How to Have Your Guest Post Accepted

If you want to write articles for websites or blogs, then you should know how to get them accepted. Because website owners get pitches for guest posts all the time, the tips in this article will help make sure your pitch gets accepted.

What is Guest Posting?

Guest posting is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic back to your website. The idea behind guest posting is simple – you write an article for someone else and include a relevant link to two within the article back to your site. 

What are the Benefits of Guest Posting?

There are many reasons why people contribute to blogs. Some enjoy writing and want to share their thoughts and opinions. Others may feel they have something valuable to add to the conversation.

Whatever the case, it’s important to remember that contributing to a blog doesn’t mean you’re giving away all your secrets. There are lots of benefits to guest posting.

How to be the Perfect Guest Blogger

Guest blogging is one of the best ways to build links back to your website and gain exposure for your brand. It’s also a great way to start conversations with others in your niche, but it does take some preparation before you hit publish. Here are our top tips for writing a killer guest post that will get accepted.

Get to Know the Blog’s Content

Nothing annoys me more than receiving a guest post pitch for a topic that is completely off base for my site. 

You don’t have to spend hours familiarizing yourself with the blog but you should be able to explain what the site is about and it’s goals. You should also do a cursory search to see if they have already written on the topic you want to guest post about.

If they have, is there an area they didn’t cover that you could – if so, go ahead and pitch them. If not, move along. Pitching an article on a topic already well covered will just make you look like you didn’t do your research.

So be genuine when pitching guest posts, don’t pitch sites you aren’t somewhat familiar with, it will show.

Preparing to Pitch a Guest Blogging Post

The first step is to see if they have any guidelines for receiving guest post pitches. If they do, be sure to follow them to the letter. 

Anyone that submits a guest post to me without following the guidelines I’ve provided get’s ignored.

If there aren’t guidelines, then you can craft your own pitch. Be sure to write a compelling headline. This should grab bloggers’s attention and encourage them to read further. It should be short and punchy so it will be easy to read and digest.

Keep your pitch short and too the point, while also showing that you are familiar with their content. People can tell when you’ve just dropped their blog URL into a mass cold pitch campaign.

Lastly, be sure to give them a few different article ideas that would fit nicely with their site and ask which they would prefer.

What Not to Include in Your Pitch

Your pitch should be personable to demonstrate you’re familiar with the site, it shouldn’t be insulting. 

Taking the “this article is okay, but I could write you a better one” approach is just rude, and I can say I’ve never been interested in reading the rest of the email that started out that way.

Submitting Your Guest Article

You may think that getting your pitch accepted was the hardest part, but that’s not always the case. If you write the article you described and the blogger agreed to, then the pitch is the hardest part, but there are lots of ways it could still go wrong.

Follow Their Directions for Submitting

While the content is likely the most important thing the blogger needs to share your guest post, they might ask for a few other things as well such as a bio and headshot. Don’t make them ask multiple times or have to dig around for it, have it all in the same email or document.

How to Craft a Great Author Bio

The guest bio is one of the most important parts of any guest post. It’s where you introduce yourself to people who may not know you yet. It’s also a great place to highlight what makes you different from everyone else and entice them to visit your site.

If you’ve never written one before, take what you have for your social media profiles as a starting point. But remember to keep it fairly succinct and meet and limits the blogger sets.

Send them The Correct Article

I shouldn’t have to say this, but it does happen. When sending them the article, make sure you’re sending the correct article.

I once had someone agree to write a guest post for my personal finance site and the article I received was a review on various knives. Clearly, not a fit.

Bloggers are busy and one of the reasons they are willing to accept guest posts is to make their life easier by having to create one less piece of content. As soon as you make it hard for them, they are less likely to accept the guest post or publish it.

Create Quality Content

I’m not opposed to people using AI to help with their writing, I am opposed to people only using AI for an article. It shows it’s not good and large parts of it won’t make sense.

So however you write your content, make sure the final draft is worthy of the site, hopefully, your standards for your own site are high. So if it’s not of a quality that you would publish for your site, don’t expect someone else to be willing to publish it on theirs.

Additionally, don’t plagiarize. It shouldn’t need to be said, but you’d be surprised how often this happens.

Don’t Include Affiliate Links

Unless they have expressly said that you can include your own affiliate links in the article, don’t use any affiliate links. It’s bad manners and will either result in the links being removed, or the article not published at all.

What to Do After Sending the Article Over

First, be patient, the chances of your article being published the day you send it over are very slim. Bloggers are busy they may not even get around to reading it that day. 

Don’t try and follow up the next day, while it may be a big priority on your list, it may not be for the blogger (for any number of reasons). 

The earliest I would suggest following up is 1 week after you sent over the draft. And no more than once a week after. 

A reminder is helpful, flooding their inbox is anything but, which is why you should follow up too often.

Bottom Line

With the number of terrible guest post pitches out there, it really isn’t too hard to make your own pitch stand out. All you have to do is be a person and treat the blogger you’re pitching like a person too. If you do those two things with our tips in this article, you’ll find success.