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In a session I did with Brian Clark at Third Tribe last week Brian made the statement – Guest Posting is the New Article Marketing.

In days gone by the way one of the best ways to build a website’s ranking in search engines and to pull in traffic was to write articles for article marketing sites and allow others to republish them on their own sites. In return you’d get a link or two back to your own site.

While I know some bloggers do use article marketing as part of their promotional mix the evidence that I’ve seen lately shows that links in these types of articles tend to count for less than they once did as Google gets smarter in the way that they rank websites.

I wouldn’t write off article writing completely but in the last couple of years we’ve seen the emergence of guest posting as a primary way for bloggers to build their profile, traffic and generate some SEO Google Juice to their sites.

Over the last few years I’ve seen numerous guest bloggers really build careers for themselves in a variety of niches. People like Leo Babauta and Chris Garrett are two that come to mind who built solid reputations and sizeable audiences for themselves through the tactic of guest posting.

While Guest Posts can be a great tactic to use to grow your presence – as someone who uses quite a few guest posts on my blogs I’ve noticed an incredible variety in the quality of guest posts that I’m pitched. I get 20-30 guest posts per week – I couldn’t use them all even if I wanted to – but there are some things that make some guest posters much more attractive to me than others.

In this post I want to explore 10 things that I’ve noticed about the best guest posters that set them apart from the field. These things make them more attractive to me as a blogger evaluating a guest post – but they also make the guest post more effective – which has flow on effects for the guest poster.

1. Offer Your Best Posts

I chatted with one blogger a few months back that told me that his guest post strategy was to give away his 2nd rate posts as guest posts to other blogs. He kept his best stuff for his own blog and whipped up half hearted posts for guest spots.

While I understand the temptation to keep your best content for your own blog and give a half hearted effort for other blogs if you want to maximise the chance of getting a guest post published on a well known blog and you want to maximise its impact upon the readers of that blog – you need to keep the quality up in your guest posts.

2nd rate posts are not likely to get published and if they do – they’ll not drive you the traffic that a first rate post would do.

So take the time to carefully craft your guest posts and to make them as useful as possible.

2. Use Images

This will vary a little depending upon the blog you are submitting to but I know if a guest post is submitted to me that has a good creative commons licensed image with it that I am much more likely to use it.

I love images – they lift a post to a new dimension and make it attention grabbing to readers – if a guest poster goes to the effort of finding such an image I’m always impressed.

3. Optimize the Images

If you do send in an image to go with the post make sure you take a few moments to optimize it and make it ready for posting. By this I mean:

• reduce the file size of the image so it’ll load fast
• make sure the image width will fit into the post box on the blog you’re submitting to so that the blogger doesn’t need to resize it
• name the file something that will help the SEO of the post (use a keyword in the heading).

These things are all small touches that can not only make an impression upon the blogger but help the post load fast, look good and rank a little higher in search engines.

4. Do a Little On Page SEO

While we’re talking search engine optimisation – take a few moments after writing your post to think about SEO. You might not think there’s any reason to do this and that its the blog owners job – but if your guest post ranks well in Google you’re more likely to benefit from the post for the long term as it’ll continue to attract traffic (it’ll also help pass on some Google Juice to your own blog through your byline links).

On page SEO includes making sure you work out what keywords you want the post to rank for and then using those keywords in places like the title of the post, header tags, image alt tags etc.

5. Format Your posts

Another tip to think about before sending off a post is to look at the styling and formatting that the blog normally uses for its posts.

For example – does the blog use headings in posts? If so – what header tags does it use? If it’s

tags, put your own headers into

tags.

If the blog uses blockquotes – consider using that. If the blog has a byline in a certain style or format – include yours in that format. The more ready your post is to publish the better.

6. Send posts in the Right Format

This leads me to my next point – wherever possible send your post to the blog you want to appear on in a format where it can easily be copied and pasted into the back end of that blog. I LOVE it when guest posters send me text files already marked up into html so I can copy and paste them straight in. I generally do a little re-formatting but it is so much easier if things are already formatted in html to some extent.

The best way to do this is to simply write the post up as a draft in your own blog – then copy and paste the html out into a plat txt document to send over. If you’re including images I generally would attach them to the email and indicate in the post where they should be inserted.

If you’re not sure about what format the blogger prefers to receive guest posts in – shoot them an email to ask. Alternatively some guest bloggers I’ve worked with will send two versions of a post – one in a Word Document and one in html.

7. Link to Other posts on the Blog

One technique that some of the very best guest bloggers go to the effort of doing is making sure that their guest posts interlink to other posts on the blog that they’re submitting to.

This is good for a few reasons including:

• it shows the blogger and their readers that you’re familiar with the blog you’re writing for
• it helps the SEO of the blog you’re submitting to
• it gives readers more to read and increases page views on the blog you’re writing for

It certainly takes more work to do this step but it does make an impression.

8. Monitor and Interact in the Comments of the Post

Some guest bloggers feel that their job is done when they send the post off to the blogger for their consideration. However the best guest posters going around see this as just the beginning.

One extra task that can lift the guest post to another level is to monitor the comments being left on the post and interacting with those who read it. This shows a willingness to followup with readers and can make the post more useful to everyone.

9. Promote the Post after its launched

One last task that can also make the post all the more effective for both you and the blog you’re writing for is to take some time out once the post is live to promote it to your own network.

Link to it on your own blog, tweet about it, submit it to other blogs in the niche to see if they’ll link to it, promote it in forums, email it to your newsletter list…. etc

The benefits in promoting the guest post are numerous:

• it makes an impression upon the blogger who is using your post (which could lead to further guest posts or opportunities)
• it can make an impression upon people in your own network to see that you’re published elsewhere
• it can help the SEO of the post to have it linked to (which has flow on effects for you both in terms of traffic and SEO)

All in all – the more successful the post is the better for all concerned so do take the time to give it some promotion – as if it were your own.

What Tips Would You Give Guest Posters to Help Their Posts Become Exceptional?

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

9 Ways Become an Exceptional Guest Poster

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9 Ways Become an Exceptional Guest Poster

Have you ever heard the statement – “Write for People not Search Engines“?

It’s a teaching that many bloggers have heard that encourages bloggers not to compromise the quality of their blog posts in order to get search engine traffic.

The temptation that some bloggers fall into is writing the kind of content that ranks well in Google – but which becomes increasingly unreadable to real people.

What if there was another way to Rank Higher in Search Engines Without Compromising The Quality of Your Posts?

I’ve long thought (and taught) that there was a better way. Using a well optimized blog theme (like Thesis) and knowing some basic principles of SEO so that as you write your quality content you naturally use them to improve your SEO. Having the basics of SEO in mind as you write and tweaking your content as you write it is great – however it requires you to know some of those basics.

Now there IS an easier way

Brian Clark has just released Scribe – a WordPress Plugin that analyzes the content that you write on your blog at the click of a button and then reports back from within your WordPress dashboard on how you can improve your search rankings.

As Brian writes in on the about page of Scribe – it’s like having an SEO expert as an editorial assistant.

I’ve seen and tested a number of SEO type tools previously and Scribe beats them all on a number of levels. Most importantly – it takes what you’ve written (for real people) and uses THAT as the basis for what it recommends instead of starting with some keywords that you want to rank for and creating something that doesn’t really help anyone reading your content.

I’ve been playing with this plugin for a week or so now and it’s really good.

You don’t have to use all the suggestions that Scribe gives you if you feel that you don’t want to make all changes but many of the things it recommends are things that will definitely help your SEO and which SEOs would recommend (that the rest of us might not naturally think of).

The great thing about Scribe is that you can go back to any of your old posts that you’d like to see ranking higher and get it to optimize them too.

As an extra bonus I’m finding that simply using Scribe is giving me a great refresher in SEO and I’m starting to do some of what it recommends more and more as I write.

Scribe syncs beautifully with themes like Thesis, Headway and Hybrid as well as the All in One SEO plugin.

72% off for 4 Days Only

There are three options for buying Scribe but for the next 4 days you can lock yourself in at the most advanced package for the price of the starter package (a saving of 72%).

If traffic from search engines is something you want to tap into more, without compromising the usefulness of your content, Scribe is an option worth investing into. Learn more about it here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Rank Higher in Search Engines Without Compromising The Quality of Your Posts

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Rank Higher in Search Engines Without Compromising The Quality of Your Posts

As you know I’m a big fan of the Wordpress platform. Although it’s not the most optimal platform, there’s no question that it makes it easier to run a website. I was recently asked by Brian Clark of CopyBlogger to test a new service/plugin for Wordpress, one that was designed to help you do a better job of optimizing your posts.

Scribe SEO is plugin that works with Wordpress to analyze your posts, give you information about them, and make suggestions about improving your post from an SEO Perspective. If you’re using Thesis, the plugin interfaces without a hitch. While I haven’t tried it, I understand it also works with the Hybrid and Headway themes as well. If you aren’t using either of those themes, that’s fine. You’ll just need the All in One SEO plugin. So here’s what Scribe SEO does …

Your post is ready to be analyzed by ScribeSEO

Once you’ve finished writing your post, the plugin checks to make sure you’ve written an optimized version of your title in the custom title field. Want the title to be the same? That’s OK, but you’ll have to copy/paste it down below. It then checks to see if you’ve written a meta description. Yes, I know the meta description is not a part of the ranking algo, but your meta description is what appears under your page title in the SERP’s and writing a click-enticing meta description is good thing. If you don’t think Google is using click tracking data, you might want to reconsider. Last, it checks to see if you’ve got content for the post. Once everything is set you’ll see three green arrows like in the screen shot to the right and the analyze button will “turn on.” Hit the button and the process will start. For this write-up, I’ll show data from an old post.

Before we dive in, let’s do a common sense review. Just because a computer program tells you to do something doesn’t mean you should turn off your brain and blindly do it; use some common sense. Sometimes you’ll do something “wrong” on purpose. If you are breaking the rules intentionally and are fully aware of what you are doing and why, feel free to ignore the suggestions. Remember that just because Google and your GPS tell you to go a certain way doesn’t always mean it’s the right way to go. Always use your noodle.

Ok, so here’s a sample of the information you’ll get back from Scribe SEO:

The tool gives you an overall score, a breakdown on keywords, suggestions for tuning your focus into/out of keywords, and a SERP preview. The last tab gives you some general overall SEO guidelines to keep in mind. Are there other tools out there that can give you this information? Absolutely. But can they give it to you right in your dashboard, before you publish, and  without a lot of copying and pasting? Nope.

Here’s where you need to use your brain a little. You don’t need to strive to get a 100% on every post. Technically your posts might be better but honestly I don’t think they’d be as valuable or have as much personality. Having an article that is 100% optimized but is boring is never as good as a slightly less optimized article that’s interesting to read. However (he says, looking squarely in the direction of you bloggers out there) ignoring keyword focus in favor lyrical prose isn’t the answer either. What you need to do is strike a balance, and that’s where Scribe SEO comes in. Write an interesting post/article THEN use Scribe SEO to make sure your article is targeting the right words and sending the right signals to the search engines. This is especially helpful if you are outsourcing your content creation to someone who isn’t an SEO.

Scribe SEO is a paid service. You’re allowed to set it up on as many websites you want. Then, depending on the level you choose, you get a certain number of evaluation runs. For $27 a month you’ll get 30 evaluations, for $47 a month you’ll get 120 evaluations, and for $97 you’ll get 300 evaluations. However as part of the introductory offer you can get the full 300 evaluations for only $27 a month (but the offer ends Feb 19th so you better hurry).

Is it worth the price? If you’re using CPM based advertising and you can generate higher rankings and more traffic then the answer is yes. Running Adsense or an affiliate website/blog? Again if this tool can help you write posts that rank better, drive more traffic, and get you more clicks or conversions, then the answer is again yes it’s absolutely worth it.

Bonus Tip: Do you have old posts that you expected a little more out of? Use this tool to go back, re-evaluate, and tweak things a bit to improve them.

Is this tool for everyone? No. However, if you are looking for a native tool to help finely tune your posts, then yes, this tool can help you. If you feel that your writing is stronger then your SEO knowledge, then yes, this tool will definitely help you. If you use writers with varying degrees of SEO expertise, this tool will absolutely help you bring everything up to par.

If you fit into any of the above scenarios, give Scribe SEO a try and publish posts that are better optimized. Don’t forget: it’s only $27 for the highest level until February 19th.

UPDATE: to answer the question, if you join at the $27 price now you’re locked in, and it won’t go up as long as you stay subscribed.

Disclosure: I was given beta access to this tool and the above post does contain affiliate links. However I’m comfortable recommending this tool since I have tested it on several commercial websites I run and have been satisfied with the results.

Advertisement: Need an SEO Audit for your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services #5

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

Use Scribe SEO to Optimize Your Wordpress Posts

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Earlier this month we published a list of 30 bloggers to watch in 2010 that caused a lot of conversation and debate in the comments section of that post. Of course the list of bloggers were simply one persons opinion and fairly much focused around that persons interests – so a week later I invited readers to create their own ‘bloggers to watch’ lists and submit links to them in the comments of that post.

47 bloggers have created such lists so far. The great thing about the submissions is that while there are some themes there is also a lot of diversity in the lists submitted. There is everything from food bloggers to watch, to Mom bloggers to watch, to greeen bloggers to watch, to personal finance blogges to watch to diabetic bloggers to watch. While not every niche is represented it is a great celebration of the blogosphere.

As it’s been a couple of weeks since I called for posts I thought it might be time to combine all the lists of bloggers to watch into a list of posts.

I encourage you to surf through the list – find the posts you resonate with – link up to them, tweet them and add to them with your own comments and posts.

You are welcome to keep submitting your posts of bloggers to watch in your niche but I probably won’t compile the list again unless there are a lot submitted.

1. Saving Money Bloggers to Watch
2. Dance Blogs to Watch in 2010
3. Top Business and Finance Magazines, Blogs and Journals
4. Bloggers to Watch in 2010- Translation and Localization Industry
5. My Women of the Web
6. Faith Bloggers to Watch in 2010
7. Sewers and Quilting Bloggers to Watch
8. 11 Famous Food Photo Bloggers to Watch This Year
9. Owen Greaves Bloggers to Watch
10. 15 Simplicity/Minimalist Bloggers to Watch in 2010
11. Six Win Bloggers to Watch for 2010
12. 5 More Blogs to Follow in 2010
13. Personal Finance Bloggers to Watch in 2010
14. 5 Laser Sailing Bloggers to Watch in 2010
15. 10 Food Bloggers to Watch in 2010
16. Music Therapy Bloggers to Watch in 2010
17. 10 Top Bloggers to Follow in the WordPress Community
18. Blogs I’ll be Following in 2010
19. Green Crafty Reading List
20. Coupon and Deal Finding Bloggers to Watch
21. My Fave Blogs
22. Decluttering and Getting Organized Bloggers to Watch in 2010
23. Moms Plus Bloggers to Watch in 2010
24. Bloggers to Watch Out For
25. A List of the Best Gardening Blogs
26. 25 Blogger Active Roster
27. Israel Bloggers to Watch in 2010
28. A Few of My Favorite “Mom Blogs”
29. My 2010 Blogs Watch
30. 10 Blogs to Watch in 2010
31. Top 50 Diabetic Bloggers of 2010
32. Fun and Frugal Bloggers to Watch in 2010
33. Green Bloggers to Watch in 2010
34. People to Watch and Learn from in 2010
35. 50 Personal Finance Bloggers to Watch in 2010
36. 62 More Personal Development Blogs – Watch List 2010
37. Blogs to Follow in 2010
38. Social Media Bloggers to Watch
39. Vegan Blogger Reading List
40. The Merch Girl’s Blogs to Watch in 2010
41. 5 Frugal Blogs With the Best Strategies to Save Money
42. Watch List of Bloggers
43. 11 Kingdom Bloggers to Watch in 2010
44. Bloggers to Watch in 2010
45. List of Green Women Bloggers
46. 45 Cross-Cultural and International Bloggers to watch in 2010
47. Four Personal Development Bloggers I’m Watching in 2010

Thanks to everyone who submitted lists!

PS: an interesting piece of feedback that I had from quite a few of the bloggers behind these links was that the posts were among the most popular posts they’ve ever written. These kinds of lists do have a habit of generating traffic and conversation!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

47 Lists of Bloggers to Watch in 2010 – Check them Out!

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47 Lists of Bloggers to Watch in 2010 – Check them Out!

As long as I’m handing out reading suggestions today, here’s another one. Don’t miss Tamar Weinberg’s excellent annual Best Of post:

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009

I’m happy to see a few of my posts on the list, both from here and from HyperlocalBlogger.com. But there’s a ton of great stuff over there, and you’ll want to plan on returning to that several times to get through it.

Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Online Marketing Reading Suggestion

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1. Local Search Reading Suggestion
2. Your January Reading List

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Online Marketing Reading Suggestion

As long as I’m handing out reading suggestions today, here’s another one. Don’t miss Tamar Weinberg’s excellent annual Best Of post:

Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2009

I’m happy to see a few of my posts on the list, both from here and from HyperlocalBlogger.com. But there’s a ton of great stuff over there, and you’ll want to plan on returning to that several times to get through it.

Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Online Marketing Reading Suggestion

Related posts:

1. Local Search Reading Suggestion
2. Your January Reading List

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Online Marketing Reading Suggestion

Here’s my roundup of the best search/marketing posts I found and read during December. If you’re new to this blog, this is a monthly feature that began way back in 2007. You can find earlier “Best Of”s for each month in the archives: 2008 Best Posts and 2007 Best Posts. I never include my own posts in these end-of-month recaps.

Local Search

• Vedran Tomic/SmallBizTrends: 10 Things You Should Have Done to Make Your Google Business Listing Great
• Ash Nallawalla/NetMagellan: How to SEO for Google PlaceRank
• Tom Critchlow/Distilled: Google Local Research Data Released For Free

SEO

• Mark Thompson/Web Analytics World: 10 SEO Tools I Use That Are Free
• Rand Fishkin/SEOmoz: How Personalized Search Changes SEO (and Doesn’t)
• Michael Gray/Wolf-Howl: Shopping Cart SEO Tips

Link Building

• Wiep Knol: My Link Baiting Idea Generation Process
• Garrett French/SEL: 21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries

Social Media

• Lisa Barone/Small Business Trends: 7 Ways to Get More From Social Media in 2010
• Jennifer Laycock/SEG: Four (ok twelve) Reasons to Build a Social Media Strategy for 2010
• Heidi Cohen/ClickZ: Social Media Checklist for Small and Medium Size Businesses
• Mack Collier: Everything you ever wanted to know about creating a social media strategy (but were afraid to ask)
• Rebecca Kelley/10e20: 6 More Social Media New Year’s Resolutions for 2010
• Greg Finn/SEL: 12 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010
• Jennifer Laycock/SEG: The Super Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First Company Facebook Page Without Blowing a Gasket – Part Three

Blogs & Blogging

• Glen Allsopp/Viperchill: Guest Blogging: The Ultimate Guide
• Michael Martine/Remarkablogger: Real Estate Blogs: Move Beyond Listings, or You’re Dead
• Rebecca Kelley/10e20: Comments or No Comments? That is the Question!

Copywriting

• Renne Leatto/I. Karumbah: Does Your Copy Need a Makeover? 7 Tests That Measure the Verbal Impact of Your Business Message
• Jason Cohen/Copyblogger: 10 Secrets to More Magnetic Copy

Web Design/Usability

• Linda Bustos/Get Elastic: 8 Tips for Account Registration
• Dr. Pete Meyers/SEOmoz: Persuasion 101: Ask Yes/Yes Questions

Advertisement: WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool delivers more keywords, faster than paid tools and always 100% free. Try it today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

December ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts

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2. January ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts
3. June ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts

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December ‘09: Best Search/Marketing Posts

2009 was a massive year for me – both personally and on my blogs, including here on ProBlogger.

As a result I’ve decided for this last week before the new year that I’m going to do two things:

1. Take a break from blogging – I have another project I need to complete so I’ll still be around working – but a mini break from writing new posts will probably do me good.
2. Look back on the year that was – I’ve been reflecting a lot lately upon how my approach to blogging and business has shifted in the last year. As a result I thought it might be interesting to look back on some of the posts from ProBlogger from 2009 that got the most traction with readers.

Over the next 5 days you’ll see a series of posts here at ProBlogger that look back on some of these most popular posts on ProBlogger from 2009. Each post will have a theme so as to make the list of posts a little more useful and relevant. In preparing these posts it has been fun to remember some of the topics I’ve tackled this year (some I’d forgotten that I’d written).

Of course the posts I present will only scratch the surface – I’ve published 461 posts here on ProBlogger so far this year – but I hope it’ll be a useful way to find some of the best and most useful content that we’ve covered – as well as a good way to refocus for the new year.

Topics we’ll be covering this week are:

• Writing Content
• Finding Readers
• Making Money Blogging
• Tips for Beginners
• More General Blogging Tips

I’ll update this list with links as the posts come out. The first post will be out shortly.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Best of ProBlogger 2009: Holiday Series

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Best of ProBlogger 2009: Holiday Series

This morning I glanced down at the Alexa traffic indicator for ProBlogger in my Firefox browser and noticed that in the last week I’ve had a noticeable upswing in traffic to ProBlogger.

At first I couldn’t think of why this might have been. In the last 7 days none of my posts have gone viral around the web – no big site has linked up – nothing much has changed.

I clicked through to Aweber to see if the chart there was any different. It similarly showed an upswing in traffic.

Perhaps it is just one of those Aweber ‘glitches’ that happens every now and again – so I checked my site metrics and the same upswing was reflected there. Traffic was up a bit over 30% on normal over the week.

I dug down further to see which post drew in all the traffic thinking that perhaps one went viral while I slept one night and then returned to normal – but there was nothing abnormal. All of the posts in the last week had normal kind of traffic – hmmmm.

As I continued to ponder I realised that the upswing wasn’t due to any one post – it was simply due to the fact that last week I posted 13 posts instead of my normal 7-8. The increased number of posts wasn’t a strategic move – it was just that there were more stories to cover during the week with a few breaking news stories.

I guess the take home lesson is that an increase in posting frequency can lead to an increase in traffic.

Of course it isn’t quite as simple as just doubling your posts and seeing an automatic increase in traffic. A few things to keep in mind are:

• This will be more the case for a site with existing subscribers than a new one – increased numbers of posts means your subscribers are being presented with more options for things to read – increasing their chance of finding something that fits their needs.
• Of course increasing your post frequency too much and too quickly can annoy some of your subscribers. Keep in mind that when I surveyed readers on why they unsubscribe to blogs that the #1 reason given was too many posts.
• The key is to keep your posts relevant, on topic and useful. If you do want to increase your post levels you probably should also do it a little gradually. I got away with 13 posts last week instead of 8 like the week before but if I’d posted much more than that in the week I’m sure I would have got some push back from readers. Don’t suddenly decide to be like some of the big tech blogs and push out 20 posts in a day unexpectedly!

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How To Increase Traffic 30% in a Week

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How To Increase Traffic 30% in a Week