1. Blogs make readers feel like they know you: When we read blogs, we’re reading about someone very real to us, even if we’ve never met that person and never will. Make yourself as real as possible to your readers and they’ll feel much more comfortable hiring you, despite the fact that you might really just be another stranger on the internet.
2. You have tons of ready made content, in the form of case studies: A blog promoting a service is one of the easiest to write because you know exactly what you’ve done for individual clients in the past and how they’ve benefited. So write up a case study of every past client you can and get it up on your blog. And, by the way, prospective clients love case studies.
3. As a service provider, you have to be an expert: It’s your blog and you’re the expert, so write like it. Don’t hedge your bets with ‘I think’ or ‘I expect.’ It’s tempting to run a blog as a newbie exploring a topic, but that doesn’t help you make sales. Focus on the expertise you already have.
4. You can’t compete on search engine traffic, and that’s okay: It’s particularly hard to rank for keywords like ‘freelancer’ or ‘consultant,’ because there are so many service providers with websites already. But you can be very competitive for prominence within a niche — you can get plenty of traffic from other sites promoting you, especially if you write posts that everyone wants to link to. That can be a benefit, letting you specialize within that niche.
5. You have to write in advance for your blog: Every service provider I know has hills and valleys, in terms of their work loads. When you’ve got plenty of client work, you don’t want to take any time away from it to write for your blog. You shouldn’t force it, considering that your client work needs to be top-notch. But you should make the effort to stockpile posts during the slow times in your business.
6. The threshold is low, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to wow readers. There are some incredibly bad blogs out there, ran by freelancers and other service providers. It’s like there’s a checklist somewhere telling people that they have to have a blog, so they throw some site together that has lots of broken pieces, typos and the like. That can make you think that as long as you avoid being that bad, you’re doing good. But you really need to wow your readers, not just beat the particularly bad blogs.
7. Don’t track subscribers on your blog, if your goal is to get clients. First of all, it’s the wrong metric to determine success for your blog — you want to track conversions to tell how you’re actually doing. Second, odds are good that you’re dealing with an audience who won’t subscribe that often. Instead, they’ll find you through a link or a search, read a whole bunch of posts in one day and either contact you immediately or bookmark you as someone to work with at a later date.

There are differences between every type of blog. If you’re using your blog to promote your services, you need to know those differences and act on them.

You’ve logged long hours behind the glare of your laptop display, battled writer’s block valiantly, and tried your best not to get rattled by the occasional negative comment or flame war. Along the way, you’ve produced some great content and have joined the growing ranks of more than 175 million blogs worldwide.

While blogging has become a serious industry, most bloggers don’t necessarily consider the business aspects of their blog when they’re just starting out. But soon enough what may have started as a casual interest turns into an extra source of income, or even a full-time business.

If you’re a self-employed or self-starting blogger, you’ve got to be aware of a few things as you navigate the legal and business aspects of your blog.

Liability issues

Yes, I know, it’s hard to imagine that sitting behind a computer can put you at any real risk of a lawsuit. And certainly managing a blog is inherently less risky than managing a sky diving business. However, there are some liability issues to consider: What it you accidentally plagiarize another writer’s work? What if you write about a mobile phone prototype left behind at a bar? What if you’re fined by the FTC or named in a class-action lawsuit for positively reviewing a defective product?

If you’re involved in blogging or social media, you’re most likely aware that back in 2009 the FTC revised their guidelines to bring social media and Internet advertisers into the mix. At the heart of this revision was a concern that recognizing ads in social media was becoming increasingly harder. And since then, we’ve seen a handful of controversies surrounding celebrities not properly disclosing brand relationships.

Here’s my recipe (just three simple steps) to minimize your liability as a blogger:

Step 1: 1 cup of disclosure

You need to disclose any ‘material relationship’ with an advertiser or brand. A material relationship can be anything and everything from receiving cash, free samples, a free product, or free trip in exchange for a product review or blog post. Let’s say that Jimmy is an online gaming expert who drinks lots of energy drinks and blogs about his gaming experiences. A game manufacturer sends him a free game and asks him to write about it. Accepting this free game creates a material relationship that must be disclosed or Jimmy can face substantial fines.

If you’re not sure what constitutes a material relationship, err on the side of caution. After all, do you think Jimmy’s readers will be upset to learn he received a free game (particularly, if he’s known for enthusiastic, albeit dead honest, reviews)? Beyond FTC penalties, I believe that disclosure is good practice, as it maintains the relationship of trust that you’ve built with your audience.

Step 2: Sprinkle reviews with results that consumers can ‘generally expect’

It’s no longer acceptable for a blog review to make outrageous claims like “I made $30,000 last month from home selling on eBay; I lost 50 pounds in 2 months.” This is true even if you put a disclaimer ‘results not typical’ in fine print. Like advertisers, bloggers are required to disclose results that “consumers can generally expect.” If you don’t comply, you could receive substantial fines or a consumer protection lawsuit. In most cases, the company itself will be the defendant, but as a participating blogger, you could also be named in the lawsuit.

Step 3: Form an LLC or corporation

Most bloggers aren’t really thinking about business structure when they first start out, meaning that most begin as sole proprietors. While you may think you should incorporate in order to lower your taxes, the main benefit of incorporating or forming an LLC has to do with separating your personal and business finances and minimizing your personal liability.

With an LLC or Corporation (S Corp or C Corp), your personal assets, such as property or a savings account, are shielded from any judgment if your blog happens to be sued or fined. On the other hand, if you’re sued as a sole proprietor, you’ll be sued personally. This means that your personal assets are all at risk. And what you initially started as an interesting side project could end up wiping out your down payment savings.

Also be aware that creditor judgments can actually last up to 22 years. This means that if you’re sued today, your personal assets will still be vulnerable for up to 22 years.

This may sound like scare tactics. And I’m not a fan of scare tactics. But I am a fan of education. Most likely, you’ll never run into any sort of problems with your blog except for the occasional troll. But following this simple recipe of shielding your personal assets through an LLC or Corp, using common sense when choosing your advertising/marketing partners, and always erring on the side of transparency will help make for the sweet success of your blog and business.

Nellie Akalp is a passionate entrepreneur, small business advocate and mother of four. As CEO of CorpNet.com, an online legal document filing service, Nellie helps small business owners form an LLC or incorporate a business in order to start and protect their new business ventures the right way. To access free guides, advice and informative videos on small business legal topics, visit here: http://bit.ly/pChZbV

At next week’s BlogWorld in LA; Nellie will be exhibiting information for attendees to learn the benefits of forming that business structure to a new venture and why it’s an integral part of the success of a business. She will be giving away one iPad2 on November 4th and one on November 5th to BWE attendees. People just have to stop by the booth and look for the ‘Word of the Day’. Once they find it; they need to Tweet to @CorpNet or comment on the CorpNet Facebook page with that word to be entered to win. If they tweet and comment; they are entered twice.

Blogging has come a long, long way since the days of ‘online journals’. It’s a completely different animal nowadays! And with more and more casual bloggers wanting to take their blogs and online brands to the next level, things can start to get a little more complicated and certainly more hectic for them, than ever before. This is where a little virtual help can become a lifesaver!

As someone that has been in the outsourcing business for over a decade, and currently has approximately 300 VA’s working for him, I can honestly say that I see the benefits of working with virtual staff every single day.

However, gone are the days when VA’s were just meant for busy executive types, and people that just needed ‘letters typed up’. New age entrepreneurs, Internet marketers, affiliate superstars and bloggers everywhere are enjoying the freedom factor that engaging the services of a VA, or even building a team of virtual staff. And the really good news is that you can, too.

So, today, as a quick intro to my upcoming session at BWELA, entitled “How to Work with Virtual Assistants to Help Build, Grow and Monetize Your Blog”, I’m happy to present a little teaser, in the form of the top five reasons why bloggers should be working with VA’s!

Buckle up, here we go…

1. Working with a ‘General VA’ will create massive amounts of additional time to work on other things.

Having someone doing the mundane blogging tasks such as online research, formatting posts in WordPress, searching for copyright free images, embedding video and audio files, creating and embedding SEO info, such as meta tags and descriptions will enable you to free up a ton of time to be able to work on other, more stimulating tasks. These hotshots can also help manage and build your social media presence, too – amongst other things.

2. Having an ‘SEO Specialist VA’ on your team will make sure that your blog gets ranked where it should be – at the top of the SERPs.

We all know what SEO is and how important it is as bloggers. However, we’re also told to produce content for our tribes, not for the search engines. Because of this, off-site SEO couldn’t be any more important. Utilizing SEO-savvy VA’s will enable you to get ranked for all your chosen keywords. Because of this, you’ll enjoy great amounts of regular and new traffic… daily. They will also make sure that your on-site SEO is fired up, to help in your overall SEO mission.

3. Video and Audio VA’s will help you take your brand to the next level.

If you’re a blogger and you’re not already enjoying the additional exposure and traffic that hosting a podcast, and recording great video content brings, then you’re behind the front-runners. Snap out of it! The thing is, a lot of really good bloggers don’t get involved in these additional mediums because they don’t have the skills needed to make them look and sound great. Relax. You don’t need to. There are tons of great VA’s out there that can help you edit your videos and podcast episodes. Try them out on a few simple things first and you’ll be pleasantly surprised, I assure you.

4. Hiring a ‘Web Developer VA’ will enable you to get your blog looking exactly the way you want it to.

Can you install WordPress on your own server? I can. Cool isn’t it!? I can even install and tweak themes, too. However, when it comes to really customizing the way my blog looks, I am a complete dullard. Embedding Google analytics and opt-in form code, adjusting image sizes, graphic design, including automatic thumbnails and excerpts. You name it. Sure, I could probably learn that stuff, too – but, I enjoy engulfing myself with number five on this list, way too much! Speaking of that…

5. Overall, working with Virtual Assistants means you can focus on what you should be focusing on, as an online publisher – creating awesome content!

I absolutely, without a doubt, whole-heartedly enjoy creating content for my online tribe. Don’t you?! Whether its written content, video clips or podcast episodes, putting together as much worthwhile, thought-provoking and helpful content is my focus, as a blogger, and it should be yours, too.

So, there you have it – the top five reasons why you should be working alongside virtual assistants, as a blogger wanting to take your game to the next level and enjoy the full-time blogging lifestyle that so many of us are already living.

If you’d like to learn more about these five areas, plus a whole lot more in regards to utilizing VA’s, I’d love to see you at my session in LA, “How to Work with Virtual Assistants to Help Build, Grow and Monetize Your Blog”, which is taking place at 1.30pm-2.30pm on Thursday 3rd, November. I’ll be going into a lot more detail, as well as exploring other important topics such as where to find quality VA’s, how much to pay them, as well as how to get the most out of them as employees.

See you in LA!

Hear what Chris has to say about his session and why you should attend BlogWorld LA:

Chris C. Ducker is the Virtual CEO of the Live2Sell Group and Virtual Staff Finder, the number one provider of home-based Filipino virtual assistants online. When he’s not blogging at VirtualBusinessLifestyle.com, he can be found getting beaten up by his three children, or eating donuts!

Halloween

One of the most exciting and profitable times of the year! Forget about the candy… everyone wants the costumes, and they are willing to shed out the big bucks to get them. Sure, there might be huge Halloween outlets stores in your area, but everyone is really flocking to do their research and buying online. Through the use of affiliate programs, you can simply create a resource web site or blog about Halloween costumes, then earn any where from 10-40% on all referred sales. Some families are buying all of their costumes online, which can bring in orders in the $200-$300 range! If you aren’t ready for Halloween this year, make sure your spook yourself into doing something next year!

Black Friday

If you didn’t have to wake up in the early morning hours to go to work, would you? It’s amazing what people will do to find discounts and deals during black friday. Standing outside of a store for days to find that perfect gift for just a few dollars cheaper. How are people finding the right stores to go to, and those most have deals? Easy… they are looking online. There is a massive amount of money to be made by having your own black friday deals web site. You can offer coupon codes and link directly to online stores… all earning you a commission on each signup or sale!

Christmas

Even if everyone has spent all their money during Halloween and Christmas, they will do whatever they can to scurry up some extra money for Christmas spending. It’s the craziest time of the year and we are seeing better online revenue numbers every year. How long before you get in on the auction. Don’t worry about focusing on Christmas as a whole, but instead focus on the hot items and gifts that everyone is trying to buy. If you can’t find a direct affiliate program to earn commissions on an item, try looking at Target, Amazon and Best Buy.

New Years

Oh no! The year is over… there’s nothing to cash in on any more… NOT! Now you have New Years, when everyone is telling themselves they will look better in the new year, eat better and live a better life style. Sure, it may only last few a few weeks or a couple months at best, but it doesn’t mean people aren’t going to be spending a ton of money on weight loss methods, ways to quit smoking and so much more.

If you aren’t taking advantage of any of these massive opportunities in cash in during the next few months, you really need to look at your priorities. Even if you aren’t ready to dedicate a lot of time into something new, make sure you make an attempt, and it will make it that much easier for you to cash in next year!

Business plans can be a scary topic to bring up with bloggers: many of us have very clear ideas on how we want to make money with our sites and the consideration that there are numbers change the ball game can be terrifying.

I knew this going into my session at BlogWorld Expo in New York. I honestly wasn’t sure how many people would be interested in talking about the nuts and bolts of running a blogging business. But I was pleasantly surprised — and I think the audience was, too. We got to talk about what really makes sense, in terms of monetizing a blog, as well as the mechanics of actually putting together a business plan.

The Surprise of My Session

My audience more than managed to surprise me. I expected to attract a crowd that was familiar with blogging as a platform but were newer to the idea of a blog as a business. There were certainly a few folks in that boat, but there quite a few people who had actually already experimented with different strategies to make money from their blogs.

Now, I’m personally a fan of running the numbers on a new project before I get started. I have several blogs (at different levels of success or even starting), but for each of them, I have an informal business plan.

At the same time, though, I didn’t have business plans of any sort for the first couple of blogs I launched. A few of those died quiet deaths and the rest got business plans after the fact. It is more than acceptable to write a business plan even after you’ve been in business for a while; in fact it’s often necessary. With some more traditional models, the only time a business plan goes beyond the informal stage is when the owner wants to sell it!

If you’re in the position of working on the business end of your blog after the site has been up for a good while, that’s perfectly fine. It happens to a lot of us. But, just as I said at #BWENY, it’s important to sit down and write out a plan for that business. If you’re working with a written document, no matter how informal, you’re far more likely to actually get the numbers necessary to help you figure out how much your blog might earn, as well as address the potential barriers to increasing your blog’s income.

Hopefully, you have enough vision for your blog that you can make most choices rather easily. Well, perhaps easily isn’t the word, but hopefully you can make a choice and feel confident that it’s the right one.

But what about the times when you can’t? What if you feel like there are two or more choices that could be equally “right”? What if the decision you are making isn’t something that can easily be changed if you choose incorrectly? Decisions like that can keep you up at night. They certainly have caused a number of sleepless nights for me, and when it comes to business decisions, I’m usually pretty confident.

I’ve found the perfect way to make decisions, though. Over the years of blogging that I’ve done, there’s one weapon, one secret weapon, that I return to again and again and again…and it’s a weapon that every blogger had in their arsenal. In fact, even if you don’t yet have a blog, even if you only have a Twitter account or Facebook page, this secret weapon is something you possess.

What exactly is the weapon I’m talking about? Your audience.

I’m not suggesting that you should crowd-source every decision you make, but when you truly don’t know the right way to turn, your audience – the people who are your readers or who will become your readers – can help point you in the perfect direction. What they reveal could be extremely helpful – often their answers are skewed one way or another, not split 50-50 like the choices might be in your own mind.

The easiest way to ask your audience what they think, in my opinion, is to set up a poll. You can do so for free at Survey Monkey*, which is my personal favorite poll tool, though there are other options as well, some of which you can even embed in a blog post or on your sidebar (Survey Monkey allows this, but it can also be hosted on their site). Once you have your poll set up, blast it to everyone – your email list, your social profiles, even your friends and family if you think their input will help. If you don’t have a huge fanbase yet, you might not get much of a response – but even ten people weighing in can give you some insight, especially if all ten people feel strongly one way or the other.

Seeing responses might also give you a reflection of your own opinions. If you see everyone voting one way and find yourself feeling upset that they’re not picking the other choice, it’s a good indication that you didn’t feel 50-50 about the choices anyway. Remember, you don’t always have to listen to your readers. One of the things I like about Survey Monkey rather than on-site poll options is that they’re blind – people make their choices, but they can’t view the results. This discourages bandwagoning, as well as gives you more freedom to choose what you want, not the popular vote, when the poll closes.

As a mini case-study, let me show you what I’m doing right now. My next blogging project, which is zombie-themed, doesn’t yet have a URL, and after thinking about it, I just couldn’t decide on my own. So I came up with my top picks, based on what was available, an created a poll, which you can see here. A few things to note:

• It’s super simple, with only one question.
• There’s an optional comment box where users who are so inclined can explain their answer. This really helps me out, but it doesn’t pressure people to leave a comment if their choice was just a gut reaction.
• I gave people a way to sign up for my mailing list at the end. Most of the people responding are already on my mailing list, but I’ve put out a net to catch people who aren’t, but who want to be.

I hope that some of you will head over there and vote – and for the reason I’m not going to tell you my results so far, but I will say this: there are two strong front runners. I didn’t really expect that, but now that I’m thinking about it, it makes sense – they really are the two best URLs on the list. Chances are that you’ll vote for one of them if you do vote.

Asking my audience has time and time again helped me make decisions about my blog. As an added bonus, making my readers part of a decision helps build buzz about my projects and makes the community strong – people like to be a part of your choices when they feel connected to your site. Even if you ultimately don’t go with the popular vote, polling your readers can really help you make blog decisions. Have you tried it before? What have your experiences been?

*FYI, the link to Survey Monkey is not an affiliate link or anything. My post sounds a little gushy about them, so I wanted to make that clear. I don’t know if there’s even an affiliate program associated with Survey Monkey. I legitimately just love their service!

Here are five serious ways that you will be left behind:

1. Thought Leadership. You are not actively engaged in developing a point of view about your industry on behalf of your company. You and/or your employees are not publishing articles and white papers, or participating in online discussions, or asking and answering questions in the leading social media sites for your industry and/or your state and locale. Therefore you will not become known as an industry leader and will increasingly be perceived as irrelevant.
2. Website. It’s a marketing piece all about you. It is not interactive, inviting visitors to participate in any way. It doesn’t offer any links to unbiased information or free white papers or eBooks or any little way to promote extra value. It just sits there, doing nothing for you. Therefore, you are by definition losing ground to competitors who are upgrading their interactivity.
3. LinkedIn. You have a minimal presence or none at all. Only one or two of your employees are engaged here. There is a lack of personal photos, complete profiles, and connections to other professionals. You are not members of relevant industry groups. If groups don’t exist, you haven’t taken leadership to create them and invite others. Therefore, interested prospects will not find you, nor will you find them.
4. Google Alerts. You have not set “Google alerts” (they are free) to help you monitor what is being said about you personally, your company, your industry, and your key executives on the Internet. You do not have any system to monitor the flow of industry information and where you may, or may not, fit into it. Therefore you have no basis for an improved marketing strategy.
5. Opt-In e-mail List. You are not actively building your list of friends, current customers, and prospects, so you have no reliable and inexpensive way to reach them with news, special offers, or simply thanks for their business. Therefore you run the risk that your competitors have a much better list and the capacity to reach your customers and prospects regularly.

You may not need a Facebook page. You may not need a Twitter account. Those channels depend highly on the nature of your business and where your audience is engaging online. But even if you think today that your market is offline, I challenge you to think again and to investigate or ask your youngest, newest employee to investigate on your behalf.

Today’s communication channels will change, as did the mail, telegraph, telephone, cell phone, etc. They will continue to evolve. But the basic premise that you need to be connected will not change. If you’re not sufficiently connected, the steps you take today will pay you back many times over!

Do you have a connectivity story or comment to share? We would love to hear from you.

Let’s start by looking at five reasons why you would want to launch a teleconference program.

1. Provide timely information and advice to your current customers.

   In a teleconference, you can provide up-to-date information of interest to your customers. This information may come from you, your employees, or invited experts that you interview during the call. It might be new sales ideas, new regulatory issues, new opportunities, new threats – anything timely that will attract your customers’ attention. Keep in mind that all of the employees of your customer companies are part of your potential audience.

2. Attract potential new customers.

   When you promote a teleconference, people from companies that are not currently your customers will sign up. The information you gather from their sign-up will let you know a little bit about them and their company (don’t ask for too much – only what you really want to know) and give you a reason to reach out to them.

3. Build your ‘thought leader’ reputation online.

   Becoming known as a ‘producer’ is a big step towards thought leadership. You are taking the lead in defining a topic, setting a date and time, and promising a worthwhile presentation. This step alone sets you apart from many of your competitors. Do this on a predictable schedule, and you will become known for it.

4. Build an online archive of interviews.

   I’ve found that sometimes only half of the people who registered actually attend the call live. But that doesn’t mean they’re not interested – only that the day-to-day realities prevent them from meeting this kind of obligation. Record your calls and make them available on your website. In no time you will have an impressive archive; people who registered but couldn’t attend will download the file, and new people will find the recordings.

5. Publish transcripts as white papers.

   It’s not hard or expensive to have your audio call turned into a written transcript. I use the service castingwords.com to transcribe audio calls. Their budget service (which means no rush on their side) is only 75 cents per minute, so you can get a 60-minute call transcribed for $45. With minimal editing and formatting required on your part, you can begin to publish written transcripts of your teleconferences on your website and also have them available to attach to emails or other correspondence with current or prospective customers.
   

So, there are five reasons why I advocate this practice. Now, here’s the social media connection. How will you promote your teleconferences? How will you get people to come? Well, that’s why you need to cultivate a social media presence for your B2B company. You can invite participants through the primary sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The more you do, the more connections you will have and the stronger your reach will become.

This strategy will not work without your efforts to build a social media presence. So, one more reason to get started or to keep it going! What do you think? Have you tried this strategy? How is it working for you? Or what would hold you back?

Why do I care if my kids know? There are several reasons, but the most important one is because I write about them on my blog sometimes. I want them to understand how I include them on my blog so they can make them choice whether they would like to be included. I often ask them if I can include a story on my blog about something they did. They should understand what that means.

The second reason is so they understand that I am built a career out of doing something I love. It is possible to create a career if you are not finding what you want working for someone else.

Here are several ways I have started to include them more in the business of my blog.

1. Share what you do every day. Every night when we talk about what we all did during the day, I tell my family about the posts I wrote. This helps them understand how they are included in my stories.

2. Have the kids review products. I do product reviews on my blog and if the product is for children, I let them do the review. They use the product and then we create a video and I either interview them or they just tell me about the product and I paraphrase. It is possible to create a video without showing your kids faces. I will show them using the product while they talk about it.
3. Give your kids a blogging day. This is one that I have been trying to get my kids to do, but so far no one has really jumped on it. They see it as homework I think, but I’m not giving up. I used to hate writing and I never thought of myself as a writer. I discovered I hated writing about the topics the teachers wanted me to write about. Once I started writing about things I am passionate about, I started to love writing. I want my kids to share that love of writing (or at least not detest writing.)
4. Turn the camera around. I am always taking pictures and filming my kids. When I am vlogging or need pictures of me using a product, I have my kids take the pictures or record the video of me.
5. Hire your kids. My kids love to feel like they have a job to do (and get paid.) I hire them to research, scan in business cards, enter data in my database and even clean my office. They are more willing to do this when I tell them I am hiring them as I would any other employee. I give them deadlines and let them figure out how it should get done. It gives them a sense of what having a job is all about.

I work at all hours of the day from my home and involving my family is very important to me. How do you involve your kids in your blog?

Images from Microsoft Images.

Not only will writing for another blog give you a chance to do something a little different- which is a benefit in itself- but it will allow you to widen your readership by tapping into a new pool. Different blogs have dedicated readers, and those readers just might follow you back to your own if they enjoy your posts. This means more traffic, more subscriptions, and more chances to interact, which can only help inspire your own writing.

But how can you find guest blogging positions in the first place? It might seem kind of hit and miss, but there are a few ways to narrow it down and get your started.

Begin With What You Read

Some of the most dedicated blog followers are bloggers themselves. Therefore, it is safe to say that you probably have a list of blogs right now that you check out every few days, or perhaps even daily. These are good places to start, especially if you are a frequent commenter. Not only are you going to be familiar with the niche, but you are going to possibly be known as a reader, and can point out in your application that you can refer to past posts.

To find out if they allow guest posting, you can check out their website. There should be an FAQ section, or even a button that that says “Write for Us!”, or something to that effect. You can also do a Google search by using “SITE:site.com guest post”, or similar keywords to pull up the information. For example:

• SITE:site.com guest author
• SITE:site.com guest blogging
• SITE:site.com guest posting

And on top of all, you can combine the four search queries above: [SITE:site.com guest author OR SITE:site.com guest blogging OR SITE:site.com guest posting OR SITE:site.com guest post]

Fun!

If the blog has no info on guest blogging, you don’t have to give up. Drop them a quick email and ask if they would accept guest blogging.

Join a Guest Blogging Site

Because blogging is such a huge part of social media these days, there is an increased call for guest bloggers to help generate traffic without paying for posts (or not paying much). This is usually reimbursed through offering a byline and a link to the writer’s own site, which can pay for itself and them some in exposure.

These sites will let you connect with bloggers who are looking for posters. You can search through ads, or post your own so others can contact you. Currently, one of the more popular blog posting sites is MyBlogGuest, which provides a general format for finding positions in any genre. I’ve been a member for a year or so and have had huge success both sides: guest blogging and accepting guest articles.

My most favorite feature inside is the Articles Gallery which makes guest posting easy: authors upload their unique articles there and the blog owners can come, preview any article and offer to publish it on their blogs. It works wonders in terms of providing high-quality content on a regular basis:

Utilize Twitter Search

Twitter has an excellent live search that fits in with their real time updating format. You can use this to find the most recent posts by people who say they are looking for writers. Since the social networking site has become such a heavily used marketing tool, you can bet that there will be plenty of calls for guest bloggers posted regularly.

The issue is that they are posting in a casual way, and so the keywords used can really vary. You have to be specific, and keep searching using different possible combinations. For example, try:

• Guest post
• Writers needed
• Need writers
• Want to write?
• Want to post?
• Guest bloggers
• Write for us!
• Write for
• Blog for
• Blog for us!
• Guest writers

Note! Twitter search also supports OR operator that allows to combine several searches in on. Go play!

Any other combination that says what you want will also help.

Guest Posting is Easy!

It isn’t hard to find positions, because there are so many floating around the net just waiting to be taken. If you have found yourself in a rut, or you just need to draw more readers to your own site, guest blogging is a great option. Get your portfolio together, get searching, and get writing!

This is a guest post by Annie Wallace, a viral marketing blogger and mompreneur. Please follow Annie on twitter as @ViralMomTweets