Learn How to Write a Guest Blog or Use One on Your Site

Guest blogging is a method used by the owners of blogs to increase traffic to their sites. Guest bloggers offer to write content for other, similar blogs in their industry as guest bloggers. In exchange, they receive links to their own blogs and an opportunity to promote their own names and blogs in their chosen industries.

To be successful as a guest blogger, you must write content that is high quality and targeted to your specific area of expertise or industry. The quality of your posts is determined by several criteria:

Always include your name in your post. If the site where you are posting allows it, include a brief targeted bio and a link to your blog.

High-quality, relevant copy is crucial for another reason, too: Google's search algorithms place a premium on such content. Keeping your copy top-notch—for whatever site you write it, for whatever audience—should be a priority for search engine optimization.

Unless you are already famous, you should start small. If you are not well known in your industry, highly visible sites won't jump at your offer to write an unsolicited post for them.

Contact blogs for which you are interested in writing a guest post and explain your interest. Mention your niche or area of expertise, the topic you'd like to write about, and any related experience and skills. Give the sites the link to your own blog. In almost every case, the other blog owners will visit your blog to evaluate your writing ability and subject expertise before considering accepting your offer to serve as a guest blogger.

Be aware that many websites use guest blogging solely to build links to their websites. Search engines penalize poorly written guest posts that are clearly meant to deliver backlinks only and not to benefit the reader. Avoid this by delivering high-quality, targeted posts. Use these same criteria when individuals contact you with offers to submit guest posts for your blog.