How To Land Articles On Large Websites (Part 1)
Guest posting is a killer strategy for building your online presence. You write an article for a website that is larger than yours, and they give you three links back to your website.
This is great for getting exposed to new, larger audiences. It’s also killer for the back links it provides to your website. Back links are what ultimately helps with your search engine optimization.
This is how I built my audience in 2012 when I had ten people a day visiting my website. I saw the value in guest posting and immediately wrote an article for the Huffington Post.
One of the editors probably looked at it and laughed. What’s wild is that three years later I did land an article on the Huffington Post, and I’m actually a contributing writer for them! I also write for the Good Men Project, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Mind Body Green.
One guest post for Michael Hyatt put me on the map, and is still the number one way I continue to build traffic, and email subscribers. I’m guessing I don’t need to convince you of the merits of guest posting, so I’ll move on.
You know it works, and you want to, but how do you land guest posts on large websites? In the last post I talked about expanding your horizons. I talked about guest posting for websites that are outside of our normal circle.
You may have even thought about those sites and are ready. Over the next couple of posts I’d like to give you some tips to land those bigger guest posts and articles on really large websites.
1. Research before you write
Since writing for some amazing places I get a lot of emails asking how to write for places like the Huffington Post. The first question I ask is what “vertical” would you write for?
This normally brings on a lot more questions. I would explain how the verticals work, but now you’re going to have to do your own research if you want to write for the Huffington Post. Think of this as your homework.
The point being, if you’re going to write for a large website, you have to understand how things work. What kind of people are reading the website, and the style the website is written in?
Most of the time we write posts, and then think of where they should go, that’s wrong. You should research WHERE you want to write for and THEN write the post.
That post should be completely for that audience, and in the style of that website. If you were going to write for the Huffington Post, what vertical would it fit in? (Look, I just gave you a hint)
When I say research, I mean thorough research. This doesn’t mean you skim over the site and then throw something together. You should know if they even take guest posts/contributors, and who to send your articles too.
I could have told you exactly who to send your article to at the Huffington Post before I ever wrote for them. I had done a ton of research and that information is available online.
Doing your research is great for writing the right content that gets accepted, but it will also come in handy with figuring out how to get featured. We’ll get into that later.
2. Dig deeper
If you’re friends with me on social media or listened to my episode of Starve the Doubts, you know a secret about me: I’m a HUGE Taylor Swift fan. I always get asked why, the answer is simple: I like the way she writes music.
I can completely understand what she’s writing, and it speaks to how I grew up. Her music goes beyond the normal surface fluff you see in music. That surface level fluff is exactly how I use to write.
I was worried about offending people; I was worried it wasn’t good writing. I let a lot of things hold me back from opening up, and really writing. Once I could let go, and really find my voice, I could write deeper content.
Larger websites aren’t looking for the fluff. There’s too much of that available online, and they want to steer clear of it. They want the deeper content. The kind of content where you talk about things other people aren’t willing to talk about. Content that flies in the face of what is normally written.
I wrote an article recently called ‘5 Ways Social Media Marketing Is Overrated‘ for Entrepreneur Magazine. All the social media experts trashed me left and right, but… they shared the article like crazy. Entrepreneur Magazine loved it. The post is original and challenges what we’re normally told. That’s the kind of content they like. Look at the shares and comments:
I contribute for a website called The Good Men Project. They get 2 million weekly visitors. Their tagline is “the conversation no one else is having.” Do you think they would take an article on “how to be a better man?”
That post is generic and fluff; they want content that’s far deeper than that. A better post would be “7 reasons you’re not a better man.” In that post you would go deep, and talk about the things that hold men back, and when I say “things,” I mean the things we don’t talk about: porn, mental and physical abuse, lying, cheating.
Digging deeper also means doing research. What you’re writing about should be backed up by facts, and figures. You should link to incredible content that backs up what you’re saying. I made some bold statements in this article, but I backed every one of them with research.
You’re a writer so stop holding back, and write. Create something that’s a little bit outside of your comfort zone, and submit it to the Good Men Project (20% of their writers are women) or another large website.
This is the end of part one. When we talk next, I’ll be giving you all the strategy stuff. I’ll tell you how to contribute to large sites, and the best way to pitch them. Don’t miss the next post.
My goal is to open your mind to see the possibilities. Once you do, I want to teach you how to capitalize on those opportunities. You can write for anyone! Right now I want you to think about three large websites you can write for.
At the end of this series I’ll be giving you a free downloadable guide that walks you through how I write articles for large websites, and who to send those articles to.
How much research do you do for your guest posts? Are you creating the deeper content?
