What is the best way to approach another blogger to guest post on their site? Just email or try to build up a relationship some other way.
Its important to first understand the landscape. For instance... http://www.popehat.com/2009/06/03/search-engine-optimizers-one-step-up-from-the-c1li-marketers/ http://www.popehat.com/2012/12/17/in-which-a-marketeer-throws-her-clients-under-the-pony/ I also make certain to find an actual name so the email is way more personal. If I have zero knowledge of someone I try to pitch things as a win win for everybody as well. I typically handle the due diligence first though. The trick is, there should be a reason to contact someone in the first place. Preferably in a vertical or complimentary market. I always see folks trying to hit up competitors for links. I have been talking about this for years actually. I have another thread floating around that is yet even older than this one. https://forums.digitalpoint.com/thr...inking-my-first-large-domain-project.1835616/ Canonical did a better job of explaining a few things in that thread than I did as well. At the end of the day its all about being human and awesome. To specifically answer your question... If building repore is doable first, its good to go that route. This can typically be done by commenting on their site so they know who you are first. Its perfectly fine to follow folks and ping them on FB, Twitter, Linked in. etc. as well, to get a foot in the door. As I am always telling people. One proper editorial or merit based link kicks the shit of thousands of them of the generated with your typical run of the mill linkwheel peddling nonsense. How would you rather spend your time? I gather you know this stuff as well. I have read a few of your responses in the last few days. You stick out like a sore thumb. We need more of you around here because you are frankly 1 of about 10 people on DP that actually gets it. Welcome to DP, Nigel
Hi Ben, I've guest posted on some high profile blogs as part of link building - including ProBlogger. Just to share my thoughts on what's worked for me... 1. Being polite will get you much, much further than just about any other 'tactic' for getting published. Old-school courtesy really goes a long way because while they have a job to do (pick good authors) they're still fellow humans and sadly don't get a lot of good manners on a daily basis. Seeing that you're polite and professional inspires trust. 2. It really helped me having a few lower-end guest posts already under my belt. It doesn't really matter if these first articles are on 2nd-rate blogs (just not bad websites) - basically you want to give them a really quick way to read your writing and get a feel for your style. Downloading, unzipping, and opening a text or Word doc is too involved and puts too much emphasis on impressing them based solely on that first contact with them. If they're not sufficiently piqued by your intro email, they much less likely to open an attachment. 3. Remember you're human. Don't be afraid to show a bit of humanity - like, not being so starched you bore them to death in the space of two sentences. Stephen King, et al, aren't where they are because they write like a boring sod. They're more apt to hire if they just happen to like you first. 4. Grammar and spelling. Proof your writing at least 4 times. 5. Go the extra mile. In order for me to get a writing gig at a highly trafficked Wordpress themes/dev/review site, I went through the source code of their existing articles. Being as they didn't have a strict format to send my article in, I grabbed their HTML formatting for headlines and links and manually inserted the links which saved them time. After a couple articles, they're now offering me up to $60 for a piece. 6. On the first contact, be brief (they get a lot of submissions) and tell them what your topic is and especially how it can benefit or be of interest to their readers. In fact, as you write your email, do it with the perspective of selling to the reader, not the editor. 7. As Nigel (above) said, try really hard to get a personal name. If I can't get a name, I've found I get a better response when I use the business name and cheer it way up. Like, instead of saying "Dear Sandra," for the intro if i don't have a name I'll word it "Morning ProBlogger!" (or whatever the site and time of day are). - Don't want to sound preachy. I was trying to type fast.. All the best with your article being published!
There are communities that you can join to find bloggers who are searching for guest posters. Here's one of them. http://www.guestblogit.com/
What i always do is to actually write the content what i want to post in their blog as guest post and send an extract of that content. (one paragraph or two). Make sure you write that content as good as possible and keep an element in that extract that makes the blogger curious about the rest of the content or the overall concept of the post.