How to format and send your guest post. Some blogs like a Word document, others will want a Google doc, and a few still ask for raw HTML (though this is becoming increasingly rare). You may be given instructions on how to use headings.
There may also be other instructions (i.e. some blogs will ask you to submit your guest post using a specific form, or to use a specific subject line for your email to them).
Make sure you follow these guidelines, as failing to do so could mean your pitch never even gets seen. And if you need some help on the writing front, grab my free blog post templates to jumpstart your process.
If you’re struggling to find guest post guidelines, or if the guidelines don’t make it clear who to contact, I’ve got some actionable tips in this guide to blogger outreach about tracking down the right person to contact (and finding their email address).
Some blogs are happy to be contacted with a full draft of your guest blog post, but many want you to “pitch” the idea first. That’s where smart blogger outreach comes into play.
This normally means writing them an email where you briefly introduce yourself and your credentials, share your suggested guest blogging idea or prepared a great blog title, and outline what your post will be about.
Alternatively, another couple of posts I had in mind are [title of second post] or [title of third post]. Just let me know if either of those sounds like a better fit: I can whip up a quick outline to send over if you’re interested 🙂
I blog at [name of your site] about [topic], and [details of your credentials, if any – e.g. “I’ve been a WordPress developer since 2014”]. If this sounds like a good fit, I’d of course promote my guest post out to my (growing) audience on [social media channel you frequent, or approximate size of your email list].
While this guest blogging pitch is pretty simple and straightforward, there are definitely more nuanced and longer-term relationship building approaches you can take to your outreach as a whole. I highly recommend going through my complete guide to doing smart blogger outreach today.
Even if your guest blogging idea was amazing, they need to see that you can deliver a strong piece of content that’s relevant to their target audience, matches their style and accomplishes some sort of strategic content marketing goal for them.
When you submit your draft guest post, it goes without saying that it should be your best work—especially if this guest blogging opportunity is on a site that can really change things for you.
One way to think about just how you should feel about the quality of your guest post—is to use the bar of making sure it’s up to standards to be a fully ready, top-notch article you’d happily publish on your own blog too.
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.
What Is Guest PostingRelevant: 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.
If 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.