Tips for Effective Guest Post Writing

A great way to promote your blog is to write a guest post. Bloggers will undoubtedly appreciate the new content and in return for your efforts, you will be awarded with a link back to your blog as well as exposure to a new audience. However, do not think that just turning in any old post will do. Many bloggers have high expectations for guest posts, so do not disappoint by following these tips for effective guest post writing.

Pick a Relevant Guest Post Topic

After you have chosen a blog that you want to submit your guest post to, take some more time to look through the blog and choose a topic to write on that is relevant. For example, if your host blog of choice is a cooking blog, you do not want to submit a guest post about real estate or environmental law because those topics have nothing to do with the blog's focus. Bloggers will often reject irrelevant guest posts so do not waste your time writing about something that does not fit.

Make Sure Your Topic is Unique

Take the time to look through the archives of the host blog in order to pick a post topic that is new. You do not want to write on something that has already been covered as bloggers will most likely reject it. Ensuring that your topic is unique before you even begin researching and writing will reduce the chances of your article being rejected. You can even e-mail your guest post topic suggestion directly to the blogger in order to gain their approval before you begin.

Write and Edit Well

Just because you are writing for someone else does not mean that you can slack off in your post quality. In fact, you should strive to make your guest post higher in quality than your regular ones because that post will be what introduces you to a whole new potential audience. Write clearly and informatively, make sure all of your facts are correct, and edit thoroughly before you submit your guest post to check for typos and grammatical errors. A blogger will more appreciate a flawless guest post as well because that means they do not have to work as hard at correcting your errors.

Follow Your Host Blog's Guest Post Guidelines

Many blogs have guidelines for guest posts, such as a required word count. Be sure to ask about any such guidelines if you are unsure or to read carefully over the host blog's guidelines before you get started. These rules are something that bloggers will likely not want to compromise over, so make sure your post fits within the rules or else you risk having your guest post rejected.

A guest post is a great way to gain more exposure for your blog. Make it count!

By-line:
Katheryn Rivas, a freelancer who blogs about online universities, contributed this guest post. She can be reached via email at: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

5 Reasons Why Your Blog May Be Losing Traffic

You have worked hard tweaking the layout, writing up posts, and regularly devoting your time and effort to keep your blog running. Your hope was to draw in ever-increasing numbers of visitors in order to drive up the per-click revenue you receive from advertisers on your blog, or even just to expose more people to your business. Yet, now you may have noticed that your readership has been decreasing rather than increasing. If this sounds like your case, examine your blog and blogging habits to determine whether any of these following common issues could be the culprit behind your diminishing subscribers so that you can fix the concern and bring your traffic back.

 1. Your blog is difficult to navigate or is an overall eye sore. A first impression is an important one, and if your blog is cluttered with advertisements or has an aesthetically displeasing layout in general, your visitors may decide to leave without even reading what you have to say. No one wants to spend too long looking for your content or links to different parts of your blog, so make those things easy to find. In addition, make your content easy to read by ensuring that your text is in a legible color and that your background and graphics do not overshadow the text. A blog that is easy to look through and read will undoubtedly encourage more visitors to stick around and revisit in the future.

2. You do not post as often as before. Blog visitors like to feel that all of the content on a blog is new and fresh. Unfortunately, any post that is more than a week old can seem stale, even if a visitor is stumbling on your blog for the first time. Bloggers should strive to update at least once a week, though updating more often can be beneficial. If you know that you will be absent from blogging for an extended period of time, do not simply disappear. Instead, either let readers know of your hiatus and provide a tentative return date or create a backlog of new posts to run automatically while you are away. This way, your blog can stay updated even when you cannot be there to do the updating yourself.

3. Your posts have strayed off topic. Running out of things to post about is a struggle many bloggers encounter, but that does not mean that you should just post about things that are completely irrelevant to your blog topic. After all, your readers visit your blog to learn about your blog's niche. While a handful of off-topic posts are fine, if you constantly post about unrelated things, your readers may simply stop reading your blog because it no longer interests them. Try to go back to your blog's roots and create relevant posts to bring readers back.

4. Your blog has suddenly become all about you. Blogs are most successful when they are interactive. If you used to respond to comments and visit other blogs to leave comments but no longer do so, you could be losing readers. This is because many of your readers may run blogs themselves, and if they feel that you do not put in any effort to read their posts, they may stop putting in effort to read yours. If you have trouble keeping up with all of your commenters, simply take the time to respond to a few every time you post to show your visitors that you are listening to them.

5. Finally, your posts have increasingly haphazard. Take a look at your posts when they were attracting the most comments and clicks, and then take a look at your latest posts. If your latest posts are not as well-written, researched, or fleshed out as your previous ones, then your readers may be leaving your blog because you no longer produce quality material. If you are struggling with putting out quality posts because of time constraints or stress, try scaling back the amount of times your post per week. For example, if you used to post every day, try posting only every other day so that you have more time to create something really worth blogging about.

By-line:
This guest contribution was submitted by Raine Parker, who specializes in writing about online accounting degree.  Questions and comments can be sent to: raine.parker6@gmail.com.