This is Geoffrey the butler, not Laura the awesome guest blogger.
Remember that show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with Will Smith?
Whenever I think of the word “polite” the image of the butler Geoffrey comes to mind, for some reason. He’s polite and prim (and maybe a little cynical).
Regardless, he is the very picture of propriety.
Well, Laura Click (who guest-posted here yesterday) is like the Geoffrey of the guest-posting world.
She’s the most polite guest blogger I’ve ever met.
I was so impressed with my experience of her guest post that I’m dedicating today’s post on what you can learn from her.
If you’re considering writing for other blogs to help you get noticed as a writer (which is an excellent idea), you would do well to follow her example.
Tips for Guest Blogging Success
Here’s what Laura did (and you can do) to be a very polite and successful guest blogger:
Put the community first
Laura wrote an article on a topic that we both agreed would benefit the community of writers, bloggers, and creatives that read this blog. She spoke directly to you, encouraging you to use your valuable gifts to make money, providing some practical ways to get started.
Submit your “A” content
Laura wrote an excellent article, which shows in the comments and retweets. She not only wrote something that was relevant to this blog’s audience, but she also wrote it very well.
She didn’t send me a recycled post from her blog or some “B” quality content that wasn’t good enough for her own site. She sent me a post that, it seemed to me, she worked on for a while.
Make your article incredibly easy to post
While every blogger has their own preferences, it’s important to have your post as ready-to-post as possible. Make sure that you’ve proofread it and that there’s no funky formatting that will make posting it a hassle for the blogger.
In my opinion, Laura went above and beyond my expectations in this realm. She sent me two documents via email — one that was plain text and another already formatted in HTML. All I had to do was copy and paste the post in my blog and hit “Publish.”
Laura included a photo and provided back-links to other relevant posts on my blog. She even laid out the post in short paragraphs (for easy scanning) and broke up the main points into sub-headers that made the reading more intuitive and comprehensible.
Share generously
Laura leveraged her strong social media presence and connections with other influencers and shared the post link (more than once) on Twitter and Facebook.
Throughout the day, she thanked every single person who retweeted the post, including my Twitter handle in each tweet to encourage others to follow me.
Give precedent to relationship
All of this was birthed out of relationship.
Laura and I were following each other on Twitter. Then, we met at a local meetup. Then, I guest-posted for her blog. Then, I invited her to do the same. And we dialogued via email and Twitter throughout the whole thing.
We didn’t cold-pitch each other. We didn’t try to sell or convince one another of anything. We got to know each other, and then we tried to help one another in our respective community goals.
In my opinion, Laura blew me out of the water. I hope to one day be half the guest blogger she is.
Recommended reading: How to Be a Good Guest Blogger [Problogger]
For further reading, you might enjoy this eBook and course by Chris Garrett on guest posting. I bought it — it’s a little old-school, but the content’s great.
What tips for guest blogging success do you have?
Disclosure: Some of the above links are affiliate links.
