You can gain valuable web traffic, readership, and recognition by guest blogging on an authority website within your industry. How do you secure a writing gig for a major publication?
You craft clear, passionate, and direct pitches to these outfits, and work with their editorial team to reach new audiences. Partner with industry websites to get your byline out there. This can draw a significant amount of new traffic back to your website. Here’s how.
Contact list
Think about the subject you want to blog about. It’s ideal to draw inspiration from your personal and professional interests, because you’ll invest a greater amount of time and effort into perfecting each piece.
Create a list of your dream publications, the ones you admire and read most often. Next, scour their websites and print editions to get the email addresses of important editors. Avoid tip mailboxes, since it can often take editorial teams way too long to sift through these messages.
You want to aim for individual editors who are aligned with the message you want to deliver. They might share common interests or a professional history. You want to get your pitch out to as many relevant publications as possible.
The pitch
Start planning your content pitch, starting with the subject line of your email. This needs to be an attention grabber; it should intrigue the editors enough to want to check it out before their other emails.
If you’ve already started to research a new article, choose one of the most unusual or interesting facts you’ve turned up and use it in your subject line.
Write your pitch in manner that resembles your blog content. Use sub headers and bullet points so skimming editors can quickly identify your purpose and direction.
If you’re pitching to well-trafficked publications, chances are this editor has dozens of pitches sitting in his or her mailbox. You need to show why your content deserves a space on that website, how you can help the readers, and how you can bring value to the publication.
You could liken a good pitch to a job interview. End the pitch with a call to action, and ask the editors give you a decision within a specific timeframe, since you’re pitching the idea to other publications.
Katie Smith Milway, a columnist at the Harvard Business Review, urges writers to note the time of day and week before they send an email. If you’re pitching at the end of day on a Friday, you’re going to get lost in an editor’s slush pile once he or she returns to work on Monday.
When your pitch is ready to go, send it off to every contact on your list.
Columns and periodic content
If you’d like to increase your reach and post frequency, come up with pitch ideas that span a longer period of time. Your idea should key into current professional or pop-culture topics.
For example, you could review your favorite television series or write a column of tips on some new software. Propose a start and end date for your column, the total amount of articles, and their ideal frequency.
If a publication accepts your pitch for a column, be sure to deliver the first few articles early. This can give you some buffer time, allowing you to work out a weekly or bi-weekly content schedule, as well as impress the host website owner.
Honing your byline
Curious readers will look for your byline to get similar content. When you guest blog for a new publication, ask their editorial team to incorporate your blog link into your byline. These short bios typically feature your professional history along with tidbits about your personal hobbies and interests.
Circulating backlinks to your blog through bylines inguest posts on other sites can greatly increase your traffic.
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