Have you been following along with the How to Build a Successful Blog series? 

I’m at a point now where I feel like Serendipity and Spice officially qualifies as a successful blog.  I started this cute little blog about 3 years ago as an outlet for becoming a new stay at home mom.  Although I LOVED being able to stay at home and spending all of my time with Little Man I was beginning to go a bit stir crazy not having anything else to focus on….so Serendipity and Spice was born.  I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning….I just started writing and clicking publish.  In 2012 I went from having about 100 page views a month (probably all spam bots) to averaging ONE MILLION PAGE VIEWS A MONTH by the end of 2014.  I also went from making nothing to averaging about $2000 a month in blog income and steadily increasing.

Over the past few months I’ve been asked over and over again from friends, family, and readers “how do I start a blog?”.  Well, over the next few weeks I’m going to show you how to build a successful blog.

What you’ll learn-

• How to start a successful blog.
• How to design a successful blog.*
• How to set up your social media.*
• How to Write a Guest Post.
• How to make graphics for your blog.*
• How to improve your blog photos.
• How to monetize your blog.*
• Recommended WordPress Plugins and Widgets.*
• And so much more…..

*coming soon

Alright, on with the original post…..

A guest post is a chance to share your ideas with a whole new set of readers.  When you write a guest post you want it to be AMAZING- not only as a respectful gesture to your hostess but to gain new readers.  A guest post is by far the BEST promotion you can do for your blog– so I’ve compiled some tips so you can ROCK IT!

Your guest post should not be something that has already been posted on your site- it should be new and fresh.  No one is going to come visit you if you’re content is something they’ve already read…. plus it’s disrespectful to your hostess to give her a used post— plus, Google will punish both of you for duplicate content thus killing your SEO!

Research the blog that you’re posting on…. what does the hostess usually blog about? Does she focus on family life or single life? Are her followers younger or older? Are her blog posts family oriented?  You want to gear your post so that it’s something that you’re hostess’ readers will find interesting.  Let’s face it, YOU WANT PEOPLE TO READ YOUR POST, if they don’t find it relevant they’re not going to read it.

 You wouldn’t want to post about Lady Gaga’s current fashion faux pas on a family values and faith blog.

This is just a nice respectful gesture to your hostess. And don’t repost it verbatim!  Rule of thumb is to change it at least 20%  or else you and the site you guest post at will be dinged by Google and that’s no good!  Refreshing pictures is also a good idea too.

On the day that your guest post goes live on the host’s site you should write a quick post letting your readers know where you are guest posting for the day and direct them to the host site.  Guest posting should be mutually beneficial with your sending traffic to your host while your host gives you exposure to a whole new audience.

Start of by Thanking you’re hostess and gushing about her site and readers.  Tell the readers how honored you are that ______ is allowing you to entertain them for the day.

Brag a little about what your site is about.  Include a picture- it helps when people can put a face to the writer.

 It is perfectly okay to add links to your site here.  I usually write a quick intro like:

 “I’m Melissa from Serendipity and Spice. It’s all about happy accidents making the spice of life over there!  I’m constantly on a quest to survive motherhood one recipe, craft, and adventure at time!! 🙂 I hope you’ll stop by and say Hi!  You can also find me sharing cute pics of the kids on Instagram, doing some wishful thinking on Pinterest, and sharing funny memes on Facebook….come check it out!”

 I’ve quickly covered what they can expect from my blog and given a few links to the pages that may interest them. But I didn’t overdo it- keep it short and sweet.

This is your chance to SHINE and gain a new audience…don’t waste it with a half-hearted guest post!  Include photos (take good ones) – triple check your spelling – make sure the post you submit is one of the best you’ve ever done!  Remember, this post is a first impression to hundreds of potential new followers.  If they like you they will follow you!

At the end of your post thank your host again for the opportunity to guest post on their site. Thank the readers as well.

 Don’t copy verbatim what you said in the beginning when you introduced yourself but close with a reiteration to come visit and follow along…this is how you gain new followers.  Write something like:

What I do is type it up in my WP post screen (the same way I would write a post that I was going to publish) and upload all of my photos to Photobucket. When you insert a photo on the blogger screen you have the choice to upload a photo and several other options- choose the “From a URL”.  Go to Photobucket and copy the URL for your photo and insert it by URL- make sense?

That way your photos are hosted by PhotoBucket and you don’t have to worry about your bandwidth.  Then I switch over to view the post in HTML- I copy and paste it into a Word Document and save as RichText.  This should keep your post from becoming distorted and your hostess will be able to easily open it and paste it into her post screen.  Make sense? I know it can get complicated.

Check out these other Blogger Tips: