How to write an effective guest post

Step-by-step strategy

1. Identify your readers (buyers) personas.
Who is your "ideal customer"? How old is he or she? Where do they live? What do they do for living? What goals drive their behaviours (problems)?
2. Choose the keywords.
Do not worry that you cannot see huge search volumes - you just need to find out what keywords your target readers use.
3. Choose the target blogs.
Taking into consideration your buyers personas, you will be able to choose the target blogs for guest posting. For instance, if you have a poetry blog, try queries like "poem analysis" + "write for us" ("guest post" or "contribute to"). Identify any prolific guest bloggers in your topic and find the sites they post upon (keyword: the name + "guest post by").
Now you are ready to check these blogs manually. Can you see new and interesting articles? Many comments, shares etc? Do not forget to check the Domain Rating (DR).
Remember that not all traffic is relevant. The audience of the host blog should be as close to your own as possible. Otherwise you will only have a short-term spike in traffic.
4. Choose the topic.
Use the ideas that steps #1 and #2 gave you.
5. Contact the blog owners.
Write them about your topic ideas, title ideas etc. If they accept them, you are ready to write the draft.
5. Write the post. You will find ideas in the second part of this article. The most common reasons for refusing a post are poor writing/grammar and shallow content.
6. Track the status of each submission.
High-traffic blogs often have a long publishing queue, so your article could be published several months after its submission.
7. Things to do once the post is published.
Check whether everything is ok with the article (content, links, format). Do not forget to reply to comments (subscribe to them, if possible) and share the post with your own followers.
8. Estimate the results.
Estimate direct traffic, social shares, paying attention to organic search traffic.

Tips for guest bloggers

Write only original content. Writing on the topic that you have already covered on your own blog can save you time and effort, yet articles of this type are often rejected.

Choose the host blog depending on your goals. If your aim is to establish yourself as an industry expert, focus on blogs with wider audience. In case you want to build backlinks to the site, then domain authority is what matters most. Writing for a blog that has a wide readership is certainly beneficial, yet such blogs have longer publishing queue, and they require posts of higher quality.

Produce a post that does not need editing. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are an essential part of a good post.

Check for guidelines. Are there any guest posting guidelines? If you cannot find them immediately, check the FAQ, contact page or about page. Google search on the domain can also bring fruit (try such keywords as "guest post" and "guest posting"). In case your search was not successful, consider a short email asking for guidelines.

Do not overdo with links. There should definitely be a link to your blog in your bio, but be careful with any other links. It makes sense to avoid affiliate links.

Choose the right time. Does the owner of the host blog have a special event coming up? Vacation, maternity leave, conference - anything that may involve lack of time for writing? If you manage to catch such a moment, your post will have a good chance to be published very soon.

Think about their readers. You have probably spent enough time trying to figure out what the audience of the host blog is. Use this knowledge. Blog owners always try to benefit their readers, so interesting, useful content helps your post to be published sooner.

Show you read the host blog. A typical blogger prefers guest posts from someone who often leaves comments to his own articles and who is involved in the community. So it can be a smart idea to spend some time hanging around before you actually submit your post.