Guest Blogging Do’s and Don’ts: Megan Totka Guest Blogs on What She Is Doing Here!

We are happy to welcome Megan Totka as a guest blogger to LA-Story. Megan is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources.

Guest blogging is fast becoming a powerful tool to get more traffic to your site as well as bump up your search engine ranking. Guest blogging can also be a fun way to share ideas and content with people who have similar interests. It is also being use commonly for businesses, as a way to link-share and gain business interest and customers for all parties involved.

Guest Blogging Tips

Here are a few do’s and don’ts when it comes to contributing to a blog and accepting guest posts:

Do be timely. It’s important to establish a guest blogging schedule or timetable that everyone agrees to.

Don’t be selfish. Most guest blogging relationships are a 2-way street, unless one party is offering payment to the others. Offer to reciprocate if someone guest blogs for you.

Do invite guest bloggers who will benefit from the relationship.

Don’t just ask anyone and everyone to guest blog in order to get more traffic. It won’t be beneficial in the long run.

Do contribute quality content as a guest blogger. It won’t help anyone’s hits or search ranking to host a poorly written article.

Don’t just write about anything – to write the perfect post for your guest blog, carefully consider your audience and gear your post towards them.

Do come back and check for comments. Being an active guest blogger is appreciated, and your host blogger may not feel comfortable answering questions directed specifically to you.

Don’t forget to be polite to the readers of the site you are blogging for.

Building Relationships through Guest Blogging

Guest blogging can be a onetime relationship, or it can be ongoing. Either way, it’s possible for both parties to benefit from the swap or post. Guest blogging can be a fun experience.

If you do decide to approach other writers about guest blogging, there are a few matters of decorum that you should consider. Don’t be overly complementary or sickly sweet. Just lay out the facts as to why you think you would be a good guest blogger for their site or vice versa.

If they see value in the relationship, great, if not, move on to the next one. It’s also wise to start small. Start with blogs that have about the same readership as yours or a little less or more. Of course, we all want to guest blog for the big sites because it will equal a larger increase in readership, but it’s often best to get your feet wet with smaller blogs first.

You can also send writing samples or topic ideas with your guest blogging pitch, this way, the blog writers can see what kind of content you can contribute to their site before they make a decision.

Happy guest blogging!

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Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.