Guest Blogging is Worthless If You…

It should at least make people feel welcome. Don’t clutter your blog with too many things. It’s better to keep things simple. A blog consist of a header, content, sidebar and a footer. That’s where we play around with all the colors combination. Depending on your coding and graphics skills, you will rather choose to go for a minimal and safe design.

Even if you are using a free theme or any default design, sure it may not be able to stand out in an instant but i don’t see this will become a reason to turn people away.

The only reason i can think of is probably your design is either too heavy or too loose.

Too heavy – You clutter everything inside and people cannot find the stuff that they are looking for. Lots of advertisement, animated and flashy pictures, disturbing pop-ups.

Too loose – Your blog has nothing on the sidebar, no about page and the content is written by admin, virtually no reason for people to stay on your blog.

People forget one important thing of a blog. That is you need to show that your blog is run by human not some automated robot. A simple design which can bring out your human nature is a good enough design for me.

2. A follow up post that catches attention

After your guest post is published, your job is not yet done. It’s important to prepare another top notch quality post on your blog to welcome your new visitors. It should be the latest post on your blog. A crappy design is going to turn away a few visitors but having crappy content is going to chase away more readers than you can imagine.

There is a need to prepare a few top notch quality content when you submit your guest post to a top blog. My friend Onibalusi Bamidele has some good advice in his guest blogging guide why it is necessary to guest post for a top blog rather than a medium or small blog. The reason is the number of visitors flooding your site will be much much bigger.

They arrive at your site because they know you have written one awesome post at “Blog A”. If your existing content doesn’t match with what they have seen, most likely they will just click around and then leave without saying goodbye to you.

Be sure to prepare another exception content which can immediately rock your new traffic when they are at your site.

3. Have a kick-ass about page

An about page is the most visited page besides your home page. When i visited any new blogs, the content is not the first to catch my attention. It’s the blog’s about page. While you are expecting a spike in traffic after your guest post, do you have a kick ass about page that tells people what your blog can offer?

This is the most important of all. People want to know how your blog can benefit them. Your about page should be all about your readers, not about you. Ideally your about page should be in this particular order:

- What does your site offers?

- Who should read your blog?

- What is the benefits of reading your blog?

After that, your bio comes into the picture. Basically:

- Who are you?

- Where are you from?

- What’s your credentials?

A kick ass about page will help your visitors to know more about you and your blog. People with similar personality will resonate with you straight away through your about page.

4. Make it easy for people to connect and subscribe

You need to have your social buttons prominent at certain parts of your blog for people to easily connect with you. I hate it sometimes when i like a blog so much, yet i couldn’t find a “Follow me” or “Subscribe” button. It just turns people off.

Your social media button should be either high up in the header or on top of the sidebar. Your visitor don’t have to scroll down to look for it. You can also install plugin like What Would Seth Godin Do for a call to action message before/after your post. Make it a point to convenience your reader and it will make a difference.

Few additional points to take note for guest blogging

To maximize the results and benefits of guest blogging, you need to take note of few additional points. First of all;

Consistency

Do you guest blog once in a while? Are you able to retain most of your visitors? Look at Onibalusi, (He’s the guest post king, a perfect example for quoting), he doesn’t guest blog once in a while. In fact, he has written his guest post and submit to most of the top blogs all year long. This is how consistent he can be. Look at the difference he has made on his blog, slightly over 16,000 visits every month. Can you do it? Yes, you can, you need the other factor below.

High work ethic

Whatever we do, we can see a big difference when we slack and the time when we are hardworking. In guest blogging, hardworking is essential as it means lots of writing. Not to mention on researching, planning and idea storming. Any efforts less will not see the consistency that we require to make it a success.

Conclusion

Guest blogging is only worth it when you see the end results in your blog. Every blogger is talking about the benefits and advantages of guest blogging and i have no argument with that. Just that, if guest blogging does not bring you the traffic you desire, why not keep your top quality content in your blog and share with your existing readers.

What do you think?

I like to hear what you got to say. If you are actively guest blogging in other blogs, what did you do to convert your new visitors into your regular readers. Please leave  a comment to share your thoughts.

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Cheers.