Guest posting is the concept of writing or publishing content for another website. It is a way for your niche to reach a wider audience. It is essential to maintain guest posting etiquette and avoid certain things.
You want to let the lead know that you are a good guest. This way, you respect each other’s work and create more opportunities for yourself. Hence, understand your editor’s perspective, pitch it right, and continue following up.
You should know how to pick the right target, review the guidelines, and write for the audience. Some essential tips should be followed while doing the same.
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Importance of Etiquette While Guest Posting
You might wonder why exceptional etiquette is required to publish an article online. You need to write and share your article with an external website.
This is where the uniqueness of a guest post comes into the picture. This is a practice where you are an outsider writing for someone else. You require good soft skills and measures to understand what the source expects from the published piece.
You must understand the editor’s needs. Know your target audience and write about your niche while considering their perspective.
Guest posting also requires you to express your uniqueness and bring something new.
It is evident that submitting original content while working for an external source becomes even more critical; plagiarised content might give you a bad reputation with outsiders.
Hence, with good guest posting etiquette, you can create a good impression in the market and generate more and more opportunities. While most of this concerns your content creation skills, some aspects also deal with specific soft skills, such as communicating with different platforms. Hence, you can perfect your guest posting etiquette with a mixture of both.
Make sure to follow the following guidelines while working on a guest post:
Understand the Editor’s Perspective
While guest posting is all about adding value based on your niche for another website, it is important to consider what the editor wants. Before deals are made regarding a guest post, you will often have a conversation with the host. This is where you pick up on what they want and expect from you.
Post-creation becomes very easy once you understand the other party’s perspective. They know their audience the best; hence, your content should reflect what this audience will attract. A good editor can tell at first glance whether the post is relevant to his or her audience and whether it will attract traffic to their website.
Feel free to take advice and suggestions from the editor. Do everything you can to better understand your target audience.
Other than this, you can gain many other insights from the editor. They know what their website posts are and how they work. You have to understand that while you are the post’s author, the process still involves two parties that must work together.
Hence, be open to new recommendations and try to pick your editor’s brain.
Build a Rapport with Your Pitch
Your first impression is your last impression—this is a very true saying that fits perfectly with your guest posting etiquette. Before writing a guest post for someone, you must research the website well. The pitch that you give should be convincing enough.
Try adding a personal touch to your pitch. The pitch needs to be short. Don’t try to beat around the bush. Make your point and articulate it well enough for the other person to understand it at once. No one likes to hear long stories about why they deserve an opportunity. Remember that you are not the only one giving a pitch; many people are looking for the same opportunity, and the site owners want to save time on one person.
Also, it is essential to add your post title. You can do this by making it a part of your email subject line or in the heading of your email’s body. Another thing that your email should be able to explain well is what your post will include and what it brings to the table. A summary of your agenda for the post gives the reader an idea of what you are looking forward to.
Also, mention points that convince the authority to take in your post. This means you must make them understand how your post will be helpful for their audience. Try to correlate all that you have in mind with the interests of their target audience.
Moreover, adding a personal touch will also help you gain a good rapport with the person you are addressing, which will help you manage things smoothly in the future.
Keep it brief, highlight your expertise, include a link to your works, and feature your social media.
Follow-up and Stay in Touch
The pattern of communicating with the authorities starts right at the time of your pitch. Adding a personal touch and addressing the reader with their name is your first step at creating a good relationship with the receiver.
If you don’t hear back from them within a few days, you can send a follow-up confirmation email asking about the status of your pitch.
Once your pitch has been accepted, you should stay informed. Ask for basic details regarding deadlines, word count, style guidelines, etc. This way, the receiver knows that you are enthusiastic about the project, and you also gain more clarity on what work you are supposed to be doing.
Moreover, discussing how both parties will be an asset to each other and aid each other in promotion helps you create a relationship with them.
During your writing and submission phase, keep them updated on the status of your post and how long it will take. Also, make sure to keep them updated in case there are any delays. Be open, and feel free to ask any questions during the process.
Furthermore, you might receive constructive feedback if you submit them a draft or a rough sketch of what your post will look like. This will help you generate the perfect article that fulfills everyone’s needs.
Staying in touch helps you gain more clarity with your work and builds long-term relationships with better and newer opportunities.
However, there are many other ways of building these long-lasting relationships.
Build Tight and Long-Lasting Relationships
The primary purpose of you looking forward to a guest post is to promote your work. You cannot do this with a single post. You always want more and more platforms where you can publish your posts. Hence, every guest post you get approved for is a new opportunity to find more posting opportunities. This means you must build long-lasting relationships with the editors and other people involved in the second party.
The building up of these relationships starts in the very beginning. This means you start building a new relationship when you send your pitch. However, to keep these relations going, you must build up and stay in touch even once your post is live.
Use social media, tag the host blog online, and share insight from the post. This will drive more audience towards them.
Be constantly active with them via email or any other online platform you officially interact with. This means you can continue sharing your views and more content on industry-related agendas with the host.
With these small offers of interaction, you build a relationship with the host that allows you to increase your benefits from the post and use this for future posting opportunities. They will help you gain a more organic audience and increase the visibility and growth of your brand.
By consistently delivering high-quality content, communicating well, being active, and engaging well with the host, you can form long-lasting relationships and attract a larger audience to your work.
Appropriate Length and Fact Check
If the guidelines you receive from the host don’t mention a specific word count, do your part and ask them. Otherwise, you can spot-check the length of whatever existing content they have on their website. Pick on a middle ground to decide what size you want your post to be. Both writing too much and too little can be a turnoff for the reader.
Always pick your information from the most authentic sources. This does not mean that you like your content from a trusted blog. You must visit the source of the information to make sure there are no chances of factual inaccuracies in your content. This is especially true with any form of statistical data.
If found, the factual blunder might cause the audience to lose trust in you, which could hamper your future opportunities.
What to Avoid?
For a successful guest post, avoiding inevitable commonly made mistakes is essential. These include:
Ineffective Pitch
One of the first steps for a guest post is to make a pitch. It is essential that your pitch is perfect and catches the eye of the person being addressed. Make sure to provide all the necessary information in a concise and well-articulated manner to the host. If you beat around the bush, the reader loses interest and moves forward.
Try to make your pitch as unique as possible. This uniqueness should reflect what new things you bring to the table. One way to do so is to read through the website before contacting them.
Poor Content Quality
Creating content just for the sake of it can be very harmful to your reputation as a guest blogger. Make sure to put your heart and soul into the post because it does not just reflect on your work but also the website’s work. With a well-written post, you catch the eyes of the people and gain the trust of the public.
Be sure that there are no grammatical errors or silly mistakes. Create a well-articulated post with a well-planned structure.
Ignoring SEO Best Practices
Writers are often prone to taking the strength of SEO very lightly. This is not good for your reach based on the algorithm. Ensure that the best SEO practices are inculcated, including clarity, keyword usage, internal and external links, and proper headings.
Failing to Promote
Once your guest post is live, your work is not over. You still have to make it reach the audience.
Please share the post on your social media and try to make it available to a larger audience. Make your post reach more on marketing platforms than just your online profiles.
This drives the audience towards your work and helps the host. This way, even the host understands your value as a guest blogger and will continue working with you in the future.
Absence of an Author Bio
As the author of the post, not adding your credentials and contact details to the blog would be a huge mistake. You would miss out on multiple suture opportunities and engagement. People might end up liking what you wrote and want to reach out to you with their ideas and better opportunities.
Hence, always add your details, share your social media, highlight your expertise, and add a link to your blog while guest posting.
Not Engaging with the Reader
The success of your post depends on the readers. They decide whether they like your writing and share it accordingly.
One way to create a reputation with readers is to engage with them online. Don’t ignore their comments; address their feedback as much as possible. This gives a personal touch to your relationship with the person reading it.
If you still need to do so, you might be putting your reputation as a blogger at stake.
What not to do is a crucial part of your guest posting etiquette.
Conclusion
Guest posting is a very important marketing strategy today, where algorithms decide everything. It is a way to build newer relationships and gain more exposure.
You should take it lightly and ignore guest posting etiquette, but avoiding this is highly recommended. If you follow this basic and straightforward etiquette, these posts can be constructive for you and your profile. Hence, knowing your audience and host and working hand in hand with them is crucial to creating a good reputation for yourself out there.
FAQs
Which practices should you avoid while doing guest posting?
While writing a guest post, you must refrain from posting a vaguely researched article. You must avoid multiple things, including adding no value of your own, not editing the post, or not checking the originality of your post.
What is SEO in guest posting?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is one of the main marketing strategies in today's times when algorithms play such a major role. It allows one to optimize the content of a given website and structure it in a way such that its visibility is improved.
Who needs guest posting?
Guest posting is important for businesses and professionals. These posts allow you to spread the word about your work and practices. Through guest posts, you attract an audience different from the audience that you already have. This is because a guest post is essentially a post that you make on another website with a whole new audience.
Is guest posting free or paid?
Guest posting is not about money-making. It is an excellent way of marketing and gaining exposure outside your current bubble. Most bloggers expect you to make a guest post for free, and you must take advantage of the advantages it gives you. There are only so many blogs that will want you to make payments for a post.
How long is a guest post?
Generally, a guest post is about 500 words long. However, the rest depends on different websites and their perspectives. It is better to ask the host for the expected word count before you start writing your post. However, 500 words are more than enough for a good, short, and crisp post.