What I learned from three weeks of guest posting

I certainly appreciate your guest blogs on my page - the part that was missing was the pull through to the book - I would also consider a new marketing blitz - that will now tie your name with the book - with the blogs - you have definitely been introduced to a new crowd - it is time to maximize.

My team and I stand ready to assist in any way we can.

Richard,

Thanks for your input! And anyway you can assist me will be appreciated

Yeah, I'm definitely going to try to write more for other blogs. I know when I started blogging again at bondChristian in December, that was one of my goals. Lately, though, I've been insanely busy, and I'm still trying to keep up with commenting.

I've not done enough guest posting to say much about it, I think a lot of it (if you're just trying to grab new readers) is about finding ways to capture them when they stop by. I know as a reader, I don't usually subscribe to guest bloggers' blogs unless they give me a reason.

One thing I have tried that's helped on my other blogs is to create a specific landing page for readers who come from a certain blog. There are a couple plugins that will give readers from specific blogs certain message, but I've found that the handmade landing page works much better. It takes more work, but I think it's worth it if you're posting on a high traffic blog. Sometimes I think it's just a matter of not posting on blogs with high enough traffic to make much difference.

Second consideration: are the blog's readers targeted for your blog? For that matter, is your guest post topic aligned well with their readers AND with the content on your blog? I think that's part of the problem with guest posting at Michael Hyatt's blog: a lot of his readers are there to suck up to him and because they respect HIS authority. No one cares what some guest poster says... especially if they're not talking specifically about breaking into the writing industry (often they're posting twitter tips, marketing tips, leadership tips, etc. ...that's not why his readers read his blog).

Third consideration: does the blog post a lot of guest posts? People tend to stop clicking through if a blog posts a lot of guest posts. This also goes back to Hyatt's blog: he has a set schedule for posting guest posts - Fridays. People who don't care about them quickly start to avoid reading on Fridays.

Okay, I wrote way more than I meant to write - I'm certainly not in any position to give advice on this. Hopefully that helps some though... from a reader's perspective. Thanks for your rundown. I had no idea you did that many.

-Marshall Jones Jr.

I had no idea I did that many!

But you make some good points...and from what your saying...it seems that you CAN give advice on this.

Its funny with Hyatt's blog I tried FIVE times and still haven't broken through. I wrote and rewrote, worked and reworked...and still no deal. I'm not sure if that ways been Divinely blocked or that just what I wrote wasnt up to par.

I would love to SEE the landing page you're talking about though.

But I do realize now I have to step this up to another level. My goal is to be a best selling author not a well known blogger. Because I feel if I go after the former EVERYTHING else will fall into place. But the blog does introduce new readers to the book and to myself...and me to them...so it does serve a purpose.

But this guest posting 'experiment' has been an eye opener

Eeek... this isn't the best example of one I've done, but it's the only one I still have up (I actually published this one as a post rather than a page):

http://bondchristian.com/friendship-in-evangelism/

I got the idea through ProBlogger, who got it from someone else but I don't remember who he said now. Anyway, here's one he did recently (also in post form):

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2010/02/22/welcome-to-problogger-a-quick-tour-for-new-readers/

Here's the original ProBlogger page that inspired me to start doing this more often. This is actually the link from his twitter page:

http://www.problogger.net/about-darren-rowse-problogger/

You can use plugins to change the beginning content of the post to personalize it for a specific guest post and blog.

I think this works (from the couple times I've actually spent the time to use it), and I know it works on me - if I click through from a guest post and the guest poster's set up a tour of their blog and invited me to subscribe right in the content, I'm all over it. Just a reader's perspective...

-Marshall Jones Jr.

Wow dude! Thanks! I really do appreciate all this!

I will be putting this into effect

Let me know how it works out for you.

-Marshall Jones Jr.