I recently accepted a position as an online marketing specialist and one of my duties involves writing guest posts.
While writing guest posts is fun, trying to get into contact with a blogger or website owner is a completely different story. I felt that I could write a great guest post that the readers would love, yet no one was responding to my email.
I met with Haley, the director of marketing for an online sunglasses company, who offered me these 4 tips that helped me with formulating my emails.
1. Personalize all of your emails– Bloggers and site owners receive hundreds of emails a week and can instantly pick out form emails. Take a few minutes to look at their site or blog. Read an article or two and reference it in your email. This signals to the site owner that you care about their blog by actually taking the time to read their stories.
2. Keep it Short– The first emails I sent were almost two paragraphs long and this was a big problem. People tend to have a short attention span so make sure they can read your email in less than a minute. As a general rule of thumb, you should be able to complement the site owner while referencing an article in two to three sentences. You should then be able to request a guest post and explain how it will add value to their site in two sentences. Anything longer and you may lose their attention
3. Have a great subject line– A subject line is like a first impression; no one wants to make a bad first impression! Your subject line should be unique and not generic like “guest post.” These normally get moved to a separate folder and it might never get read. Your subject line should reference an article they wrote or something on their site. This will again signal that you care about their site and read their articles and is more likely to get your email opened.
4. Signatures- If your signature includes a title that is SEO related, such as SEO analyst or online marketing manager, site owners may think you have other motives behind your guest post requests. They will be more likely to delete your email, so either remove your title from your signature or put something generic like “writer.”
After following Haley’s tips, the rate of response increased exponentially! I was able to start a line of communication and am now a scheduled guest blogger for a handful of websites.
As you are writing your email, keep in mind that you need to explain to the blogger how you will add value to their site. Even after striking up a relationship, your guest post won’t get posted if the topic has been discussed several times before.
By following this tips and writing great content that adds value to their site, you are well on your way to being a successful guest author and creating relationships with website owners!