts. They expect you to be at least following that. The guest blogs that make the final cuts are those that are close to perfect. Therefore, it is important to adhere to the guidelines.
In case you can’t find the guidelines, go through the guest blogs the website has posted. It will help you get a good idea about what sort of content the blog would accept.
#7. Not writing quality content
Okay, this is a very common reason why most of the guest blogs are not accepted—the quality of the content. Many people approach guest blogging like that—“It’s not my blog. I don’t have to give my 100%”
If are approaching guest blogging in such a half-hearted way, it’s better to drop the whole thing. However, if you really want to succeed in this, it is important to produce high-quality content. In fact, to make a website publish your blog and capture a new audience for yourself, you need to put extra effort into creating the content.
#8. Not linking properly
Out of the key reasons why people do guest blogging, this is one. The idea is to write guest blogs for other websites so that you can eventually promote yours. If you don’t properly include links in your guest post that lead to your own website, the point of guest blogging will be lost in the terms of SEO. Therefore, make it a point to include relevant backlinks for your website. The best practice is to use anchor text as your targeted keywords and link them to your own website.
#9. Not maintaining the quality of your own blog
As discussed above, there can be a number of goals for guest blogging. However, we guest blog mainly to drive traffic to our own website for whatever reasons.
The audience garnered with your guest blog would like to check out your personal blog. However, upon landing on your website, if they don’t like your content, you’ll lose the audience you just earned after so much hard work. Therefore, make sure that you don’t overlook the quality of your own content.
#10. Not building relationship
There are a great number of people who try their hand in the guest blogging. However, only a handful actually succeeds. This is because establishing oneself in guest blogging is a time-consuming and grueling process for the most.
Relationship building is an important aspect of guest blogging. In order to have an authoritative website accept and post your guest blog, a certain degree of relationship-building is necessary. Hence, there are certain things you should take care of. For example, don’t just completely move on from a guest blog after creating it. You should stick around sometime. For that, you can answer the blog comments. This is one way you can keep in touch with the publishing website and expect to get future opportunities to guest blog for them.
Final Word
Nowadays, more and more businesses are making guest blogging a part of their content marketing. In fact, it can be a very effective way to expand your reach on the internet. However, make sure that you are not making these guest blogging mistakes as mentioned above. It is important to know what to do but it is equally, if not more, important to know what to do. This way, you will be able to get the best out of guest blogging.
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