How to Grow Your Blog by Writing for Other Bloggers

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Every blogger wants a bigger audience. You know that one of the best ways to capture readers is to provide great content—but did you know that it’s even more effective to give that great content away to another blog?

Guest posting is one of the best ways to market your blog, hands down. It may sound like a lot more work, but the time you invest will pay off as your subscriber numbers swell.

What is Guest Posting?

Just as it sounds like, guest posting means appearing as a guest on someone else’s blog with a post you’ve written. A guest post lets you connect with new readers and new audiences—and it also helps out the hosting blogger by giving them fresh new content they didn’t have to write.

Of course, you can also invite guests to post on your blog. But if you’re struggling to grow your audience, it’s more effective to be a guest poster yourself.

What, exactly, can guest posting do for you? Here are a few of the benefits.

Build Relationships with Other Bloggers

Popular bloggers are major online influencers. They drive a lot of the conversation that ends up going viral on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and their audiences trust their thoughts and opinions. When you appear as a guest blogger, it’s assumed that the hosting blogger approves of you and your message.

You’re also helping them out by providing them with good content that adds value for their readers. This helps you make friends in the blogosphere—and it’s good to have influential friends who can help you spread the word about what you’re doing.

Boost SEO with Backlinks

Most hosting blogs will allow you to place a link back to your own blog, either in the body of the post or a short bio at the end. These backlinks are more valuable than keeping your blog updated with fresh content, because search engines place more weight on them.

The more quality and authority links you have leading to your blog from other websites—especially those that already rank high for SEO—the higher your search engine rankings will rise. Just make sure you stay away from the mindset of solely using guest blogging for link building, it won´t work and it may just be rejected by the host and considered spammy.

Get Introduced to New Communities

The Internet is a huge collection of communities, and some are bigger than others. Guest posting for a popular blog is like being handed an invitation to join a large community of like-minded people that you wouldn’t have been able to get in on your own. All you have to do is show up and be interesting, and some of that community will follow you “home” to your blog.

Tips for Being a Good Guest Blogger:

  • Put as much effort—or more—into your guest posts as you would a post of your own. As a guest, you’re offering a first impression, and you’ll want to make it a great one. You can find some tips on writing a great guest post in my recent article, The Perfect Post.
  • Don’t market. Use your guest posts to offer something of value—be informative, or entertaining, but not pushy.­­
  • Research the hosting blog. Read through some of the archives and make sure your guest post will fit the themes and topics. You can also check to see which types of posts have the most comments and model your guest post after the most popular entries.
  • When your guest post is up, spread the word on your own blog and through your social media accounts. Host bloggers appreciate the attention and the potential audience crossover. Check in a few times and respond to any comments your post receives.
  • Be sure to thank the host blogger after your post has run.

Guest blogging is a great strategy to gain new readers and drive more traffic to your blog. Be patient, keep at it, and guest blogging will pay off for you!

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Megan Totka

Megan Totka is a freelance writer, business expert and consultant. She was the marketing & editorial director at ChamberofCommerce.com for over a decade. As a business expert, she specializes in reporting the latest business news, helpful tips and reliable resources, as well as providing business advice. She has significant experience with the topic of business marketing, and has spent several years exploring topics like copywriting, content marketing, list building, social media and any hot topics to help businesses run their business successfully.

20 thoughts on “How to Grow Your Blog by Writing for Other Bloggers”

  • Hi Megan,

    Thanks for sharing this. For me, growing authority and building relationship with other bloggers are very important. Gone were the days where you focus on SEO only.

    Now, you need all hands on deck when it comes to blogging success. Well said, and shared!

    Thanks again.

    • Hi Reginald,

      Thanks very much for your feedback, and for reading my post. I completely agree — SEO is still helpful, but not the end-all, be-all.

      Best of luck in your blogging endeavors!
      Megan

      • Hi Megan
        nice article guest blogging is good way to get high PR and quality backlinks to our site. it will increase site organic traffic. i learn many things after reading your post. thanks for sharing.

    • i am imressed by this article this will also to make a better community i mean a social internet community and a best small internet based business as well.

  • A great overview of guest blogging 🙂 Guest blogging is a really powerful strategy.

    • Thanks, Liudas! I appreciate you reading and commenting. Best to you!

  • With new internet communities being brought together every day, you’re 100% right that guest blogging is a good day to become involved and known within the blogosphere. It’s important to provide quality content, however, because low-quality material can give you a bad reputation just as quickly.

    • Hi Kostas,

      Thanks for your feedback. You’re absolutely right: when it comes to guest blogging, quality is just as important — if not MORE important — as quantity.

      Best regards,
      Megan

  • No doubt, guest posting is a highly efficient tool to build your blog audience. If one can provide quality content while posting as a guest, it can do wonders for the blog. Also, it helps in SEO by building backlinks to the blog.
    Thanks for the article and keep posting.

    • Hi Mayank,

      I appreciate your comments. Yes, quality backlinks are HUGE when it comes to building a strong blog audience.

      Thanks for reading, I hope you’ll keep visiting!
      Megan

  • Hi, Megan Totka
    Thanks for sharing 😀 Blogging is a powerful tool which has become increasingly popular over the last few years. This article will show me how to use a blog to help my business. Whether this business is online or offline, blogging can help to improve customer relationships, increase sales, and create awareness about me, my business, and my products or services. Nice Tips :))

    • Hi Gerald,

      I’m so glad you found this article helpful. I feel very strongly about the benefits of guest blogging, and I’m glad to share the tips and knowledge I’ve collected.

      Here’s to blogging your way to business success!
      Megan

  • Hi Megan .

    For link building Guest Posting is the best way. There are many other ways like commenting. But the results are really slow. But if you opt guest posting you will get results very fast.

    But it will require some hard work to get establishment. many people try guest posting but didn’t succeed because of the lack of originality.
    Always comes up with new and creative thoughts.

    Thanks for the amazing update. Keep up the good work
    Regards

    • Hello, and thanks for reading and commenting! I completely agree – successful guest posting takes hard work, effort, and originality – but it can really pay off in spades. Good luck to you!

  • nice advice Megan. Now a days i am also going to try a guest post because i heard alot that it is too much effective for SEO

    • Thanks, Anis! Best of luck to you in your guest posting endeavors.

  • Hi Megan, I have come to realise recently how import guest blogging and the related benefits are. I only this week posted my second guest post and it has really sky rocketed! check out bloggingwizard.com!! Anyway, it’s nice to have people like you to give us all a push once in a while
    cheers, ashley

    • Hi Ashley,

      Thanks so much for reading and commenting. That’s great that you’ve seen such quick results from guest posting. Best of luck to you!

      Megan

  • Hello Megan,

    Guest posting is sure one of the best ways of getting new readers…but it is sad how little it is practiced…great post, I must say.

  • Guest Blogging is the most efficient way to promote your blog. Guest blogging can improve your SEO and your interactions with fellow bloggers as well.

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