Yes, you’re calling your guest post submission a “draft” in your pitch, but that’s because you want the host blog to feel free to ask for extensive changes if they feel you haven’t quite hit the mark. From your perspective though, this should be a polished piece of work that’s ready to publish as-is in your mind.
You’ve made your post as valuable as possible to readers. That could mean including examples, adding key blogging tips from the pros, linking to further reading, quoting from industry experts, compiling a free template… doing whatever you can to make your guest post truly useful and helpful. (Don’t go too far: if your host blog normally publishes 800 word posts, you don’t want to send them a 3,000 word monster like my roundup of 25 honest Bluehost reviews, unless that’s already been cleared by their team).
You’ve made it as valuable as possible to the host blog. That means not just producing a great piece of content, but making sure that it helps your host blog out in some way. Normally, this means linking internally to other pillar content on their blog (aim to link to at least two or three of their posts), but it might also mean mentioning their products or their suggesting they opt-in to emails.
Either way, if you can somehow successfully tie your guest blogging efforts into a clear win for the host blog & their readers, then you’re much more likely to get a pitch accepted.
If they don’t allow you to include even a bio link to your own blog in a guest post, then I’d recommend not guest blogging for them as you likely aren’t getting anything in return for creating a solid piece of (free) content for them. Guest blogging needs to be a win-win-win in my opinion.
We’re going to talk more about bios in a moment—but in terms of the body of your guest post itself, you might be wondering whether it’s fine to link to your own content.
The answer is yes, you can usually link to your own content from a guest post when it’s done tastefully and has a clear purpose other than just giving yourself a random link. But, it comes with a bit of nuance.
Relevant: Don’t force a link to content that’s only tangentially related to the subject of your guest post. This is one of the reasons why it’s important to choose a host blog that’s truly on-topic for you, so that there will be natural opportunities to build quality links to your own articles. This is why it’s incredibly important to work with only the most reputable link building services if you plan on scaling your guest posting outreach beyond your own efforts.
High-quality: If you’re linking to a scrappy post riddled with typos, the host blog is likely to remove the link altogether or replace it with a link to someone else’s resource on the same topic.
Non-competitive: It’s often the case that you’re guest blogging for a site that’ll be somewhat competitive in terms of the topics you both cover. For example, if you include a link to your own guide about how to make money blogging, but the host blog you’re contributing to already has a piece that’s going after this same keyword phrase, they’ll likely remove your link and replace it with a link to their own article. Avoid awkward situations by checking each of your links for competitive pieces on their blog ahead of time.
Value-adding: If you’re covering a topic within your guest post that doesn’t warrant the space to elaborate enough, then linking out to an eBook you wrote (that expands significantly on the subject) is a win-win-win for the host blog, their readers and yourself.
There’s no hard and fast rule about how many links you can include to your own content, but somewhere between 2 and 4 (if your guest blog post is in the 2,000-3,000 word range) is usually about right.
You might also want to make sure you’re including links to other reputable blogs and publications in your niche. If you only link to your own content, it’s going to look rather self-serving (and even if the host blogger leaves all your links intact, it may come across as biased to readers).
Important: A few blogs state in their guidelines that you shouldn’t link to your content at all if you’ll be guest blogging for them—or say that they at least discourage it.
If that’s the case and you’re already committed to guest blogging for this site—and you do want to include a link, flag it to the host blogger (i.e. with a comment in the Google Doc) and make it clear that you’re happy for them to remove the link if necessary.
As I’ve already said though, if you’re in serious doubt about whether you’ll be able to get a link or two from the host blog in question (and that’s the primary goal of your guest blogging campaign), then I’d recommend taking your guest post somewhere else instead of allowing the content go under-utilized.
Though some blogs still have specific requirements about bio links—for example, you might not be allowed to link directly to your own products, use an affiliate link, or direct readers to a site that’s directly competitive with your host blog.
While that’s not necessarily bad, it’s also not going to attract a lot of readers to click through and want to learn more. Dave’s wife and daughters aren’t particularly relevant, and this sort of personal detail, while fine for an About page, doesn’t need to take up space in your guest blogging bio.
Instead of just including a link to your homepage (which is where most guest bloggers stop), try linking to a specific piece of content you’re building links for—and give readers a much stronger call to action.
How Much To Charge For Guest Blog PostIf you enjoyed this post from Dave Smith, check out Ten Amazing Tiny Homes From Around the World (especially number 7, which has to be seen to be believed). For more about tiny homes, plus Dave’s journey toward financial independence, make sure you’re following him on Twitter at @tinyhomesdave.
Ideally, you’ll want to tailor your guest blogging bio link to a piece of content on your blog that’s (1) highly relevant to the guest blog post you just wrote and (2) a key page you’re wanting to build more quality links to.
So this link would make perfect sense in the example above if Dave was guest posting about tiny homes, but wouldn’t be quite such a good fit if his guest post was about financial independence or something more specific like how to do taxes on your blog income.
You’ll normally be encouraged (even expected) to respond to comments on your guest post. It’s worth taking a look at how many comments each post tends to receive on the blog ahead of time, so you know how much time you’re likely to need to set aside for this on the day your post goes live.
When you’re replying to comments, keep in mind that to readers, you’re a representative of the blog. Don’t use salty language (unless that’s 100% okay on the blog in question), don’t get angry or defensive, and contact the host blogger if there are comments that you don’t know how to respond to yourself.
Even if your social media following is small, you should still share your guest post with your audience. As well as potentially sending a little bit of traffic to your host blog (which is a nice thing to do), getting your work published on a larger blog will often impress your existing followers.
Where possible, tag the host blog’s account when you share your post—they may end up retweeting you, and at the very least, they’ll be able to see that you made the effort to share your post. Just be sure you’re sharing on the social channels that make the most sense for your blog niche—like Twitter for startup-centric content or Instagram for travel blogging.
A few days after your post goes live, email the host blogger to thank them for letting you be a guest on their blog. Try to make this email very personal—you could mention how nice and welcoming their readers were, or tell them that you got a great boost in traffic to your blog.
This is also a great time to pitch your next guest post if the first one felt like a success. Once you’ve had one guest post go up on a blog (especially if it was well-received and you were easy to work with), it’s almost always easier to land a second one.
I’d love to write for you again! I wondered if you’d be interested in a post on [title/topic]? Happy to send you an outline or a full draft if this sounds like it could be a good fit for you.
Thanks so much for having me on [name of blog]! Your readers were so lovely and welcoming, and it was a real thrill to see my post live on your site. I’d love to write for you again—would you be open to another guest post pitch in a couple of months?
But once you’ve got a bit of guest blogging experience under your belt, there are a few things you can do to get even more out of each new guest post that goes live.
One very simple (but often overlooked) way to use your guest posts to your own advantage, is to link to other notable bloggers’ content. If you want to build a relationship with one, or if you just want to help out a blogger you love, this is an incredible way to do so.
Then, after you’ve reached out to the blogger who’s content you featured in your guest post, you can gauge their responsiveness and even pitch them on having you as a guest blogger—translating into even more high quality links (and traffic) back to your blog.
While it takes a lot of work, getting several guest posts (think ten or more) on lots of blogs in your niche all in a short period of time can be an amazing way to get your name and blog out there. Just listen to my interview with blogger Adam Enfroy about how he landed 20+ guest posts during his first month blogging and saw his traffic explode as a result.
If you write one guest post, people will probably forget about you almost as soon as they’ve read it. Once they’ve seen four or five posts from you in a single week though, they’re going to start paying attention—and likely subscribe for your email list if you’re putting out regular content.