The Elle's Beads Blog: EB Friday Hotlist: Getting Exposure for Your Business By Guest Blogging

Friday, August 13, 2010

EB Friday Hotlist: Getting Exposure for Your Business By Guest Blogging

Being a guest blogger can be a lot of fun. You have an idea, you write the post, and you pitch it to another blog. If accepted, your post is posted on their blog with a link back to yours. Why would something like this help your business? First, you'll be sharing your expertise and knowledge with a whole new audience you might not otherwise reach. Once you've piqued their interest with your information about knitting techniques, marketing strategies, or techo how-to, they'll want to check out your blog to learn more. This drives traffic to your blog which, if your blog is interesting and fun to read, can increase the number of subscribers you have. This might not turn into sales immediately, but if your shop is linked on your blog you might get a few new customers. The even greater potential benefit is the opportunity to be noticed by others. The networking you do with your readers can turn into blog features, magazine features, custom and wholesale order inquires, and more. It won't happen every time you decide to write a guest post, but the possibilities are there.

There are tons of articles online about how to successfully become a guest blogger. Everyone will tell you that you should read the blog prior to submission. You should know whether or not what you want to pitch to the blogger:

A. fits with what their blog is about
B. isn't something they've written about themselves recently

You want to make sure your style will mesh with theirs and that you'll both benefit from the relationship. Definitely check out this article from Daily Blog Tips linked on the Handmade Spark Small Business Success Reading List from July. They'll give you some concrete steps to take on writing and submitting a guest blog post.

What I'm going to do with the Hotlist today is give you some places where you might wish to submit a guest blog post. Most of these sites will require you to pitch your post to an editor and a couple will allow you to simply post whatever content you like and have the community decide whether or not it's valuable. This is certainly NOT an exhaustive list - never forget to consider popular blogs in whatever niche your work falls in!

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