How to Guest Blog and the 5 Pitfalls You Need to Avoid
How to guest blog: Introduction
Throughout the years past, and after all the improvements made in the field of online information systems, blogging has been a home for people seeking help – particularly in practical knowledge and application.
Quick fixes, product reviews, in-depth analyses are guest blog writing’s most prominent sections; making blogging sites accept voluminous guest posts to aid their search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.
But before you even think of immediate success, you need to learn how to guest blog properly. For a start, you need to strategize on how you will get through the rigorous screening of webmasters from various sites and blog spots.
And listed below are five common mistakes that hamper your guest post proposition, coupled with extensive tips on how to elude fails and improve your craft.
Dreary headlines
Without a flashy banner, you’re doing yourself and the guest blogging site little progress. With the multitude of online materials dispersed, readers tend to be picky and stringent in selecting what to peruse.
Your blog’s headline should show flashes of three things: your ability to keep them interested and engaged, your likelihood of viewing it from a different vantage point, and the benefits of reading your exhaustive, informative text.
How can you come close to effectively doing this? Blog posts are different from news articles; you need to package them in a trendy and unconventional way.
Here’s a simple headline-writing formula conceptualized by Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter:
Number of Trigger words + Adjective + Keyword + Promise
Of course, your choice of words – particularly in adjectives – has a lot to do with the trick. According to Jeff’s argument, use interesting adjectives (e.g., effortless, painstaking, fun, free, incredible, essential, absolute, or strange). For a list post, words such as reasons, principles, facts, lessons, secrets, tricks, hacks are some of the classics.
Make your blog irresistible to click or tap, but do not fall victim to the pitfall of under-delivering. Walk the talk by proving that your text is worth the read, with informative, yet action-oriented writing.
Product-centric posts
Ever felt enraged with click baits and content solely circling around selling and advertising? I did, too.
While backlinks and other promotional stuff are cornerstones for which you’re writing online, you have to incorporate them sparingly.
An acceptable SEO practice is to set the ceiling of backlinks to one, while inserting it only when the flow or situation of the text provides you with the best opportunity to do so.
You also have the freedom to insert two quality backlinks, but only when the webmaster’s guidelines permit it and when you made sure that each of them are situated considerably distant from each other as to not appear artificially executed.
Quit beating around the bush
The University of Queensland, Australia, gave an insightful remark about the importance of being straightforward in writing.
To summarize their thought, straightforward writing eschews being fancy. You neither sound informal nor arrogant when you incorporate it. It requires you to use clear and understandable words appropriate for your audience.
Hence, if you’ll use jargon, then make sure your audience is somewhat erudite (or at the very least, you should make an effort to introduce the idea). Building a smokescreen of extravagant words to disguise what you try to say won’t cut it.
It’s the last statement that struck me the most. You have probably encountered blogs that were solely designed for promotional purposes. Or ones that appeared fancy and compelling for at least the introductory parts but did not cover the critical parts of their argument as they progressed.
Blog sites not only ruin advertising and inappropriate content, but also slam half-assed posts that are senseless, repetitive, or trying to play it safe.
To be straightforward, you need to know the exact purpose for why to write first. Are you plainly describing the value of something? Or is it about an in-depth analysis wanting to unravel something deeper?
If you do not know what your priority is, you have a tendency to mix it up which makes your ideas appear unrelated and the whole text misleading.
Also, you should put a premium on verb tenses. If your blog is about actionable steps (e.g., how to guides, best ways, life hacks, etc.), active verb tenses are more direct and viable.
By doing so, you are placing utmost importance that those steps should be followed by commanding them, as opposed to purely sounding like “this is a good idea, but you can have yours too”.
Teach actionable steps rather than plain theory
Don’t get me wrong: I personally love bloggers that creatively craft content with their vivid and poetic descriptions. But if it failed to suggest a direct call of action, I view it as effort that went for naught.
Most guest blog writing guidelines today slam the absence of a section solely dedicated to exercise the principles discussed, mostly about the niches related to best practices in online writing and blogging.
Like what we’ve discussed about being straightforward, give real-life application whenever necessary and when you have the best chance to do so.
Refrain from chunking
I know. Hitting the enter button in your keyboard to separate sentences seems impossible when you are ‘in the zone’ (i.e., heightened state of words typed per second due to the sudden influx of ideas and insights).
However, readers may get uninterested upon seeing the endless multitude of revelations packaged in 2-3 extensive paragraphs.
The majority of written web content right now is broken into formatting devices like headers, bullet points, and even infographics.
The rationale?
It’s more pleasing to the eyes and easy for readers to peruse.
Today, a majority of bloggers utilize the ‘two sentence’ rule. The mechanics is plain simple: you put two related, complementing statements together. In this way, readers don’t get strained in reading and it keeps the juices organized and free-flowing.
Let’s take a look at another school of thought in Derek Halpern’s blog entitled Social Triggers.
How to Figure Out What People Want to Buy from You
By making the introductory part comprised solely of one-sentence paragraphs, there’s an easy transition leading the readers along. It forces your readers to continue perusing to find out what will transpire next.
How to guest blog and blogging pitfalls you should avoid: Conclusion
Failure in blogging and guest posting is highly demonstrated by newbies desiring instant victory and recognition.
This is the question about the constant battle between quality and quantity: Do I really need to put more than the usual hours in continuous refinement of my blog entry, as opposed to submitting multiple ‘that’s okay’ Word documents to innumerable websites?
As for my personal insight, the rewards and endless opportunities associated with furnishing the best version your blog can be is really convincing. Just think of this, it stays through the lifetime of the blog site (i.e., even longer than the life of its owner), giving you endless exposure.
Is it too hard to run the extra mile to provide extra meat to your body text, or include statistical data to solidify your claims? This, together with your adherence to certain guidelines and parameters, is a behavior that will separate you from people who are complacent and who are just slackers.
Though debatable, you cannot fail when pursuing excellence and virtue.
With this analysis, I hope I have saved you from any probable shortcomings you are bound to encounter, due to lack of knowledge on how to guest blog and guest blog writing trends.
Do enlighten us with some of your personal tips that stood the test of time.
Author Bio
Joe Baldwin is a native US resident & professional Article writer for https://essaylook.com. He studied English literature and creative writing.
Featured images:
How to Guest Blog and the 5 Pitfalls You Need to Avoid
How to Figure Out What People Want to Buy from You
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