I talked a few weeks ago about how to guest post on other blogs.

To give you some real life examples of how this has gone, here are a few links to recent guest posts I’ve done (including readership, # of Comments, & Page Rank (PR) )

Blog Post Title	Readership	# of Comments	PR
How to Get Started Blogging (Podcast)	Unknown	0	2/10
Simple Ways to Monetize a Blog (Podcast)	Unknown	0	2/10
Making Your 1st Blog Post (Podcast)	Unknown	0	2/10
Do I Really Need a Blog for an Ecommerce Business	920	29	4/10
5 Blogging Basics You Can’t Live Without	920	8	4/10
The 2010 Goals Challenge – Can You Do This	3509	15	6/10
6 Consistent Keys to eCommerce Blogging Success	3509	9	6/10
Have You Ever Thought This About StumbleUpon?	Unknown	2	4/10

It’s one thing to guest post on a blog.

But what is the real VALUE to guest posting?

Here are a few things I’ve discovered after guest posting more aggressively:

5 Reasons Why Guest Posts Help

1. Building Business Relationships with Fellow Bloggers: This is probably the best reason to guest post on other blogs within your industry. As the saying goes, “It’s not always WHAT you know, it’s WHO…” Industry connections do so much to get your name out there, help you establish credibility, and build your brand online and off.
2. Increased Subscription to My Blog RSS Feed (Email Updates): Guest posting has increased my RSS subscription numbers by about 50% so far. To some, RSS feed subscribers may not be that big of deal; but to me, having a dedicated readership who get updates only helps me be a better blogger and keeps me accountable to blog consistently. RSS Subscribers are important for a variety of reasons. Hidden Goal: I want to have 100’s of Thousands of subscribers and then sell advertising to businesses that value these types of numbers.
3. Increased Traffic to My Site: Yes, this is one reason I guest post; but really I don’t care as much about the one-hit wonder traffic that is curious and follow my links to my site. The traffic I really care about is related to the Search Engine Traffic I’m seeing. One way I see this is by using Google Alerts to notify me when Google finds MollerMarketing.com or Nate Moller.
4. Link Building on Quality Sites: Another reason to guest post for sure; but again, the link building is mostly for SEO purposes. This is why it’s important to look at Page Rank as you guest post. If the PR is higher, the “link juice” is much more sweet!
5. Increased Comments on Blog Posts on My Site: According to Darren Rowse, only 1 of every 100 readers comment on your blog. So what can you do to get more comments? Guest posting on other blogs has helped me get more quality comments on my own blog posts, which to me creates much more credibility on my site overall. My recent post about an end to SEO got comments from people I really respect and added so much value to my initial research.Comments are a big deal to me. If I make a blog post that I feel has merit and then I get NO comments, I begin questioning if I should tweak the article, be more controversial, or completely erase it and start fresh. Comments are part of the community a blog creates. If your blog posts aren’t getting comments and you’ve been online for a while, guest posting on other blogs that have readers and comments is a great way to get your name out there and attract readers who comment.

 

What is guest posting?

Have you ever heard of that concept?

Josh Klein, a guest blogger on ProBlogger.net, has this to say about the importance of guest posting:

You’ve heard the blogger cliché “content is king”. It’s a lot like the real estate industry’s “location, location, location.” It turns out blogging and real estate have something in common: for both, you need content and location.

When it comes to pro blogging, thinking about location matters. There is no “build it and they will come”, and only 20% of your work is publishing posts.

So how do you even get started guest posting and when is the right time to even start as a new online business owner?

In answer to the 2nd question, NOW is the time!

I don’t care how new you are to online marketing and blogging: if you want to make sales right out of the gate with your new business, begin implementing these steps right away. Granted, it helps if you have a place for people to go once they read your articles and love them, but really you have to start making connections even before the official “launch”.

Guest Posting 101

Step 1: The Search

Find Blogs you want to guest post on. Guest posting on “any old blog” is probably not the strategy I’d take. In stead, look for these things:

• Number of subscribers
• Number of comments on posts
• Google Page Rank
• Make sure the blog shares your target audience

Step 2: The Request

Send emails to the appropriate people (owner of the blog, manager, etc.) Personalize the message. Here’s what my general email looks like:

Hey (blog owner),

My name is Nate Moller. I’ve been blogging since 2005 and am the owner of MollerMarketing.com.

I write a lot about starting an online business, eCommerce, droshipping, SEO, social media, and self-motivation.

I’m interested in guest posting on your blog in the near future.

Here are some articles I’ve written (and these topics would be things I’d want to write about for you):

•    http://mollermarketing.com/2009/05/28/w … r-success/
•    http://mollermarketing.com/2009/11/17/t … ing-books/
•    http://mollermarketing.com/2007/12/09/s … fic-steps/

Let me know what the next steps would be.

I look forward to blogging on (you blog).

Sincerely,

Nate Moller
MollerMarketing.com
@mollermarketing on Twitter

Obviously I’m going to change this up depending on who I’m emailing.

I may add things like how I found their blog, what I liked about it, how we could benefit one another, etc.

Step 3: The Content

Start writing a blog post on your own blog. Make sure to do all the following things:

• effective blog formatting
• a 2-3 sentence bio section, usually done in italics (here’s an example): Nate Moller has been teaching clients about how to start an online business for almost five years. He consults small to medium sized business, helping them establish and implement a blogging & social media marketing strategy to grow their business. Read more about Nate at MollerMarketing.com and follow him on Twitter (@mollermarketing).
  
• images that are uploaded to your wordpress site and include a title and alt tag (if you have questions on this, let me know and I’ll write about it in the near future)
• 2-3 links to your site KEYWORD PHRASES (like the bio section above)
• you CAN include your domain name too but usually I just use keyword phrases instead.

Step 4: The Preparation

Once the post is formatted and complete, click on HTML in your word press blog editor, copy the code and paste in a Notepad (Start menu on your computer > Accessories >Notepad)

Step 5: The Handoff

Save the Notepad file and attach to an email for the guest post!

Step 6: The Promotion & Repetition

Repeat this process over and over again! Also, once the blog post is live, make sure to promote, promote, promote, especially if you plan to guest post on this blog again in the future.

6 Simple Ways to Promote a Guest Post

• Tweet it to your friends
• Ask them (in DM on Twitter) to Tweet it to their friends
• Share it on your Facebook Status
• Link to it in a blog post of your own using a quality keyword phrase
• Bookmark it with the social media tools: Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, Sphinn, Mixx, etc.
• Repeat this process, not just on the day of the post, but throughout the week from time to time

Here are some other great posts from Darren Rowse and Ann Smarty about guest posting:

• How to Be a Good Guest Blogger
• How to Get Guest Blogging Jobs
• Why Guest Bloggers are Great for a Blog
• Guest Blogging 101
• You Need a Blog Strategy
• How to Guest Post to Promote Your Blog
• 7 Reasons Every Blogger Should be Guest Posting

How has guest posting on other blogs helped your online business?

UPDATE: Found a great article from Ann Smarty about How to Find Places to Guest Post via Google.