How can I tell if a blog is worth writing a guest post for? #WriterWednesday #AmWriting

One of my goals for 2018 is to write more guest blogs. (In case you’re wondering, I’m failing spectacularly with this goal.) As I’ve talked about this goal, I’ve received a question I hadn’t expected: How can I tell if a blog is worth writing a guest post for? Initially, my answer was Who cares? Any publicity at all is good! I’ve since grown up a bit and realized that there are only twenty-four hours in day and, therefore, writers (and whoever else is writing a guest blog to gain exposure) can’t afford to spend their time writing guest blog posts for just anyone. So, how do you pick and choose blogs to query for a possible guest blog spot?

The first step, after assuring the blog is accepting requests for blog posts, is a numbers game. How many followers does the blog have? This number can be deceiving, however. Just because a blog has a large following doesn’t mean that the followers are actually reading the blog posts. Check out a few recent posts. Are there several likes? How many comments are there? In this way, you can make sure the blog’s following is an active following.

Not all blogs indicate the number of followers. My blog doesn’t. So, how do you determine if the blog is worth spending the time and energy on writing a guest blog for? You can determine how often the blog is visited by reviewing its page views and unique visitors. Many blogs that solicit guest blogs will provide this statistical information. Page views refers to the number of pages viewed on a blog during a given time period. But page views can be misleading. The same person can visit the blog multiple times in a day making it look as if the blog is frequently visited. Unique visitors is often a better measurement. A unique visitor refers to a person who visits a site during the reporting period. Each visitor to the site is only counted once during the reporting period.

So, you’ve reviewed the statistics and determined the blog has an active following and/or is frequently visited. You’re done, right? Not quite. You should also check out the social media following of the blog. How many twitter and/or Instagram followers does the blog have? Even if the blog has a large following, it’s important to ensure your guest blog post will be shared on such social media. After all, you can’t create buzz for your post (and certainly not your book or product) without social media.

Now that you’ve determined which blogs you want to write a guest post for, it’s time to start writing that guest post. Ready, set, go!