No matter what kind of blog you’re running, you can drastically boost your traffic and your exposure through guest blogging. Here are five of the main reasons why every blogger should guest post.

==> Targeted Traffic

When you write a guest post on someone else’s blog, anyone who clicks through to your site is going to be highly targeted traffic.

Writing a post for another high traffic website is all it takes to get a flood of high quality web traffic coming your way.

==> PageRank and SEO

Getting backlinks from guest blogging checks off just about every item on an “SEO factors” list.

The links are targeted. They’re from real sites. They’re (often) in-context links. You can control the anchor text. And if you’re writing for high traffic blogs, the links will naturally have both PageRank and authority.

Many sites have gotten rankings purely by getting dozens if not hundreds of backlinks through guest blogging.

==> Building Relationships in the Industry

Having relationships in your industry will help you advance your business in many different ways.

When you’re launching a new product and need bloggers to write about it, who do you turn to? The people you have relationships with.

When you’re looking for referrals to press, who do you turn to? The people you have relationships with.

Relationships, relationships, relationships. Guest posting helps build relationships. If you provide something valuable for their audience, they’ll be eternally grateful.

==> Increase Your Reputation

Another way guest blogging can help is by increasing your reputation. This is especially the case in relatively small industries.

Let’s say someone frequents four different sites in your industry. On all four sites, they see guest blog posts by you. Just the fact that you’re all over the different websites in your industry is going to do a lot for building your reputation.

When you guest blog post on someone else’s site, that’s an implicit endorsement from them. It also gets you more exposure, which builds credibility.

==> Helps You Explore Different Ideas

Guest blog posting also helps you expand your own ideas.

Let’s say you run a management training company. If you’re invited to guest post for a Fortune 500 company, that’s going to require a different line of thought than writing for a mom and pop blog. You’ll also need to think differently to write for a company that outsources most of their work.

When you guest post, you have to stretch your ideas, concepts and identity to bring value to people who’re slightly different than your typical market. This helps you develop and grow your ideas and concepts.

These are five of the main benefits of guest blogging. It’s one of the highest ROI activities any blogger could take on.

You can take a blog and make it profitable by adding good content to it on a daily basis. By doing this, you will be able to develop a quality, informative blog that will have a large viewing audience. Once it has this kind of audience, you have different options available. You can get paid to put advertisements on it, or you can opt to sell it for a large profit. There are a lot of people who are in the market for a good-quality established blog.

While you are building up your blog, you can put sponsored advertising on it. These are paid-to-click ads invite people to click on the ads, which lead them to a web page. This form of advertising can yield very good results, and very high profit, especially if you develop more than one blog. If you set up numerous blogs, you will find that at least a few will earn a decent income. In this way, you can build up real estate on the Internet.

Making money blogging is not that difficult. It may take you some time to build up a good income, but in the meantime, you can earn a second income while learning all of the tricks involved with advertising and marketing of your blog. You will find that it is a lot of fun blogging, and you may even find that you get quite addicted to it. Try setting up a blog for yourself and see just how easy it is to get yourself moving toward profit.

The question is: is one method better than the other?

==> The Pros and Cons of Pre-Writing

One big benefit of pre-writing is that you don’t have to wait to write. If you had to get the green light for each and every article, there’d be a lot of waiting time. By contrast, if you just went ahead and wrote the articles, you could easily blast through a dozen of these articles all at once.

You can also outsource part of this process. Naturally you don’t want to outsource blog posts for high PageRank and high traffic blogs. However, the posts for smaller blogs can often be outsourced.

Once you have a steady system of getting guest blog post gigs, it’s not inconceivable to get half a dozen of these gigs every week. If that happens, it helps to have a whole bunch of these articles in your pocket ready to fire off.

==> The Pros and Cons of Getting Permission

The permission-based method of writing articles involves contacting blogs with a list of potential topics, getting the green light and then only writing guest posts once they’ve expressed interest.

The upside of this method is that you can really put some effort into writing a great guest blog post. Once you know someone is interested in a topic and will post it if you do a great job, you can really pour your heart into it.

The downside is the lack of scale. It’s much harder to scale up this method to get 30+ guest blog posts out there a month, for example.

If you have to correspond with 30 different blogs and keep track of where you are in the sales cycle of each one, then write articles only once you get the green light while making sure you deliver them quickly for the ones that want post, it can quickly get overwhelming.

==> What’s the Best Method?

The best method is a combination of both styles.

It’s absolutely a good idea to have a reserve of a dozen or more articles that you can just whip out. Use these for low traffic blogs or for blogs where you’re just doing a guest post for the backlink.

On the other hand, for high traffic blogs or for blogs whose backlinks you really want, custom write each and every article.

In other words, use a mix of these two techniques to get both scale and power. Use pre-writing to help land you a lot of backlinks, but custom write articles for the best sites.

Here are seven guest post article templates you can use to instantly come up with new post ideas.

==> X Tips

Post titles with a specific number of tips often do very well. For example:

101 Tips for Traveling the World
10 Tips for Training Your Pet
7 Tips for Raising a Healthy baby
55 Tips for Effort-Free Dieting

Make sure you pick a specific number of tips and place it in the title. Odd numbers seem to work better than even numbers.

==> How To

How to titles is another popular type. For example:

“How to Repair a Broken Desk”
“How to Meet the Man of Your Dreams”
“How to Write a Great Guest Post”

Ask yourself, “What does my target market want to know?” Then write a how to for them.

==> Pitfalls and Mistakes

Talk about the common pitfalls and mistakes people make in your industry. For example:

“The Seven Deadly SEO Mistakes Bloggers Make”
“The #1 Mistake Beginning Chefs Make”
“3 Common Pitfalls of Intranet Networking”

==> Tell a Story

Telling a story is a great way to attract an audience and communicate a message.

One of the most famous direct response ads in history had the headline:

“They Laughed When I Sat Down … But When I Started to Play!”

The piece then went on to tell the story of how nobody thought the main character could play – and were then shocked when he did.

Use stories to invoke emotions, convey a point and connect with your audience.

==> Share a Success

If you sold a website for $50,000, share how you did it. If you built a company from the ground up then put it on passive mode, share how you did it. If you learned how to play an instrument in a month, share how you did it.

People love to read success stories, especially if they’re filled with nuggets they can use in their own lives.

==> Image Tutorials

One great way to bring real value to someone else’s blog is to create an image tutorial for them. Creating image tutorials, which involves step by step pictures, takes quite a bit of effort. Most bloggers won’t go through the trouble.

That’s why if you’re willing to do it, they’ll be very grateful.

For example, if you’re writing a tutorial about how to get rid of squirrels, take pictures of securing your garbage, securing your house, etc.

==> Controversial Opinion

Finally, you can share a controversial opinion. If everyone is buying gold, share why you’re shorting gold. If everyone thinks paid backlinks are the way and you think guest blog posting is the way, share why.

If you’re ever at a loss on what kind of guest blog post to write, try using one of these templates.

How can you use the power of networking to help you land guest blog posts?

==> Go to Conferences and Events

Let’s say you’re in the tech space. You want to land high profile guest blogging opportunities. How do you make those connections?

Sure, you could email them about a guest blog opportunity. Yet chances are they get at least a dozen, perhaps even a hundred such emails every single day.

You could try to call them. Likewise, you’re probably going to get screened as they get so many requests.

The one way you can circumvent all of this is by meeting people face to face. Meeting them in person allows you to bypass all their safeguards and allows you to establish credibility and a real connection.

If you’re in the tech space, go to tech conferences. If you sell fishing gear, go to fishing expo centers and trade shows. If you run a health blog, go to raw food fairs and health expos.

==> Meet Other Writers

Sometimes you won’t be able to get to the people who run these blogs and websites. For example, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, one of the most highly trafficked sites on the web, is simply inaccessible – even in person. He’s constantly surrounded by people who want his attention.

To land these kinds of high profile gigs, the best path is often to build a connection with people who’ve written for those sites before.

If you can meet other bloggers who’ve guest posted for those high profile sites and win over those bloggers, you might be able to get a recommendation or an endorsement. That could be all it takes to get your foot in the door.

==> One Post versus 100 Posts

Going to these networking events takes a lot of effort and resources. Often times you’ll have to buy a plane ticket and an event ticket, plus pay for a hotel for a few days. All of this costs time and money.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just sit in your bedroom and land smaller guest posting gigs?

Yes – it would. But that brings up the question of whether it’s better to land just one big guest blog posting opportunity or 100 small ones.

The reality is, getting one major guest blog posting opportunity on an extremely high trafficked site can have more of an impact than doing a hundred or more smaller ones.

Yes, going out of your way to network with strong influencers takes a lot of effort. The flip side, however, is that landing just one of these gigs is often enough to propel your blog to the next level.

So how do you land these high profile guest blog posts?

==> Make Your Own Site A+

When someone lets you guest blog for their site, they’re implicitly endorsing you. They’re not going to do that unless your own website is truly top notch.

In other words, make sure the content on your site provides immense value. Make sure your design looks highly professional.

Make sure someone who sees your blog will think of you as an authority and would want to partner with you.

==> Look for Sites That Have Accepted Guest Posts

If a site has never accepted a guest post in its history, you might have a hard time convincing them to accept yours. On the other hand, if they’ve been consistently publishing one or two posts by other authors every month, you might have a very good chance.

One simple way to figure out whether or not a site accepts guest posts is to type in [site:urlname.com "guest post"] in Google. This will bring up all entries that have the words “guest post” on a specific site. If there are no results, try a few more queries like “guest author.”

If you can’t find any guest blog posts, it’s best to focus on a different site.

==> Start Building a Connection

While you can just approach the site out of the blue, it’s often better to try to build a connection first.

Start commenting on their blog a month before you want to request a guest blog post. Answer their questions and aim to become an active member of their community. Contribute.

Do the same with Twitter. Retweet things that they tweeted. @reply to them when they ask a question.

Get yourself on their radar.

==> Landing the Guest Blog Spot

Finally, send them an email outlining your proposal.

Try to come up with three topics that you think their audience will love. Tailor each request to the blog specifically. Don’t mass-send. Instead, come up with topics you think their specific audience would benefit from.

Let them know that it’s easy to publish your article and that it won’t be republished anywhere else. All you ask for is a link back to your website.

Remember that blog authors need content as much as you want to get content published. By giving them a high quality blog post, you’re saving them as much as a day by not having to write their own content.

What you’re proposing is a win/win, as long as you have enough trust and quality.

That’s how to land high profile guest blog posts!