“How to write a guest post” leads to millions of results in Google. If you write guest posts just because you enjoy writing, you’ll find everything you need from those tutorials.
But if you want business results (=leads and sales), forget the usual advice. It’s not bad advice. Those tutorials just don’t even try to tell you how to write a guest post that attracts leads.
Guest blogging can be an efficient and consistent way to grow your list (=get leads). On average, when I write a guest post, more than 170 new people join my email list. For a long time it was the primary way I used for building my business.
When you learn to write guest posts that attract leads, you might not need any other marketing methods for reaching new people. A single post can net you over 1,000 leads. And with the right process and some practice, you can write a guest post in about two hours.
The effective guest posts will also be some of the most popular the host sites have ever seen. So, they’ll ask you to write for them again. Writing effective guest posts doesn’t mean being sales-y or not giving value in the post. If your guest post is sales-y or lacks value, it won’t even be published. Or if—for some reason—it’s published, it won’t generate results for you.
So, here’s how you write guest posts that attract leads.
This is part 4 of the “How to get traffic and high-quality leads efficiently—3 most consistent methods for 99% of companies” series.
Part 1: Traffic is a vanity metric—here’s what pros track instead
Part 2: How to be smart about advertising and make a consistent profit
Part 3: How to choose the right advertising methods for your business
Part 4: How to write a guest post that attracts leads
Part 5: Partnership marketing methods—examples for all businesses
The usual goals for writing guest posts
The usual goals for guest blogging are:
- Get lots of social media shares.
- Get lots of comments.
There’s nothing wrong with social media shares or blog comments. The attention means you have something interesting to say. And if blogging is your hobby, sharing your ideas with the world might be all you wanted.
But if you have a business, the feel-good numbers (social media shares and comments) mean about as much as your shoe-size. The time you put into guest blogging has to lead to a profit. If it doesn’t, why would you waste your time doing it? Keeping yourself busy with tasks that could work—but don’t—isn’t exactly a smart decision.
Marketing can be fun, exciting, and rewarding. It can even be incredibly valuable for the people who see it. But it should also be profitable for you.
As long as you don’t track leads and sales as the primary numbers, it doesn’t make much sense to think of how to write a guest post. The same is true of all marketing methods. But with guest blogging, the usual advice sets you up to fail by focusing on the wrong goals.
The usual advice on how to write a guest post
Even with its shortcomings, the usual advice on guest blogging gets a few things right. It’s not much of a compliment since those few things are damn hard to mess up. It takes more to do them well, but the list of things to do is quite obvious.
But in case you’re new to the concept, here’s how to write a guest post and get it accepted:
1. Find the right sites to write for
Size, audience, tone, existing content… There’s a lot to consider if you want good results.
The most important part is to make sure many enough of your target customers read the site. You can start your search from my list of the best sites that accept guest posts.
And of course, only write for sites that clearly relate to what you do. I get several guest post pitches every day (even though I don’t accept guest posts)—and more than half of them have nothing to do with marketing. Why would I publish a guest post about golf travel, car audio systems, or insurances?
2. Find and read their guest post guidelines
Try to find their guidelines (use Google, check their contact page, etc.). And if you can find some guidelines, follow them. If they’ve gone through the trouble of detailing how they want you to pitch a guest post for them, you’ll just come off as arrogant (and dumb) if you do something totally different.
3. Pitch a guest post that fits the site
Suggest a few topics that would clearly be valuable for their audience. The topic also has to be connected to what your business is about. And if you’re smart, pick a topic that sets you up to write a guest post that attracts leads (we’ll get to that in a moment).
If this sounds easy to you, it’s because it is easy. Or so I would think. But you wouldn’t believe how often people get it wrong.
4. Write the guest post
Stay focused on your topic. Don’t ramble. Make sure everything is understandable. Edit as well as you can. Include examples. Just write a good blog post. And make people want more—that’s what makes them come to you.
5. Be ready to edit
If you’re writing for bigger sites (as you should), they’ll likely have an editor who will have comments about your post. Even if you don’t make edits quickly or aren’t too gracious about their criticism, you might get your post published.
But imagine you’re in their shoes. Will you invite someone to write for you again if they’re a pain to work with?
So, make their job easy. Ask for clarification if you don’t understand what they’re suggesting, but remember that you’re writing for their site—it’s their house and their rules.
The rarely-used trick that makes guest posts effective
This is the most significant difference between normal guest posts and guest posts that attract leads. There are other things to remember, but this is the part no one seems to remember.
Good guest posts (á la usual advice) leave readers feeling like they got what they needed.
That’s not quite the right way to go.
Of course, a guest post has to deliver on what it promised. If it was supposed to explain how to make millions by playing computer games all day long, you need to deliver on that promise. If you don’t, then the post is bad and won’t (or shouldn’t) get published.
But your guest post also has to make people see what would be the next step. If it doesn’t, you won’t get leads.
If you want people to do something, make them see the next step toward something they want. And give them a way to take that step.
For example, your guest post could describe a few ways to make millions as a gamer. And you could recommend one of the options. You could point out how many people have done it already. You could point out how much safer it is compared to the other options. You could mention how easy it is to get started.
That would make people want to know more about that specific option. If you then offer them a step-by-step guide on that, which they get after signing up to your email list, you get leads.
You can’t usually include links to your stuff inside the guest post. But you can do it in the “byline” or “author bio” at the end of the post.
If you learn to deliver on the original promise of your guest post while also creating a desire to take the next step, you can get great, consistent marketing results. It’s the most significant thing most advice on how to write a guest post misses.
To be fair, it’s not necessarily easy. But if you learn the right post structures, it’s not too hard either.
This is part 4 of the “How to get traffic and high-quality leads efficiently—3 most consistent methods for 99% of companies” series.
Part 1: Traffic is a vanity metric—here’s what pros track instead
Part 2: How to be smart about advertising and make a consistent profit
Part 3: How to choose the right advertising methods for your business
Part 4: How to write a guest post that attracts leads
Part 5: Partnership marketing methods—examples for all businesses
