Ericson
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- 3 Smart tips to move past your fears and become a guest posting machine! - December 18, 2013
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Most of you already know that guest posting is the best way to market yourself in the blogging world.
Yet still, some of you haven’t been able to get this whole guest blogging thing down.
Maybe your pitches have been rejected more often than accepted, and you think your pitches are written badly. Maybe you just don’t know what topics to pitch to them, but at the same time you don’t know how to figure out what you should.
Or maybe you just think that popular bloggers won’t even give you the time of day, and that you’re “not big” enough to write for their blogs.
Well, it doesn’t have to be this way.
We can make you into a fearless guest posting machine. The key? Using proven methods and tools that’ve already given other people success.
Photo by Mark Kelly
The fear of pitching a guest post
Writing a pitch to a blogger – let alone a popular one – is a scary experience.
You’ve got thoughts like “why should he even read my pitch? I’m a nobody!” running through your mind. You’re priming yourself for failure before sending the email out.
This is actually a normal experience.
Every blogger has felt that feeling, even popular ones experience this when they pitch to more popular bloggers.
Why you haven’t moved past the fear
You’re still afraid because you either:
- Have been rejected before
- Have no pitching experience
This means that either your approach is off or you just need a way to move forward despite your fear inducing inexperience.
Use proven methods to push past this plateau
So what do you do? Simple. First, an easy to follow structure is a good start. You’ll get that below.
Second, you need established methods of success to follow. We’re going to copy the methods of people with a ton of guest blogging success and use their approaches/templates.
And if it’s worked for them then it’ll work for you. All that’s left is for you to try it out.
1. Study the blog you want to pitch
People say you should understand the blog you pitch to, but what does that even mean?
Let’s take a page from guest blogging authority Danny Iny, the “Freddy Kreuger” of blogging.
He says you should know these two things:
- What topics are popular there
- What headline structures are popular there
To see what topics are popular there, see if they have a “most popular” posts section. If not, use the “strip the blog” tool.
How does “strip the blog” work? It’s easy, plugin the name of the blog you’re researching, select a date range (2 months is good), and click “strip it.”
You’ll get a list of the most popular posts within the last two months (the most popular ones will be at the top of the list). That’ll show you instantly what topics are hot there. You can take it a step further and see what the commenters talk about the most. If you make a post about that then you are guaranteed high engagement for that post.
Next, see what headlines are popular there.
Look over the most popular posts and see what “structures” and words you see the most often. Here’s the list I made to prepare this post for ComLuv:
- 5 ways to promote your blog post immediately after publishing 189
- WARNING! Don’t publish your next blog post until you read this! 129
- 5 ways to recycle your older blog posts 168
- 5 Guest PostingTechniques You should Live and Die by 109
- 5 killer waysto get the best out of your guest post 131
- Why your articles must reflect the purpose of domain name! 123
- Top 10 Most Useful Free WordPress Plugins For Beginners! 240
- Is There A Legit Google SEO Guide? 116
- Disqus VS CommentLuv Commenting Plug-ins 173
- 6 Workable Tips To Supercharge Your Blogging Career 129
I just ran through the blogging section and grabbed the ones with the most comments (the numbers are the amount of comments).
Here’s what I noticed:
- (x) ways to (something)
- Two successful posts on guest blogging
- From reading the comments I noticed a lot of inexperienced bloggers
- Use of exclamation marks
And this post was the result. Just combine your research with your own knowledge base to create the perfect topic to write about (just like I did with this post).
2. Write a solid guest post pitch
Now we can make contact with other bloggers.
The pitch is very important, and while you definitely want to make it personal, you also want to follow a successful structure.
But first things first, check the blog and see if they have any guest post guidelines. Most of it will be normal stuff, but on some (popular) blogs you’ll need to keep an eye out for things like “trigger words.” They add these to make sure you’ve actually read the requirements, so be extra careful when reading guest post requirements.
With that out of the way, we can pitch our topic.
Remember what I said about structures? That’s what you need here. Follow these outlines loosely (it’s got to sound natural) and confidently. They’ve worked for other people, and they’ll work for you as well.
- Dana Sitar pitch
- Danny Iny pitch (Scroll down a bit till you see the template, it’s in italics)
Two templates are all you need, just pick one and use it (for ALL pitches, and with proper personalization). Here’s a few tips to remember though:
- Use the bloggers name
- Pitch the topic you researched prior to the pitch
- Be concise
- Be personal (but remain true to the template)
3. Write the guest post for the blog
Once you’re pitch is accepted, you get to write it. But if you want to be a “guest posting machine,” then you need a fast and effective method to do so.
So what do I recommend? Like with your pitch, use a template. Once again, you don’t need to follow it strictly.
- Derek Halpern blog post template
- Danny Iny blog post templated (Scroll down till you see “The 4 sections of an awesome blog post”)
Just two again? Yup. Having too many options just slows things down, we want you guest posting successfully TODAY.
Don’t underestimate the power of these established templates. They create the groundwork for you, and have a great track record already. They just work, and so will you if you use them.
So now we’ve come full circle and you have everything you need to fearlessly pitch and write awesome guest posts. So even you beginners have no reason to not guest post, this is literally all you need to get started.
Over to you
Fear is one of those things that stops us from taking action, even if we know we should.
So my question to you guys is this:
How were you able to move past your own fears and start pitching for guest posts? What piece of knowledge made you say “I can write this pitch, and I’m good enough to write for this blog”?
Please leave a comment below with your answer because I’m sure we’ve all experienced this feeling.
