Guest blogging is a great way to promote your own blog, your business or expertise. Writers may be asked to contribute a guest post or you may be able to submit a post for consideration. Either way, you are a guest in another person’s blog. Act as if you were a guest in another person’s home. Take your cues from how to write by what is already written on the blog.
Some blogs have submission guidelines. Follow these closely. If the blog does not have guidelines, email the blog owner for them. It’s better to get them now before attempting to write or send a post, than to get a rejection and possibly hard feelings later.
Read the Blog
Take the time to read the blog that you will be writing for. It’s surprising how many bloggers do not do this. A blog owner will not be so dazzled by a guest-written piece that he will overlook the post’s tone, vocabulary and subject matter. For example, if a blog is about the benefits of internet reputation management, then readers are not going to be interested in a writer’s misadventures trying to buy an iPhone or a recipe for a chicken salad, no matter how cleverly the piece is written.
Make note of the voice used in blogging pieces. If everything is the first person point of view, than a post written in third person will seem stilted and grotesque. If the blog is family-friendly, don’t stick raunchy humor in it. Also note which topics have been written about. Either pick a slightly different topic or a new slant on an already existing topic.
Using Images
Images on blog posts not only look better but help tickle a reader’s curiosity and make her want to read the post, or at least linger on the page to see what the image is about. Although many bloggers would never dream about plagiarizing text found on the Internet, they thoughtlessly throw on any image they can download.
Images are copyrighted material. A blog owner can theoretically get sued over posting copyrighted images. Most copyright owners will not sue, but will send angry cease-and-desist letters. This causes stress and bad feelings all around. It also guarantees that you will never be a guest blogger on that blog again. Always use royalty-free images. Never use images that have a watermark or a photographer’s name on them.
