The Do’s and Don’ts of Guest Posting for Major Blogs

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 11:03 AM PST

What do Mashable.com, BusinessInsider.com and Huffington Post all have in common? For one, each blog captures thousands of unique visitors and tens of thousands of page views in a single day. Second, they all accept contributions from guest authors, creating the potential to drive massive amounts of traffic to your website with just a single guest post.

But there’s got to be a catch. You’ve probably got to be a big name blogger with a huge audience like ProBlogger.com’s Darren Rowse to be eligible for publication on major blogs like that… Right?

No Name? No Audience? No Problem.

Believe it or not, you need neither name nor audience to get published. I used to think you did until I began to look more critically at the bylines of the writers listed on authority websites like BusinessInsider.com, currently listed in the top 500 most popular websites on the internet according to Alexa.

What did I discover upon closer examination? BusinessInsider.com publishes a lot of content from guest authors, most of which is from unkown writers you would not know, don’t have audience or fancy qualifications like an advanced degree from a prestigious school.

Best of all, these websites need a lot of regular outside contributions from guest writers. How much? Enough to dedicate a category
of the website just to content exclusively provided by writers/bloggers referred to as “Contributors”. None of the writer’s listed here are on the BusinessInsider.com payroll.

So if you don’t need a big name or any specific qualifications to contribute to these major blogs, what’s preventing you or me from getting our content published on behemoth blogs like this? That’s the question I posed to three regular contributors of BusinessInsider.com–Frank Gullo of RavenWeb.net, Hillel Fuld of TechnMarketing.com, and Sudy Bharadwaj of JackalopeJobs.com–to get a sense of what the average blogger/marketer should do to be considered for publication on a major blog.

While you’re probably not familiar with the writing or names of the writers I interviewed for this piece, collectively these three have been published on the biggest blogs with names you do know including the Huffington Post, Mashable and Gigom in addition to BusinessInsider.com.

What separates these guys from the rest of us?

I emailed each of these gentlemen to pick their brains and get advice on how they were each able to be featured on these blogs. Fortunately, for me (and you) they were generous with their expertise and provided a simple outline of do’s and don’ts that if followed greatly increases your odds of getting published on these sites.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, each of the blogger’s I interviewed shared creepily similar recommendations for getting content published. There do’s and don’ts have been summarized below and edited slightly for readability purposes:

When submitting guest content to major blogs, do the following:

- Read and Follow Submission Guidelines to the Letter: Big blogs have much stricter requirements for what they can and can’t publish. Make sure the content you submit to these blogs aligns with posts that are regularly published by the blog both in content and style. Many of these blogs provide information about how to submit guest posts or contributions on a contact or contributor page.

In the case of becoming a contributor to BusinessInsider.com, all you need to do is to submit an email (contributor@businessinsider.com)
stating that you’re interested in writing for them.

- Respect the Editor’s Time: When you submit guest posts to major blogs, they’ll need to be reviewed by an editor or writer before they can be published. Again, make sure you have formatted your posts correctly, do not have any spelling errors, and provided a high-quality piece of content that can be published. The more time an editor must spend rewriting your post, the less likely it is to be published.

- Keep Communication Short: This related to the previous point. Don’t write long emails explaining your story ideas to editors or your career highlights. Keep pitches concise and to the point.

- Be Persistent: The folks that work at these blogs are extremely busy and being emailed, Tweeted, and instant messaged by people just like you all day, every day. As a result, it’s typical that at some point your message could be forgotten about or looked over. If an editor doesn’t respond to your request after 5 – 7 days feel free to send them a reminder. If you still don’t get a response, move on and try contacting a different blog or editor.

When submitting content to major blogs, don’t do the following:

- Don’t miss a Deadline: This is a deal breaker for most editors. If you say you’re going to get an article out
to them by January, 17th, stick to it. Miss one deadline and you won’t get a second chance with many editors.

- Don’t complain if you’re article is rejected: Believe it or not, even strong writers have their content rejected from time to time. If you’re article is rejected, simply ask how you can improve it or suggest writing a new article on a different topic. If you believe the rejected article is valuable, you can always submit it somewhere else later.

- Don’t Pester Editors: While you need to be consistent and occasionally send followup emails regarding the status of a post, don’t be a pain. Do not contact editors via social media daily much less hourly. A good rule of thumb is to provide at least 5 – 7 business days of breathing room between messages to an editor.

While you may not need a big name to contribute to today’s most popular websites, you will need to closely follow the editorial guidelines of each particular website and stick to the do’s and don’ts outlined in this article to get published on the biggest blogs.

Brett Lindenberg does a lot of guest writing in his own right. Read more of his stuff at 500aMonth.com and be sure to download his routine for building an email list when you sign up for his email list.

Original Post: The Do’s and Don’ts of Guest Posting for Major Blogs

ProBlogger: How Embedded Social News Grew My Content, Traffic, and Engagement, and Saves Me Time [Case Study]

How Embedded Social News Grew My Content, Traffic, and Engagement, and Saves Me Time [Case Study]

Posted: 02 Jan 2013 02:02 PM PST

This guest post is by Brian Lippey of Guitar Shop TV.

Every blogger wants to offer the best content to his or her audience.

With Guitar Shop TV (GSTV), I set out to create an online community for passionate guitar fans and music lovers around the world. My goal was to offer the best guitar-related content to my audience.

To achieve this, the GSTV team has filmed over 200 hours of original online TV content. We update our blog regularly—with everything from live performances and backstage interviews, to commentary on upcoming album releases and the latest guitar gear. We tweet. We post on Facebook. We even have an on-site guitar shop.

But audiences today have a large appetite for content! With over 100 million guitarists and countless guitar music fans in the world, it’s important that our content’s fresh, entertaining and timely. Guitar news happens fast, making it difficult to churn out blog posts on everything out there.

Our audience is also very vocal about guitar-related content, as is evident on our Facebook page.

As creator of GSTV, I was looking for a social news platform that could deliver top guitar content from across the Web directly to our blog and allow users to participate on a social level. We want to engage music enthusiasts, not talk at them.

Our research led us to new social platform, ROCKZi.

A social news platform

ROCKZi is a social news platform that helps us deliver a fun community experience and share relevant content with our users. Unlike other social platforms that draw your readers to their networks, with this one, the traffic is directed to my blog, which gave me increased opportunities to attract more music fans and expand our community.

The platform lets you customize the content so that it really speaks to your blog’s audience. It let us pick a news category that was relevant specifically to our blog. For most websites, a category probably already exists, but if not, you can create one yourself.

Easy to install

We literally embedded the platform on our News page in three easy steps.

I was relived I didn't need a developer to completely redesign our website—we had it up and running on our blog in about five minutes. The platform allowed us to alter the appearance of the content, so it fit nicely on our news page and matched our web design.

The platform in action

Since embedding the platform in August, we have seen traffic to the site increase by 25%. The average time spent on the page has also increased by four minutes.

Our readers started to come back to our site more often to educate themselves on guitar-related news that had been shared by otehrs in our community. And when they are on our site scanning the headlines, they do more than just read.

The platform comes pre-loaded with social tools that let readers post comments on stories, vote the best stories to the top, or submit their own stories they've discovered on the Web about the latest musicians or guitar gear.

So you can see what I mean when I say that this tool gives our site more than just good content.

It's adding a social experience to the site that is bringing readers back more often to engage with other readers around content our audience cares most about.

We're getting more traffic than Sturgis in August! And readers can pin, post, Facebook or tweet stories right from the page on our site, allowing them to feel more like a part of the community.

All the interactions between your users and the content that’s shared on your site (votes, shares, comments, etc.) will generate direct links through their social networks that will point directly back to your blog.

Do you use a social news tool on your blog? Have you tried ROCKZi? Share your experiences with us in the comments.

Founder Brian Lippey has a background that combines music and business. In Guitar Shop TV, Brian combines his passion for and knowledge of guitars with his strong business acumen.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger