Photo by kevindooley The first step is always the hardest. When it comes to blogging there are a lot of first steps. The first post. The first comment. The first RSS Subscriber. The first negative reaction. And so on. One of the best ways to make these firsts come quicker and grow your blog and audience is to show off your ideas and expertise with a guest post. In my own work, I have had new blogs grow over night through strategic guest posting on relevant sites that were of high quality and had an active and responsive audience. The one objection I always hear from new bloggers is that they have a hard time coming up with content for their new site, and want every post to be great so why would they create more content and put that on someone else’s site and help them grow their audience. The answer I combat with is something like, “you are crazy if you think that, this is social media for Pete’s sake.” Then I go into the benefits of guest posting to help their new site out. It typically looks like this:

You get to showcase your ideas to an established audience.

When you are first starting your blog, you need to get a sense that your ideas and your posts resonate with people. When you have no readers it is tough to see if what you are putting your heart and soul into is even a good idea. Writing a guest post for an established blog will get you real time feedback of your writing. This will come from the blog author or editor as they review your submission to put up on their site. The second source of feedback comes from their readers. They can comment, Tweet and talk about your post and viewpoints and if they love your writing they can become instant fans of you and your new blog.

You get an author byline.

Nearly every site that allows you to guest post gives you a sentence or two to tell your story. This is one of the most valuable things that guest posts offer for two huge reasons: 1. You get a link back to your site. The best way to get Google to pay attention to your site is by getting links from other sites recommending yours. With the author byline you are able to provide a link back to your site. What happens next is that Google comes to the blog post and finds the link back to your site, which ultimately gives you more visibility to Google and lets their robots crawl your site. The other more obvious reason to provide a link in your author byline is to drive traffic back to your site. If a reader of the blog you are posting on likes you or your post, they will click through and check out your site where you have the opportunity to capture them via RSS, email or have them add you to social media profiles for further communication. 2. Tell Them Who You Are The second key feature of the author byline is to tell the blog’s audience who you are and what your background is. This gives you the freedom to brand yourself in front of this audience. Look at my author byline at the end of this post to see how I have done it to give you an idea of how to format your author byline.

Leverage the Blog’s Social Presence

When you guest post on a blog, the author or editor will typically promote your article on their social media profiles such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. This will open you up to an even larger network as many bloggers are starting to have a larger following on Twitter or other networks than RSS Subscribers. Now, this is social media and those that participate and pay it forward are the ones that end up getting the biggest bang for their buck (or post). So remember to promote your guest post to your network, no matter how big or small it happens to be.

Connection With Their Community

If you are fortunate to receive comments on your guest post, it opens the door to connect further with their readers and give them additional reasons to connect on your site. Be sure to answer all comments on your guest post with the same integrity and intensity with which you wrote the original post. If a commenter reacts negatively to your post, remember that this blog and their members belong to the blog’s author, so respect their opinion and respond with your ideas in a professional manner.

So Now…Post

Now that you see some of the benefits of guest posting when you are starting your blog, you can see why this is such an effective way to grow your own readership, define your voice and writing style and connect with other like minded community members. Tell us about your guest posting experiences below. We’d love to hear how they have benefited your site and how they were able to grow your following. This post was written by Greg Rollett, an online marketer from Orlando, Fl. He blogs about lifestyle design through Internet Marketing.

Tags: Blogging, blogs, guest posting, online marketing, Social Media