A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Your First Guest Post

Your own blog might be packed with great content … but it won’t be doing you much good if you don’t have any readers.

One of the best ways to bring readers to your blog is to write guest posts on larger, related, blogs. This not only gets your name and writing in front of people, it also helps your Google rankings (because you’ll get a link to your site from a high-pagerank blog).

If you’ve never guest-posted before, you might not know where to start. Here’s your step-by-step guide:

Step #1: Choose Your Target Blog

Some bloggers come up with an idea and write their post, then look for a blog that’s a good fit. But it’s more efficient to select your target blog first — because this will influence everything from your initial idea to your writing style.

A good target blog is large, on-topic, and clearly accepts guest posts (e.g. you’ve seen other people’s guest posts on that blog).

Step #2: Write Your Guest Post

As you write your guest post, keep in mind any guidelines from your target blog. (Most larger blogs will have guest post guidelines — try using the search box to find these if they’re not immediately obvious.)

Make your guest post focused and useful. Give it a clear structure (introduction, main body, conclusion) and try to write it in a similar style to that used by your target blog.

Step #3: Edit Your Post Carefully

Allow plenty of time for editing your post. You might even want to print it out so you can read it through on paper. Make sure the post flows well — you may find that you need to rearrange sentences or paragraphs to make your progression of ideas clearer.

Watch out for any clumsy phrasings or unclear sentences, as well as spelling mistakes and typos. If you can, get a friend to look over the post for you, so they can give you some feedback.

Step #4: Add Your Bio

Finally, don’t forget to include a bio. This is a sentence or two of text about you, usually written in the third person (for an example, just glance down to the final few words of this post, which start Ali Luke…)

It’s a good idea to tell readers who you are (e.g. “John Smith is a keen gardener…”) as well as giving them a link to a specific resource on your blog. That might be a free ebook, a great post, or a special landing page designed for them. Don’t just link to your main URL, because that’s not enough of an incentive for many people to click on your link.

So there you have it — a completed guest post. It’s as simple as that! Why not do some research today and find a great target blog for your first guest post?

Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach. If you want to take your blogging further, join her weekly newsletter list to get two free ebooks on blogging (“Ten Powerful Ways to Make Your Blog Posts Stronger” plus “Ten Easy Ways to Attract Readers to Your Blog … And Keep Them There”) as well as lots more goodies.