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3 Myths of Guest Writing for Big Websites … and 6 Tactics for Doing it Well

by Ali Luke on March 14, 2012

You’ve got a book to promote, or a product, or a service — and you need a bigger audience to get it moving out into the world.

Why not borrow one (an audience, that is)?

Guest writing for other websites is a fantastic way to get your name, message, and offer in front of tens of thousands of readers (depending on the size of the site you’re writing for). And the best part? It won’t cost you a penny.

Why aren’t more writers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders doing it? Why aren’t you doing it?

Because you think you’re not ready. Even though you almost certainly are …

I work with writers every day, and I hear the three “Myths of Guest Blogging” you’ll see below again and again. Let’s dispel them right now, before we get into the good stuff …

Myth #1: “I need to have a well-established blog”

You don’t need to have thousands of readers before you start guest writing for other sites.

Content editors don’t care about the size of your audience: they care about the quality of your writing.

I used to guest post without a blog at all — and not a single editor ever cared. It’s usually a good idea to have a site of your own to send readers back to, but don’t let a small audience be the excuse that keeps you from guest posting.

Myth #2: “I don’t write well enough”

Yes, your guest post needs to be well-written. That doesn’t mean you need a PhD in English Literature, or a glittering résumé.

Pick a single topic. Write a clear, concise, useful post. Then edit it … carefully. You’ll put yourself way ahead of the crowd.

Myth #3: “I have to build up a relationship before pitching a guest post”

Some blogs don’t accept unsolicited guest posts; others are so overwhelmed with submissions that they only use a fraction of the material they receive. It can help if the site owner knows your name — but that’s definitely not a requirement.

Sure, you want to cultivate relationships with editors … and writing a terrific guest post makes a great start. Tweets and blog comments are fine, but they shouldn’t be your primary strategy. Your primary strategy is writing excellent posts.

The Takeaway: To be a successful guest writer for other websites, you don’t need to have a huge audience of your own, you don’t need to be the next Shakespeare, and you don’t need the big blog editors to know your name. All you need to do is write well.

Getting your guest post onto a big blog in your niche means:

Extra traffic to your blog
More sales of your products
The opportunity to add “I’ve written for …” to your résumé or About page

Even if your post gets rejected, you’ll have a fantastic piece of pillar content for your own site.

But to maximize your chances of acceptance, here are 5 steps you need to master:

Step #1: Research your target site carefully

Some bloggers write a guest post, then look for a blog to submit it to.

Often, that means the post won’t be a great fit — and the editor will reject it.

Instead, pick your target blog first. Read at least ten posts, ideally a mix of guest posts and posts by the regular blogger(s). If you’re not finding any guest posts, that’s a sign that you need to pick another blog, at least for now.

How long are the posts, particularly the guest posts? Is there a range from long to short? Or do they mostly tend to fall into a fairly narrow range of word counts?
What’s the writing style like? Chatty, aggressive, kooky, gentle?
What topics have been covered recently? Could you contribute something that’s relevant, but that also fills a gap?
Can you figure out what their “bread and butter” topics are — the topics that they’ll always need to find fresh content for?
Could you write a compelling, useful follow-up to a recent ultra-popular post?

Look for guest post guidelines, most large blogs have them. Follow any instructions about formatting, images, writing style, linking, and so on.

Step #2: Develop your idea

A strong idea will make the writing easy; a weak idea will just waste your time.

Come up with a list of five possible topics, then pick the best one.

Make sure you can do justice to your idea.

Don’t choose something that sounds amazing if you know you’ll struggle to write it. A simple idea, executed well, is worth far more than a hyped-up but ultimately disappointing post.

Instead of “Everything you need to know about WordPress”, try “7 Essential Tips for WordPress Beginners”.

Step #3: Write your guest post

Set aside time for writing your guest post.

It’s all too easy to keep putting it off for another day. Aim to write when you’re at your best, whether that’s at 7 am or 10 pm.

If you’re struggling to get started, skip the introduction and move straight into the main body of the post.

If you’re still stuck, set a timer for 20 minutes and just write. Don’t worry if it’s horrible, just keep your fingers moving.

Even if you end up scrapping a lot of your material, you’ll find something that’s worth keeping.

Step #4: Edit your post

Few writers produce great first drafts. Editing is your chance to hone your words so they’re as effective and powerful as possible.

Start by editing the post as a whole. Look for unnecessary tangents (sometimes these make good seeds for follow-up posts), badly-ordered information, and vital missing pieces. Fix these before you move on.

Once you’re happy with the shape and flow of the post, focus on the individual sentences and words. Rewrite any clumsy, awkward, or weak sentences. Change any words that hit the wrong note.

Don’t neglect the all-powerful Rule of 24.

Step #5: Add your bio

Sure, it’s exciting to see your name on a big blog — but you’ve got other motives for guest writing too.

If you want to drive traffic to your blog, newsletter, or sales page, you’ll need to make good use of your bio.

It should:

Be written in the third person
Have a clear call to action
Include a link

If you’re linking to your blog, choose a specific post, ideally one that’s related to the guest post. “Click here to learn how to get your blog set up” is a stronger call to action than “Read my blog.”

For some good examples of guest writer bios, scroll through the posts here on Copyblogger.

Step #6: Send it off!

This is the hardest step.

My very first guest post for Copyblogger sat on my hard drive for at least a week before I plucked up the courage to email it in.

Once you’ve edited and polished your post, you have to let it go.

Write that email, take a deep breath, and hit “send.”

A few weeks from now, you could have your writing in front of an audience of tens of thousands of readers.

So write that guest post.

Trust me, you’re ready.

About the Author: Ali Luke is a writer and writing coach. If you’re struggling to get inspired, check out her Twenty-Five Ways to Come Up With Great Ideas for Your Writing.

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The 10-Minute Technique to Becoming a More Productive Writer

by Georgina Laidlaw on March 5, 2012

image of blogwise ebook cover

Late last year, when I interviewed Brian Clark about his approach to productive blogging, he said something that really struck me as a writer.

Brian’s big on vision — he told me that he believed his vision for his online business was pretty much the key to his success as both a blogger and business owner.

As he said, “It feels really great when you do what you know needs to be done, because you’re getting one step closer to seeing your vision, in one form or another, coming true.”

Having a clear, compelling vision will instantly make you more productive — you’ll “know what needs to be done.”

Once your vision is clear, the daily tasks become clearer as well. And when it’s compelling enough, the right vision feels like it pulls you toward your goals, making everything you do feel easier.

But for many of us, finding that vision isn’t so simple.

I’d like to share a quick technique to become crystal-clear on your vision — the vision that will drive your productivity and make you more successful in every aspect of your blog or business.

Since this is a content marketing blog, let’s start by talking about how you approach writing content.

What are you writing today?

An email newsletter? A sales page? A content-based product?

Whatever it is, it’s your job to make sure that every word you include in that piece or writing supports your long-term vision.

How can you make sure your sales page, blog post, or press release is doing that?

There’s no single answer to that question — issues such as content strategy, marketing strategy, positioning, and audience targeting combine to take us closer to (or further from) our goals.

But the question, “how can I uncover my compelling vision for what I’m writing, on a word-by-word basis?” does have an answer.

The technique for writing your vision

If you’ve ever worked in traditional media or marketing, this technique may already be familiar to you. Yet few online writers seems to consider it consciously, or specifically.

That technique is this:

Before you begin to write that sales page (or email autoresponder, or Facebook update), ask yourself how you want the readers to feel after they read it.

How do you want them to feel? Write that down in the language of their mental dialogue.

Is it …

Woah, this training series looks crazy-amazing! I’m gonna tweet this right after I sign up.

Or:

This resource is exactly what management has been looking for. Better email this link to Bob’s PA. Might bookmark it, too.

Or:

Oh my God, this is a totally cool tip! It’ll only take five minutes to make that change. I’ll do it right now, before the kids get home.

If you don’t know — or can’t imagine — how your audience members’ mental dialogue sounds, go back and reacquaint yourself with your audience definition. If you haven’t already, develop some personas so that you have real people in mind when you’re preparing to write.

How this strategic approach to content works

When you know how you want to make your audience feel (along with the words they would use to describe that feeling), you start to pull those big-picture, strategic threads into a single focus.

Those threads include:

the audience, their needs, hopes, and dreams, and what resonates with them as individuals on an emotional level
what you’re trying to communicate
your business, marketing, and sales goals
what your blog, business, or brand stands for
the features and benefits of what you’re writing about
a call to action

This technique gives you a concrete tool for using your intuition to develop a creative approach that works best for this audience, this execution, and this communication or business goal.

And it allows you to write in a way that naturally engages and resonates with readers. Since engagement is the pathway to action and loyalty, that matters.

Considering audience sentiment can also have a massive impact on your level of creativity, and the quality of the writing you produce.

Start the writing process by thinking about how you want readers to feel, and you’re unlikely to wrestle for long with writers’ block, or find that all your content sounds the same.

Finally, this technique also gives you another avenue to test and tweak in the process of improving conversions — and the quantifiable efficacy of your writing.

Putting audience sentiment into practice

As you can probably guess, I consider audience sentiment before I write any client copy; it’s an essential element of every brief I take.

In a recent project to write an FAQ page for a mass-targeted online retailer, I decided that the resulting audience sentiment should be something like this:

Phew, that’s a relief. I thought getting help was going to be an ordeal, but I’m done — it’s all fine. How great that it was so easy, though!

The communication goal of the content was, of course, to provide practical assistance and reduce the potential for dissatisfaction without (business goal) adding to the support load for this bubbly, proactive, super-reliable brand.

Within that context, I made a few decisions in working to achieve the desired audience sentiment:

I used contractions, and other natural language that made the Help pages sound personable, and the brand sound relatable; for example, “What if I’m not around when the delivery is made?”
I aimed for a positive, upbeat, understanding tone that allowed us to acknowledge the dissatisfaction that arises when things go wrong with online orders without necessarily remarking on it explicitly; for example, “We’ll take care of returning and replacing the damaged item for you.”

The client also had some great suggestions to achieve the desired audience sentiment, which included restructuring the grouping of question types. On the other hand, having thought about the audience sentiment made it easy for me to dissuade them from removing contractions from the drafted FAQs.

I also use this technique to pitch the tone and content of blog posts at the right level.

(For example, my desired audience sentiment for this post is something like, “You know, that’s pretty interesting. Maybe I’ll give this a try. Man, Copyblogger.com just keeps getting better!”)

So thinking about audience sentiment is helpful with any given piece of writing. But when it comes to products — like the ebook that prompted me to interview Brian — audience sentiment really comes into its own.

How to create resonant products

Brian was one of nine people I interviewed for Blog Wise, ProBlogger’s latest ebook … a book that takes you inside the heads of nine successful bloggers to learn their best productivity strategies and techniques.

How do you begin turning nine forty-minute interviews into an ebook?

You think about the desired audience sentiment.

Our imperative with that ebook was to have the audience come away open-mouthed, thinking,

My God. That was incredibly helpful.

But, as our interviews revealed, everyone’s approach to productivity is different. The reason there’s such a proliferation of productivity approaches and techniques is because no single one of them works perfectly for any one person.

So how could we make an apparently nebulous approach to productivity incredibly helpful?

The answers to that question helped us to:

shape the product’s components (ebook, downloadable practical additions, sound files, etc.)
develop three formats for presenting the interviews themselves (audio, text transcript, and editorial-style) and, for the last format, develop conceptual executions like sidebars, pullouts, and micro-summaries, that allowed readers to easily digest the information in bite-sized chunks, and easily compare the techniques different bloggers use
develop a final chapter that brought the advice into stark practical focus
make decisions such as leaving the interviewer out of the interviews (I felt that having a first-person other than the interviewee would be an unnecessary distraction from the already detailed, rich proliferation of ideas within the interviews themselves).

As you can see, reaching for a particular audience sentiment — one that supported the objectives of the ever-practical ProBlogger brand and business — drove us to create the product in a certain way. It encouraged us to innovate with formats and really dig deep into the information we’d gathered in creative ways that were actually relevant to, and resonated with, the audience.

Of course, every creative execution is an experiment in some way, and there will always be things we could have done better — and will do differently next time.

But by looking at audience sentiment — how you want to make them feel — you really can identify, as Brian said, “what know needs to be done,” and “get … one step closer to seeing your vision, in one form or another, coming true.”

Do you use this technique — or something like it — in your writing? How could it work for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

About the Author: Georgina Laidlaw is a freelance content developer and Content Manager for ProBlogger.

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Are You Making These 7 Mistakes with Your About Page?

by Sonia Simone on February 16, 2012

Image of blackboard with the words I heart myself

Does thinking about it make you stumble and sweat?

Have you put it off, because you’re worried it will suck?

You’re not alone — lots of website owners have an easier time proposing marriage than they do writing a solid About Page.

If that’s you, you’re probably overcomplicating things. A good About Page is simple, straightforward, and it communicates just a few key things.

But just because they’re simple doesn’t mean people don’t screw them up.

There are certain mistakes that I see again and again, on sites that deserve better. These mistakes are easy to fix and they’re pushing away the people you want to bring closer: your wonderful website readers.

Your About Page is typically one of the most-visited pages on your site. So let’s make it easy for you to have a stunningly helpful, user-friendly About Page.

Take a look to see if you’re making one of these common mistakes:

Mistake 1. You don’t have an About Page

You might have some interesting content, a nice custom-designed header, a sweet-looking premium WordPress theme.

What you don’t have is an About page.

It might be completely missing because you think “About Pages are a cliché.”

Or because you’re freaked out about creating an About Page, so you’re just hoping no one will notice it’s missing.

Or you might have called it something clever like “Experience” or “The Scoop” or “But Wait, There’s More!”

When it comes to the interface on your website or blog, never forget the words of usability expert Steve Krug: Don’t Make Me Think.

I don’t want to look at your “Resonate” page and wonder if that’s where I find out who you are, what you do, and why I should read your site.

Every site needs an About Page. Don’t be clever. Call it About.

Mistake 2. I can’t find your name

Let’s say I want to link to you, or tweet something cool on your blog.

I would really like to know who you are. That means I need your name.

Not a spammy name like “The Real Estate King.” (Please don’t comment under those either. You can’t believe how bad this makes you look.)

Your name. As in, “What I say when I am introducing you?”

Unless you are Madonna, you need a last name, too.

(Incidentally, if your name is Dave Smith or Cathy Johnson, try including your middle name to make yourself more memorable and to give you a decent chance to rank for your own name in search engines. It works for David Meerman Scott and Carole Sevilla Brown, and it can work for you. If your middle name is common too, find a family name to put in there.)

Please note that this does not have to be your real name. Some people would rather keep some distance from readers, for security reasons or just to have a little privacy. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Johnny Truant, James Chartrand, and Terry Starbucker all work and write under professional pseudonyms. You can, too.

Mistake 3. I don’t know what you look like

If I want to hire you, refer you, recommend you, or even pass you some readers, I’ll feel more comfortable if I have some sense of who you are.

I get that from two things — your writing voice and your photo.

Again, make this a real photo and not a drawing or an avatar. Yes, there have been successful bloggers who have used cartoons instead of photos, but they’re the exception.

When you’re trying to make your site successful, why work against yourself? Give yourself every advantage you can.

When I have a face to put with your name, you become much easier for me to remember. That, combined with some well-written content, starts to help me feel like I know you.

And I’m much more likely to link to you or otherwise help you reach your content goals if I feel like I know you.

Mistake 4. The writing is boring

This one hurts, I know. Let’s get it over with so we can move on to more pleasant topics of conversation.

For some reason, when people sit down to write an About Page, everything they know about creating interesting content suddenly flies out the window. Their usually great writing style starts to suck.

To fix this unfortunate problem:

Use your own writing voice.
Be ruthless about pruning out any corporate-speak or hypey jargon.
Don’t be afraid to be a little funny, if you can pull it off.
Don’t be afraid to be a bit of a dork, either, if that’s part of who you are.

Remember, along with your photo, this is where I go to figure out who you are and whether or not I like you.

Mistake 5. Using video alone

Video is a great way to create quick rapport on your About page … for site visitors who like video.

But visitors who are coming to your site from work may not want your voice, however melodious, blasting from the speakers in their cube.

They also may not have 6:23 minutes to spend figuring out who you are.

Lots of web users love video — and some hate it.

If you use video on your About Page, keep it short, make it interesting, and include some text for the readers in your audience.

Mistake 6. You go on (and on and on)

I’m a fan of storytelling. It pulls the reader in, it engages like nothing else, and it’s one of the few techniques that actually sometimes changes people’s minds.

Stories are awesome.

Long, boring stories aren’t so awesome.

If you’re going to tell me the story of how you came to be here, please for the love of Pete make it interesting.

What do your readers find interesting? Themselves, and things that benefit them. Those are two good places to start.

Mistake 7. I bet you think your About Page is about you

This is perfectly natural, even if you aren’t so vain.

What most site owners miss is that your About Page is actually about the person who clicks the link to see it.

Talk to that person about why they should bother reading your site.

Talk about the problems you solve.

Talk about how you can help.

Talk about what they’re interested in.

To quote Brian Clark,

What do you need to know? You need to know whom they admire, and what they aspire to, despise, fear, and cherish.
How to Craft a Marketing Story that People Embrace and Share

Yes, it’s a spot for you to talk about yourself — but only in the context of how you serve your readers.

If you absolutely can’t resist self-absorbtion, create a personal blog or social media account and throw in a link to that. You can put all the tedious details there, and warn people that’s where you talk about your struggles with your cat’s gluten sensitivity.

For your About Page, keep it about the reader — and how you help that reader.

What’s your About Page pet peeve?

What drives you nuts about the About Pages you’re seeing around the web?

What do you love when you see it?

Let us know in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Share all your favorite peeves with her on twitter.

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7 Crucial Tactics for Writing a Radically Successful Guest Post

by The Blog Tyrant on February 6, 2012

We all know that guest posts grow blogs.

But not many people realize that tactical guest posting grows careers.

Most bloggers I see pump out these articles while reciting the mantra “quantity over quality”; there’s no real strategy and there are no real long-term benefits.

In this post I am going to show you the seven crucial tactics for writing a radically successful guest post.

Done right, these strategies will get you more email subscribers, coveted Google ranking positions, and a big head-start on your content marketing goals.

Who am I to teach you about guest blogging?

It seems like the decent thing would be to start this article by flashing my “guest blogging badge.”

At least that way you’ll understand why I’m wearing these high-glare aviators.

For me, the proof was in the pudding, and the pudding was the sale of an 8-month-old blog for almost $20,000 while I was still in University.

Actually, I sold the blog after a year had passed, but I had mostly stopped working on it at the eight-month mark.

That baby was built on tactical guest posts. So were the other blogs I’ve sold for similar price tags, and I’m doing the same with Blog Tyrant.

It’s now almost a decade later, and despite being a mediocre writer I still have success with these strategies.

Hopefully they’ll give you some extra juice for your next guest appearance. With that, I give you the 7 tactical elements of a radically successful guest post

1. A guest post should funnel people to an outcome, not a home page

Every time you do a guest post, you’re given a little space in the post for a biography, with a link (as well as a few in-post links) that can direct readers back to your blog.

The mistake that most newbies make is they don’t give any thought to where they are sending those new readers.

Click away and you’re likely to end up on a home page or some nicely done but relatively unrelated post (usually with a good amount of tweets or comments).

What you need to do is funnel people toward a specific outcome.

Let’s say your goal is to get as many email subscribers as possible. A successful funnel would entail:

Creating a niche-specific free giveaway. You’d create an eBook that is centered around a very specific topic in your niche that will appeal to a well-defined group.
Creating a landing page or ad for that eBook. The next step is to add that eBook to your blog and give it away as a free incentive for joining your list, using a service like Aweber. If you don’t know how to do this I made a video.
Guest posting on closely related topics. Here’s the sexy part. You now go out and guest post on topics that are closely related to your free giveaway. Link back to your landing page/advert if you can, but even if you don’t you will be funneling and pre-selling people on the idea of your eBook.

Sending people back to random posts or a home page is just a waste of time.

Just like filling up your car with petrol, you need to put fuel in the gas tank, not pour it all over the engine. Use a content funnel to direct the flow of traffic toward your desired outcome or target.

It doesn’t matter what it is — a free eBook, product, etc. — as long as you are intentionally directing people there.

Don’t assume they’ll find it for themselves.

2. A guest post should mention big bloggers in your niche

Simply put, one of the fastest ways to grow a new blog is to mention other sites with big audiences in your guest post appearances.

This strategy, while obvious to some, has many benefits.

First, it associates you with those experts.

Second, if you drop a handy email or Tweet before the guest post goes live, you can harness the sheer awesomeness of their contact lists. Most of the time they will at least tweet out your guest post and thus associate themselves with your content. This is also a nice bit of promotion that your “host blog” will appreciate.

And third, it opens a door with those bloggers. When you send them a guest post, they’ll have an idea of who you are, and will be that much more open to taking a look at what you send them.

This type of professional networking is extremely helpful if you want to place guest posts on good blogs. I think of it as giving before receiving.

3. A guest post should be followed up by sister posts

One of the coolest things I ever learned about guest posting was that you can leverage the fame of your guest post to create buzz for your own blog.

I actually learned it in reverse, and a good example is when I did a post about the best About Us pages, and mentioned Copyblogger.

Brian Clark kindly Tweeted my post, which helped me land a big chunk of traffic and some super fast indexing at the top of Google for the key phrase “best About Us pages.”

Since that time Brian has been active on other posts I’ve done. For example, he stopped by here to leave a comment.

Not only does this make me feel all warm inside because Old Man Clark is one of my heroes and has a cool goatee, it also has some pretty obvious and ongoing benefits.

Mention big bloggers in your guest posts, then give them a reason to tweet or promote follow-up posts you do. Don’t just reach out once — create follow-up content that continues that relationship.

Think of it as the second date.

4. A guest post should be aimed at 10 years of results, not 10 hours

Sonia Simone once said that,

The rewards of guest posting are cumulative…. you build more momentum the more you post.

I used to write a guest post and eagerly await the flow of traffic and increase in subscribers that occurs after being published.

I’d to spend the whole day looking at stats and monitoring the progress of the article on all the social networking sites.

But I soon realized the error of my ways. A guest post needs to be a 10-year strategy.

While still important, I now place a lot less importance on the initial flow of traffic and tweets.

Why?

For starters, I am more interested in how the guest post matures. So now I ask myself these questions in order to judge the success of a guest post:

Does it rank well on Google< for a keyword phrase that is going to continually benefit my own site and goals?
Does it boost my reputation and credibility in the niche?
Did it make me any new contacts in the industry?
Did it create a discussion on the post or somewhere else?

If you want to write guest posts that produce results for years to come, you need to do some solid keyword research as well as creating an exhaustive post that covers issues — to the point of becoming a timeless resource.

Jonathan Morrow does this extremely well here on Copyblogger. He writes resource-rich, original content that will rank well and get people interested in his upcoming releases.

5. Each guest post should be part of an anchor text strategy

Anchor text is the text you use when you link to a post.

Just above you’ll see that “Jonathan Morrow” is the anchor text for that link to his articles here on Copyblogger.

Your choice of anchor text is hugely important for search engine rankings.

We all know that relevant backlinks help us to rank better on Google, but the anchor text of those backlinks also plays a big role in what exact keywords we rank for.

When you do a guest post, you should have already done keyword research and know specifically what phrases you want to rank for, based on how much traffic they bring and how competitive they are. Remember, you want your guest post to be bringing you love from Google for the next ten years.

Once that post is live, you can then link back to it in the future using the desired anchor text. This will help you elevate your own post on someone else’s website so that it matures well.

Just remember that SEO copywriting has to work for humans first, search engine robots second. Mix it up sometimes, and only link to your article if it is relevant and useful for real-life human beings.

6. Each comment should be answered or used as material

One of the really important things to do when you guest post is stick around and answer every single question that you get in the comments.

It’s in the comments section that long term relationships are built with the readers that you are reaching on the new blog.

It’s in the comments section that you enhance your branding as an expert or fellow traveler or mentor.

I have never tested it, but I would guess that at least half of the loyal readers I get from guest posts left comments that I answered on the day of publication.

If a comment or question is really good, you can take the idea and use it as the germ of a post on your own blog. Announce it in the comments section and see how many people drop on over to see what you’ve done with it.

7. Guest posts should be aimed mostly at beginners

It might seem a little counter-intuitive, but most of the readers who interact with content, subscribe to your list, and eventually buy your products, are newbies.

Think about the entrance paths for finding posts. Most of the time people either Google a question because they don’t know the answer, or click a referral link on Facebook/Twitter/Blog because it’s something they are unfamiliar with.

A lot of any blog’s readers are new to that blog’s topic. And that tends to be where new readers come from — newbies looking for a grounding in the topic.

After a while, the intermediate group often trails off and focuses on their own projects, as opposed to sticking around to learn more skills.

The more successful guest posts are the ones that focus on topics that are well digested by beginners, especially if you are aiming at getting that post indexed well on Google.

Try to write list posts and articles with an instructional tone, full of resources and links.

What guest posting strategies work for you?

I’d really like to hear about what guest posting strategies have worked or not worked for you.

Have you tried anything above with great success?

Please leave a comment and let me know. All ideas are welcome — especially the half-baked ones …

About the Author: The Blog Tyrant is a 25-year-old guy from Australia who has sold several websites for large sums of money and now shares his methods for dominating your blog and your niche. He also answers every comment on his blog. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or sign up for his emails.

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10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing

by Sonia Simone on February 1, 2012

Image of start of a race

Ever wonder why content marketing works so well for some businesses … and doesn’t seem to do anything at all for others?

Curious about why some content that seems great doesn’t do anything to build the business?

“Content is king” has been an online cliché for years now, but it’s not true. It’s never been true.

Content all by itself — even terrific content — is just content.

It may be entertaining. It may be educational. It may contain the secret to world peace and fresh, minty breath, all rolled into one.

But it has no magical powers. It won’t transform your business or get you where you need to go, until you add one thing …

Content marketing is a meaningless exercise without business goals.

What makes content marketing work?

To make content work, you need to understand your marketing and business goals. Then you can create content that serves those goals, instead of just giving your audience something to pass the time.

Your blog posts, email marketing, special reports, podcasts, advertising … all of it needs to fit into a larger picture.

Now if you blog purely for creative self expression, go ahead and write as the spirit moves you.

But if you’re using content to market a business, you need a strategic framework so you can get the most out of your time and hard work.

Here are 10 of the business goals that drive our content marketing at Copyblogger Media. You might focus on just one or two, or you may use all 10. As you read through the list, see which of these you can apply to your own marketing plan.

Goal 1. To build trust and rapport with your audience

This is the most obvious use of content marketing, and it’s a good one.

When you create useful, interesting, and valuable content, your audience learns they can trust you. They see that you know your topic. They get a sense of your personality and what it would be like to work with you.

Lack of trust kills conversion. An abundance of valuable content builds trust like nothing else.

But too many marketers stop there. In fact, it’s just the beginning.

Goal 2. To attract new prospects to your marketing system

We all had it drilled into our heads by Mr. Godin when we were just baby content marketers: You’ve gotta be remarkable.

Your content has to be compelling enough that it attracts links, social media sharing, and conversation.

Why? Because that’s how new people find you.

No matter how delightful your existing customers are, you need a steady stream of new prospects to keep your business healthy.

Remarkable content that gets shared around the web will find your best new prospects for you, and lead them back to everything you have to offer.

Goal 3. To explore prospect pain

No, you’re not doing this to be a sadist.

The fact is, most enduring businesses thrive because they solve problems.

They solve health problems, parenting problems, money problems, business problems, technology problems, “What should I make for dinner” problems.

When you understand your prospect’s problems, you understand how to help them, and you have the core of your marketing message.

Strategic content dives into the problems your prospects are facing. What annoys them? What frightens them? What keeps them awake at night?

A smart content marketing program leaves room for audience questions. These might come in email replies, blog comments, or you may hold Q&A sessions or webinars specifically to solicit questions.

Listen to the problems your market asks you about, and use those as a compass to guide your future content.

Goal 4. To illustrate benefits

Obviously, we don’t dig up prospect problems and leave it at that.

We talk about solutions.

We talk about what fixes those annoying problems. Techniques, tips, tricks, methods, approaches.

If you have a viable business, you have a particular take on solving your market’s problems. Your individual approach is the flesh and blood of your content marketing.

Your “10 Ways to Solve Problem X” post shows the benefits of your approach.

Your special report illustrates how you solve problems, and shows customers what they get out of working with you.

Strategic content doesn’t just tell a prospect “My product is a good way to solve your problem.” It shows them. And that’s a cornerstone persuasion technique.

Goal 5. To overcome objections

Your prospect is looking for ways to solve his problem, but he’s also keeping an eye out for potential problems.

Strategic content can be a superb way to address prospect objections — the reasons they don’t buy.

Is price a pain point? Write content showing that implementing your solutions saves money in the long run.

Do your customers think your product will be too complicated to use? Write content that shows customers going from zero to sixty … painlessly.

Understand the objections that keep customers from buying, then think about creative ways to resolve those objections in content — often before the buyer ever gets to that sales page.

Goal 6. To paint the picture of life with your product

Ad-man Joe Sugarman was one of the great early practioners of content marketing. He was a master of long-copy magazine ads for his company JS&A (a consumer gadget company), ads that were often as interesting and compelling as the magazine articles they appeared next to.

In his Copywriting Handbook, he described how he might approach writing an ad for a Corvette.

Feel the breeze blowing through your hair as you drive through the warm evening. Watch heads turn. Punch the accelerator to the floor and feel the burst of power thta pins you into the back of your countour seat. Look at the beautiful display of electronic technology right on your dashboard. Feel the power and excitement of America’s super sports car.

Sugarman isn’t describing the car. He’s describing the experience of the driver.

Sugarman was a master at mentally putting the customer into the experience of owning the product … whether that product was a pocket calculator, a private jet, or a multi-million dollar mansion.

It works very nicely in an ad. It works even better in your content.

Storytelling is one of the best content marketing strategies, and it’s a superb way to let customers mentally “try out” your offer before they ever experience it for themselves. Use content to show what it’s like to own your product or use your service.

Case studies are terrific for this, as are any stories that show how your approach to problem-solving works. Pick up Sugarman’s book for lots of ideas about how to create fascinating content for products that might not immediately suggest a fascinating story.

Goal 7. To attract strategic partners

Once upon a time, Copyblogger was one writer.

No software business. No marketing education business. No premium WordPress themes or hosting.

From very early days, the quality of the content posted here has attracted strategic partners — the partners Brian Clark worked with to create every line of revenue-generating business we have today.

Eventually, that evolved into the creation of a new company — Copyblogger Media. The partnership brings together a great complement of skills, and together we can go farther and faster than Brian could have on his own.

Whatever your business goals are, partnerships are often the smartest way to get there. When you’re passionate about creating excellent content, you’ll find that potential partners are attracted to that passion.

Goal 8. To deepen loyalty with existing customers

This one is probably my favorite.

Every company needs to attract new customers. But the biggest growth potential in most businesses comes from building a tighter relationship with your existing customers.

A solid base of referral and repeat business is the hallmark of a great business. Even if you never did any content marketing to anyone other than your customers, you could radically improve your business by improving the communication you have with your customers today.

Create a richer experience for the people who have already bought from you. Make your products and services work better by pairing them with useful, user-friendly content.

Don’t treat the waitress better than you do your date. Give great stuff to the people who have already bought from you, and they’ll reward you for it.

Goal 9. To develop new business ideas

Your content stream is a fantastic place to try out new ideas.

Thinking about re-positioning your key product? Trying to better define your unique selling proposition? See a new problem on the horizon that your customers might want you to solve?

Get those ideas into your content, and see how people react. You can watch what excites people, and what fizzles out.

Business writer Jim Collins talks about firing bullets, then cannonballs. In other words, when you get a new idea for your business, fire off something low-risk to test the waters.

Don’t start firing your big ammunition until you’re sure you can actually hit the target. (And that there’s a target there to hit.)

Content is an amazing low-risk way to try out your ideas while risking very little. Your audience will let you know with their reactions which ideas fire them up, and which ones leave them cold.

Goal 10. To build your reputation with search engines

Lots of content creators think this is reason #1 to create content — but if you put this in the wrong place, you’ll probably struggle with SEO.

That’s because search engines find you valuable when readers find you valuable.

Search engines are looking for content that’s valuable to their users. If you create that type of content, your SEO battle is 9/10 done.

So put the first 9 content marketing goals first, and the 10th becomes a matter of relatively simple SEO optimization.

How about you?

What’s the main thing you’re looking to get out of content marketing? Do you have a content marketing goal you don’t see here?

Let us know in the comments.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is co-founder and CMO of Copyblogger Media. Share your brilliant content marketing goals with her on twitter.

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10 Content Marketing Goals Worth Pursuing

What makes content marketing work?

Goal 1. To build trust and rapport with your audience

Goal 2. To attract new prospects to your marketing system

Goal 3. To explore prospect pain

Goal 4. To illustrate benefits

Goal 5. To overcome objections

Goal 6. To paint the picture of life with your product

Goal 7. To attract strategic partners

Goal 8. To deepen loyalty with existing customers

Goal 9. To develop new business ideas

Goal 10. To build your reputation with search engines

How about you?

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