You recently read that B2B guest blogging can benefit your Technology business in many ways. It builds credibility and authority, creates and deepens relationships with an interested audience, and increases brand awareness with that interested audience.
Here are the 7 steps to B2B Guest Blogging.
1-Find the right blogs to pitch
What blogs do you read on a regular basis? Chances are your audience is reading it too, so why not write a guest post for them?
Hold on there, before you start searching for an email address for them, you’ve got to make sure that they’re the right blog for you. You want to write for an A-list blog, or possibly a B-list one, and nothing less. What are the signs of an A-list blog? There are more, but here’s a quick checklist:
- They have a professionally designed blog and consistent brand look & feel across all platforms
- The authors are interviewed, retweeted, mentioned by other A-listers, etc. Is their content their #1 focus? It should be obvious on the blog that they’re big into their content and provide only the highest quality content.
- They give away content. Yes, that’s right. They give away content. If they only charge for it, chances are they aren’t on the A List.
You want to look at the writer of the blog, not just the blog itself.
2-Read their guest blogging guidelines
Do you even know if the blogs you read accept guest posts? Not all of them do, so only hit up the ones that do. No sense in wasting your energy with ones that will never publish your post.
Follow the guidelines when submitting a query. That’s the number 1 rule of guest blogging. There may be guidelines on format, topic, length, etc., so make sure to stick to what they want.
3-Study your target blog’s content
Figure out what kind of reader your target blog attracts. Successful blogs usually try to deliver consistent content, so start formulating guest topic ideas that are in that range. No sense in pitching an idea that’s been covered to death, or isn’t relevant to the blog.
Notice the format of the blog. Are they short 500 word posts, or 2,000 word essays? Long or short sentences? Punchy and funny, or stoic and academic. These are important factors to note and keep in mind when writing both the post AND the query.
4-Write a quality, confident pitch guest post
Jordan Cooper advises this in on Copyblogger, and I agree that it can help increase your post acceptance rate. A post is not a magazine article, so a query isn’t entirely necessary. Plus, A-Listers tend to be extremely busy, so cutting out the chit-chat and getting down to the heart of your email can be refreshing. You’ve just decreased the amount of work they have to do on their end, and by creating compelling, reader-focused content, they’re more likely to just approve it.
In the worst case scenario, they decline it, and you can move on to another blog, or even put it up on your site. In the end you’ve written some high-quality content that needs to be published somewhere, right?
5-Write a quality post
See #4 above, and don’t forget to include a good CTA in there, as well as links back to your site in your bio. (Reminder: Link back to a landing page on your site for easier maintenance.)
6-Edit and remove all the weak words in your writing
As part of writing quality content, you should eliminate all weak words in your writing. It also adds a level of professionalism and authority to your brand that will increase your Trusted Adviser level.
7-Write regularly for the blogs
This goes back to the commitment idea of blogging. An ad-hoc guest posting schedule on a blog is fine, but to really super-charge your relationship with the interested audience, you’ve got to keep coming back. You’ll increase the number of connections you make with the regular readers of that blog, and also be there for the casual readers too.
Secret Step 8-Get the word out about your guest posts
You’ve been working hard to create that new B2B guest blog content, but don’t forget to tell everyone about it too! Your existing audience may not be part of that new interested audience, so make sure they see your new, great content.
Connecting with a new audience is as simple as adding B2B guest blogging to your content marketing strategy. It takes a little work and a little time, but if you do it right, you’ll start to see the returns.
