MBA1895 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Get On Other Blogs?

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So Penny's got a crypto blog, a crypto newsletter, and she wants to drive traffic to her business via guest posting. First of all, I want to just say that when you guest post on a blog, this is one of the best, best marketing strategies. I know why. Number one, even with video and audio and everything that's going on in technology today, text still is king when it comes to search engines. When it comes to SEO, a great blog post on a high authority website is going to do incredible things for your website. It's going to increase your website's traffic because people are going to read this post, they're going to want to learn more and they want to go to where you live, right? Your website, just by the nature of SEO, because your website link, your URL is linked back on a high authority site, you will be ranked higher on Google. So every time you post on a high authority site, this does incredible things for your Google Juice, for your Google Rank, for your website, it's going to give you so much regular traffic if those sites have regular readers. The other thing that's awesome about this is that it's evergreen that you write a blog post once and it serves you for years. I have blog posts that I've written for other blogs that still drive traffic to our site till today by the hundreds a month. This is the equivalent of a standup comedian performing on the Late Show. Maybe people don't know who this comedian is, but once they're on the Late show, they get exposure. They're being leveraged by the Late Show's audience. People want to check them out. This is what guest posting does for your site. So because it's so sought after, there is a lot of competition. A lot of people want to be featured on high authority sites, want a guest post on high authority sites. This is why people like me, you and Penny who ask this question have a hard time getting a yes. When they email these sites and say, hey, I want a guest post. This is what I'd like to write about. This is who I am. They often get ignored because these sites get, if not dozens, they get hundreds of emails a day. We get dozens of emails a day on our sites for guest posting. So the first thing you need to realize is you have to stand out from the crowd. You got to do something different. You can't do what everybody else is and expect to be noticed. Expect to get lucky. So that's the first principle here. Okay, so how do you stand that? Well, you do something that most people are not willing to do. And now I'm not saying anything rude or crass or weird or illegal. I'm talking about going above and beyond. And this is a strategy I used to help me get on so many high authority sites and write for them not only once, but several times. So most people, what they do, like I said, they email the editor of the blog and say, hey, my name is so and so they give their cv. Basically, they just like rattle down all their accomplishments and why they're so awesome. I want to write for you. This is what I want. Here are some of the topics I can write about. And this is the boilerplate template email that they all get. Instead, I implore you to do this instead. It's going to take you more time, it's going to take you more effort, but it's going to get you more results. A lot more results. So this is what I did. The first thing I did is I opened up a spreadsheet and I listed all the blogs I want to be featured in. I want to write for no limits. Just write all the blogs you can think of all the blogs you visit, all the blogs you read, all the blogs that will have your audience. Once you kind of put your initial list, start thinking a little bit more out of the box. Think about what audiences are underserved by your information, and I'll give you an example. One of the blogs that I wrote a blog post for that really did well was for a site called Digital Photography School. This is an incredible site that has millions of subscribers, and it's all about digital photography enthusiasts. They don't have a lot of blog posts on business, on going pro as a photographer. Instead, most of the blog posts, including their guest posts, are on aperture and ISO and the best camera to buy and all that jazz, right? There is a niche in their audience that is looking to take their hobby and make it their profession. And I said, hey, let me talk to that audience. That's an underserved audience within their audience. I'm gonna write for them. Get what I'm saying? You don't have to go in the same market you're in. You can go outside the market, serve an underserved audience. Okay, we have our list. We know who we want to write for. The first thing I did is I would go to the first blog that I'm going to write for, and I studied their blog. I read all the blog posts that were sort of competitive with what I would write in the same kind of, you know, vein. For example, in that Digital Photography School blog, I studied all their business y type of blog posts, and there weren't that many. There were like four or five. But I read them thoroughly. I kind of analyzed them and critiqued them and said, what's missing in these blog posts? I read all the comments on these blog posts, right? And I took notes. I actually had a file on each blog and said, okay, what are these people saying? What are the highlights of the comments? What are they saying? Like, I wish this blog post explained this. I struggle with this. I really did some research, is what I'm saying. And why did I do this? Well, I wanted to find out what are some weak areas in this blog, right? What are some areas that are unaddressed that the audience is hungry for? And then I came up with a topic based on that. Once I had a topic, you're probably guessing, I then reached out to the blog, right? And asked them, can I write about this topic? No, I did not do this. Why? Because everybody does that. And that's an easy, fast way to get a no. So what I did is I actually Wrote the blog post. I wrote the whole blog post. I haven't contacted them yet. Right, wrote the whole blog post on that topic. So in my example with digital photography school, I wrote a blog post about 12 Ways to Go pro as a photographer. Right? Some really in depth strategies of how you can take your craft and start charging for it, how you can get some clients. I noticed that the blog wasn't covering this. The other posts were just talking about generalities and not the actual specifics like how much to charge and how to get referrals. So I really wanted to create a really meaty blog post and I did. I wrote around 2,500 word blog post, pretty long. I included all the images that would go with it, high quality images with their sources and everything. And I wrote this all up in a document. It was really a masterpiece in my, in my opinion. I had this completed, amazing blog post for this audience, for this blog that's gonna knock their socks off. And it took me, I would say, a solid week to write that post between everything else I was doing in my business. I then emailed the editor at the blog and said, hey, my name is Omar, I'm a big reader of your blog. Which is true. I read tons of their blog posts. This is my area of expertise. And I noticed here are some gaps in your blogs when it comes to business. And I actually remember quoting some of the comments that were there on those blog posts that I read. And I said I thought it would be awesome value for your audience if there was some information on actually getting new clients, setting your rates. So I wrote a blog post. I actually wrote it for you already and it's attached. Go ahead and give it a read. If you like it, it would be awesome for you to publish it. If not, no worries, just let me know. And that's an honest, honest email. I was willing to write this in depth blog post knowing they could say no. And if they said no, I was fine with it because I had this really well written, valuable blog posts that I can just publish on my own blog and attract those readers via SEO. If they said no, but they didn't say no, they said yes. Why did they say yes? Because it's so much easier to get a yes when they see what they're going to get when they actually see, oh, here, this is the blog post right in front of me. I can read it. I can see if this is worthy of my blog. If it's actually as good as the person is promising it's going to be. There's a big difference between somebody saying, I'm a great writer. Look at all my accolades. I have an amazing business I want to write for you versus I wrote a blog post. Read it, it's right here. If you like it, publish it. There is no ambiguity. They know what they're going to get because it's right in the email. And they read it, they loved it, and they asked me to make a few tweaks, add a couple more images and I was ready to go. And when that clicked and that worked, I did that for all the blogs that were on my list. Now is this easy? No. It's going to take time, it's going to take effort. But if you love your topic, it's okay. You have time to write it and you're willing to write it to get the result you want. You're going to save more time in the long run because you might write three blog posts and reach out to three blogs and get two yeses and one no versus reaching out to 100 blogs and getting one yes on a weak blog. And it's going to take you longer to reach out to 100 blogs and go back and for and all that kind of stuff. This was so, so much more streamlined. And remember, a no is not bad news. You can always publish it on your own blog.

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So there you have it. That's my guest posting strategy. I got on countless blogs with this strategy. I just went down the line on my spreadsheet and wrote blog posts for these blogs. I want to get on. And here is really the secret of it all. And it's not really a secret. This is probably obvious. The blog posts turn out to be great because you spend so much time thinking about that blog, thinking about the audience, reading the blog posts, reading the comments, doing that research. It actually comes out to be a quality post. And quality cannot be ignored. Okay? The cream rises to the top. And what happens to these blog posts really serve you for years to come. In fact, so many of the Blogs reached out to me a couple weeks later asking me, can you write us another blog post? Now they're emailing me, right? Tables have turned, right? This is exactly what you want to have, right? You want people to be seeking out your skills, asking you to market yourself on their blog, which is great. Now I do realize this is not a fast strategy, but it's one that lasts the test of time. It's a slow burn, it's a long term strategy, it's quality over quantity or speed. And this is the best way I've found to get accepted and get published on the blogs you want to get on. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you got a question you want to ask, just like Penny asked today on Q and A Wednesday, go ahead and ask it. Just email me over at Omar MBA Net. I'd love to answer it. Love to help you out. And of course by answering your question, we help everybody else listening who has the same question in their head. While I have you smash that Follow or Subscribe button on whatever podcast app you use, go ahead and do that right now. By doing that, you ensure that you don't miss the next episode. It also helps support the show, helps other people find our show, and all it takes is a touch of your fingers. So thanks so much for that in advance. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One of the hidden benefits of guest posting is you build relationships with these great blogs, with these great businesses. What I found is that I would meet people at conferences and they'd say, oh, I work for this company. Or I'm the founder of this blog. And I'd be like, oh awesome. I guest posted about 6 months ago on your blog and they'd be like, really? What was it about? And it's a conversation starter and often it helps start a friendship between you and like minded people in the business. And we all know relationships are gold are one of our biggest assets in business. So this is a kind of an easy, you know, low key way to start those relationships. And it works for anybody, even if you're introverted or not into all that networking stuff. But this is a nice way for you to actually build genuine relationships with like minded people. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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Hmm.

That's music to my ears. I can only talk.

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Zero Account fees apply to retail brokerage accounts only. Sell order assessment fee not included. A limited number of ETFs are subject to a transaction based service fee of $100. See full list@fidelity.com commissions Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member NYSE SIPC.