The Complete Guide to Guest Posting

The Ultimate Way To Generate Targeted Traffic To Your Business 1
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The Complete Guide To Guest Blogging
The Ultimate Way To Generate Targeted Traffic To Your Business

by Janus Ng
InternetMarketingClarity.com

Copyright 2011@ InternetMarketingClarity.com 1-

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Introduction

If you ask me what my biggest pain was when building my online business, without a doubt, it's got
to be traffic generation.

I'd been struggling with getting traffic to my sites for almost two years since I decided to start my
own business online.

Within that period, I purchased countless traffic generation courses, and was absorbed by the trivial
and confusing traffic methods that not only drained me, but got me little resutls.

I only realize now what my problems were. First is definitely my mindset. I was guilty of being an
opportunist, thinking that there must be a “secret” tactic that the gurus are not teaching us to get the
kind of traffic they get to their sites. So subconsciously I was chasing for the shiny thing that I hope
somehow some ethical guru decides to reveal to us.

Secondly, I guess another mindset problem, is that I focused on wrong thing. I wanted to make
money so much that I forgot I should have first figured out what my business goals are, who my
customers are, what their pains are, and what they desperately want, in the first place.

In other words, I got caught in the “traffic is money” concept and got carried away. I didn't realize
that my success depended on how much value I brought to my prospective customers. Without that
figured out, I don't have a solid foundation for my business to build on.

Only when I have a business building foundation set up will any traffic generation strategies
become meaningful.

So with that said, I hope if you are like me two years ago, I have made my point clear. Although it
may sound irrelevant that I bring this up in a Traffic Generation report, I hope you understand that
the key to your success online is having your business designed properly before you go out and
drive traffic.

When you have a good business building foundation, meaning that you know exactly your business
and personal goals, your customers, the value you're going to create (in the form of a product or
service, or recommended products or services), and your business model, traffic will flow to your
business.


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Then and only then will traffic generation becomes meaningful and effective.

Focus Is Key

I mentioned above that I focused on making money too much that I lost perspective of what
mattered. When it comes to traffic generation, you also want to focus on the essential things.

When you have been working online for more than one week, you will quickly suffer from
information overload.

You are likely to have learned more than you need to know. And more than you will take action on.
It's exactly the case with traffic generation. You have probably heard so many traffic driving tactics
that you become overwhelmed and don't know where to start. You may even suffer from
procrastination because you are too frightened to take action.

But it doesn't have to be that way. After you finish reading this report, you will feel relieved and
realize that all you need is to drive traffic to your blog/site/business is to focus on ONE single
traffic generation strategy that is easy, takes way less time, yet powerful and effective.

And that is Guest Posting (or guest blogging)!

This report is about using the best traffic generation strategy that is the best use of your time,
leverages the web to its biggest extent, and gets you the most results in the long term. It helps
build your online business in the shortest amount of time.

So let's dive in...


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Section 1: Basic Questions

What is Guest Posting?

If you haven't tried guest posting before, you may be wondering what exactly guest posting is.

By definition, guest posting is the act of writing for another blog or website with the purpose of
getting targeted traffic, quality backlinks, gaining exposure and building relationships with the blog
owner and your prospective customers.

Guest post is a win-win relationship between a marketer or writer (i.e. you) and a larger site that has
the traffic, SEO juice, and a readership that you want to attract to your own site. It is a win-win
because the bigger site needs content. Good content.

Bigger sites like Huffington Post and Mashable and lots of other large niche blogs are all hunting
for great content on a daily basis. That need the content to retain and grow their customers.

Guest posting is similar to article marketing where you submit an article to an article directory to
market your site/blog. If your article is approved and published, you get the benefits of a few
backlinks to your site in the author's bio box, some traffic, and exposure.

You get all of the above with guest posting. The difference is that guest posting is much more
effective and powerful. You get leveraged traffic from other bigger sites related to your niche. So
the traffic and exposure you're getting are huge and targeted.

Who Can Use Guest Posting?


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One of the major concerns of people looking to guest post is whether it works in every niche. A lot
of people wonder if guest posting is workable and effective in niches other than the “make money
online” niche.

The short answer is absolutely. Guest posting is very effective and possible in other niches. It is
based on the idea of creating useful, valuable content for other peoples' sites in your niche in
exchange for traffic, backlinks and exposure. So this marketing strategy is really practical and
effective in other niches as well.

The only difficulty is that it might be a little bit harder to find blogs (which we'll cover later in this
report) to write for if you're not in the make money online niche. But the upside is that you'd get
more results from guest posting because you might be one of the few guest bloggers in your niche.

So provided that there are blogs in your niche, anybody in any niche can use guest posting to
market a site.

What Are The Benefits of Guest Blogging?

Guest posting is really a powerful way to leverage other popular blogs in your niche to achieve your
marketing needs. It's so powerful that it deserves a report like this one.

Depending on the reasons you guest post, you will want to write for different kinds of blogs, and
structure your guest post differently to get the results/benefits you want.

But in general here are five major benefits of guest posting:

1. Getting Targeted Traffic - This is top reason why most people, myself included, write
guest posts. Guest posting is one of the best ways to get highly targeted, highly convertible
traffic to your site. This is the power of leveraged traffic, because you're writing for bigger,
more popular blogs related to your niche. If you're creating value to the readers, they will
follow your site, stick with your site, and very likely to become subscribers to your site.

2. Gaining Subscribers - If getting traffic is your primary goal, then after your primary goal
is achieved, your next objective should be converting the traffic into subscribers. After all,
traffic means nothing if you can't convert them to sales or subscribers, right? If your guest
post provides genuine value and you have an effective opt-in system in place, you can get as
much as 100 subscribers from as little as 400 visitors to your site. That can be achieved by
writing just one guest post! So imagine if you use guest posting regularly and consistently
as your traffic and lead generation strategy. You can build your online business in the
shortest time with the least cost.


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3. Building Backlinks - We all know that quality backlinks are good for SEO purposes. The
more quality backlinks pointing to your site, the higher ranking your site will get. The
beauty of guest posting is that you're not just building backlinks for the sake of building
backlinks. You're getting quality traffic in the first place along with the attached benefits of
building authority backlinks. So you're killing two birds with one stone. Not to mention
that there are other birds you can kill with this one stone. So in my opinion guest blogging
is the easiest way and best use of my time to gain good backlinks. After you use guest
blogging to drive traffic and build backlinks, you don't want to go back and do the tedious
blog commenting or other link building tasks anymore.

4. Gaining Exposure - Guest posting in a popular, high traffic blog is the quickest and
smartest way to gain exposure. Problogger.net, for example, gets tens of thousands of
visitors every DAY. If you managed to have your guest post published on a site like
Problogger.net, you can gain exposure to thousands of people who are interested in
something you have to say. If you become a regular guest blogger, you can easily build your
brand by getting featured repeatedly on the more popular sites in your niche.

5. Gaining Credibility - When your posts appear on a popular blog, you gain the benefit of
the implied endorsement from the blog owner. The readers of the blog are more likely to
trust you because subconsciously they believe that the blog owner (who they trust already) is
endorsing your work by approving to publish your post on his/her blog.

I hope by now you are convinced that guest posting is one of the best ways to market your online
business. I also hope that you are eager to take action. If so, let's move on to the next section.

Section 2: Getting Started

Be Aware Of This Before Getting Started Guest Posting...

Before you start guest posting, there is one important thing you should be aware of.

You should NEVER do guest posting without getting clarity of your goals in the first place.
You should be clear about your goals for guest posting first.

Based on the 5 benefits I've listed above, take a moment and think about the following question.

What Are Your Main Goals?


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When you decide to guest post, think about what your goals are. This helps you make the best use
of your time in the long run. Let me explain. If your primary goals are to get traffic and build a list
of subscribers quickly, you want to write for big blogs. Writing for small blogs to get traffic and
subscribers will be a waste of time. For example, one big blog getting 50,000 of daily visitors is
better than ten smaller blogs with 2,000 daily visitors.

The same is true, and even more so, if your primary goal is to gain subscribers, exposure, or
credibility.

On the other hand, if your main goal is to build backlinks, you're better off targeting smaller blogs.
This is because a couple of (say, 5) good ranking smaller blogs get your better backlinking results
than one big blog. For instance, a big blog such as Problogger won’t give you the kind of results as
5 high quality pagerank 4 blogs with the varied anchor texts to the same page.

So in summary, the only time when you want to write for smaller blogs is when you want to build
backlinks. Otherwise, you're always better off writing for big blogs in your niche.

Section 3: Getting Optimal Results

5 Steps for Guest Blogging

If you know the steps of guest blogging and stick with them, you will get the best results.
Following the following 4 steps helps you get your guest post published on the biggest blogs in
your niche and you get the benefits you want. Here they are:

Step 1: Prepare Your Site/Landing Page - The number one reason behind guest posting is to get
traffic to your site. Whether you want to drive traffic to your blog or a landing page, you should
optimize it to capture your new audience. Otherwise, there's no point sending new visitors to your
site, right? So your primary goal is to have these new prospective customers to opt-in or return to
your business.

For example, if you are linking back to a blog, then make sure you have at the minimum a couple of
your best articles already displayed. Better yet, you have more articles ready to be posted in the
next few days.

If you're linking to your opt-in page, be sure you have a free offer that's ready to be given away in
exchange for an opt-in.

If you are linking back to a sales page, then make sure it is live with a visible call to action in place.

Step 2: Research - Before you start to write your first blog post, the first thing you want to do is


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research. This means reading through the blog, getting an idea of how the blog works, knowing
more about the blog owner, getting a feel of what kind of posts or content are published. You can
take a look at a couple or even dozens of other guest posts published on the blog. This will greatly
increase your chance of success of your post being accepted.

This process is important because a post that works on one blog may not work well on another blog.
For example, DailyBlogTips, a popular blog prefer list posts. On the other hand,
SmartPassiveIncome, another popular blog with comparable alexa ranking, prefers fresh, unique
posts. So you definitely want to understand what kind of post to write for each blog.

Step 3: Writing - While you write the best content for your own blog, when you do guest posting,
you should write with even higher standards. If you know that you are going to get the attention
from a popular blog host, or a lot of readers, and these people could be your prospects, wouldn't you
give your best?

So try to research for the best topic, the best solution to a problem dying to be solved, and do your
best to make your post unique and informative. Create value that is practical and meaningful for
your readers. As a general rule of thumb, the more unique and valuable your content is, the more
results you get out of it.

After you're finished writing, don't forget to proofread it. Make sure it's clear of any grammatical
errors. And that it's clear and presentable for the blog host and your readers.

Step 4: Submitting – The submitting process is one of the important aspects of guest posting.
While there are times when you want to submit a pitch before writing a guest post, most of time it's
best to write before pitching. This saves time for both the blog host and the guest author. If you
send the post along with your first email, the blog host can easily give it a quick scan and take
further action.

It's also important to bear in mind that you're as polite as possible in your email or when interacting
with the blog host. Here's an example of an email that works well:

Hi [blog host name],

I just completed a guest post for [blog name] titled [post title].

I have attached it to this email in a .txt file.

I'd love to know what you think.

Thanks so much,

[your name]


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Step 5: Interaction - Always interact with your readers who've made comments on your guest
posts. This is one of the ways your prospective customer find you. Interacting with your readers is
tremendously important because this is a chance you're telling the readers that you care. You're also
telling the blog host that you respect the blog. So you're not just there for the traffic but really give
value to all parties.

Step 6: Promote Your Guest Post – After you get your guest post published, there's one last step.
Now it's time to focus your efforts to promote that guest post. There are a few ways to do this.
You can make a post on your own site about your published post with a link to that blog. You can
also link the article on your social networks and link back to it from your site.
Every link benefits the search rank of that article. The more traffic you get to that site the better. It
will also help your chances with the site owner if you ever want to post again.

So those are the 4 steps to optimize the results of guest posting. And remember, guest posting is an
extension of your brand and also the site your are posting on. For a highly effective guest post,
remember to do your due diligence.

If you follow the same steps and focus on this strategy consistently (like guest posting once a
week), I guarantee that you will get great results.

Now let's move on to the other important aspects of guest blogging...

Section 4: Finding Guest Posting Blogs

How to Find Blogs

Finding suitable blogs in your niche to guest post may seem like a pain at first. But once you finish
reading this section, it gets a lot easier. You can get started right away with one of the following
methods:

1. Technorati – The easiest way to get started and find bigger blogs in your niche is through
this blog directory. This may not be the best way to find smaller blogs, you'll want to
discover big blogs in your niche if you're ready to guest post on these blogs.

2. Google Blog Search - Google of course is another great way to find big blogs in your
niche. When you're at Google Blog Search, just enter your niche and it will return with a list
of blogs. Make a list of some of the top blogs and check if there's a guest posting page.

Even if don't have a guest posting page, you can always contact the blog owner and ask if
they accept guest posts.


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3. MyBlogGuest - This is a blogging community that provides the best quality for both the
bloggers and guest authors. Here you can not only use its blog directory to find blogs from
a variety of niches, but the blogs you find already allow guest posting. It makes your guest
posting process much easier and more effective.

4. Search Engines – If you prefer to use the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing), you can
find suitable blogs to guest post, too. Here's a technique you can use to discover blogs that
accept guest posts in your niche. Just type your niche name + keywords related to guest
posting. Here are some examples:

Your niche + guest posting
Your niche + guest blogging
Your niche + write for us
Your niche + “guest posting”
Your niche + “guest blogging”
Your niche + “write for us”

There are many other keyword phrases you can use to search for blogs allowing guest blogging.
But even if you use the above technique, you should be able to gather a list of blogs just to get
started guest posting. You can even start submitting with a list of 5 blogs.

Remember, the point here is to take action, do the guest posting, it's not about perfecting the search
process. The more you write for other blogs, the more confident you become. You are also aware
of the common practice of each blog so you can optimize your guest posting for better results.

Section 5: Writing Guest Posts

How to Develop Content

Creating content is one of the major problems online marketers have. If you're stuck, here are some
useful resources to help you come up with topic ideas and generate great content quickly.

1. Visit Top Blogs in Your Niche – Reading through a few popular posts on some of the larger
blogs in your niche really helps you come up with ideas on what to write and how you want
to present your posts.

2. Forums – Forums is a wonderful resource to help you generate content. Just take a look at
the recent threads with high volumes of views and replies. You learn what people are
looking for and what make them excited. You can easily come up with guest post ideas and
content to write on.

Copyright 2011@ InternetMarketingClarity.com 10
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3. Social Media – Social media is an effective way to generate topic ideas. Use your favorite
social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, etc.) to learn what people are
sharing. At the same time you get lots of idea of what people are interested in.

The above are just three of the effective tools to help you get started and generated guest post ideas.
There are many other ways to get ideas for contents. But sometimes it's better to focus on enough
resources and take action, rather than learning all the techniques and get too overwhelmed to do
anything!

Conclusion

Although this is a short report, I have done my best to share with you all the important aspects of
guest posting to help you succeed with this powerful marketing strategy. I hope I can help you get
the most benefits out of guest posting for your marketing needs.
However, with that said, the best way to truly get results is by taking action. Get started, keep your
guest posting consistent. You will see results almost immediately. You'll be happy to spend time on
the things that are essential. I know this will help you grow your online business in the shortest
time!
So now is your turn to follow the steps in this report and start getting traffic, subscribers and
promoting your business to the people who want to hear what you have to say.

To your success and happiness,

InternetMarketingClarity.com

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Thanks!

Thanks so much for the opportunity to help you generate traffic to grow your online business.

If you like this report, feel free to share it with your friends!

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The Complete Guide to Guest Posting

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The Complete Guide to Guest Posting