Refining an Idea for a Guest Blog Post

There are times when you get stuck on thinking of an idea. Or sometimes when you get an idea and are not sure how to turn it into a full blog post. This is pretty typical for anyone who writes on a regular basis. It's easy enough to recognize whether an idea has the potential to become a full post or not, but it does take some work to flesh these ideas out. Here are a few points that can be helpful for transforming an idea into a successful guest post.

Research the Blog You'll Be Writing For

After you find a blog you want to write for, it's time to do some research. What kinds of posts have been published recently? Which posts are most popular? Who is the audience? You should also ask yourself why you want to publish on this blog. If you're interested in writing a guest post just to improve your own SERP placement for the keyword or search term placed in your author bio, you're going about this process wrong. Your first goal when writing a guest post should be to provide value to your host blog. Clearly defining the style of posts that get published and are popular with that blog's audience will increase your chances of getting published as well as giving you an idea of how to write for your target blog.

Cover Your Topic in an Interesting Way

Guest blogging isn't just a great way to improve your SERP placement, but an opportunity to send traffic directly to your own site or blog. The best way to ensure you'll send valuable traffic back to your own site is by publishing interesting posts on related blogs in your niche. What qualifies as an interesting post? This question is easy to answer. What kind of blog posts do you like to read? These are the kind of blog posts you should be writing. I enjoy posts that provide practical advice, offer a unique view point on the subject material, and are entertaining. I read a lot of blogs, mostly because I want to know more about SEO, and posts that tell me something I wasn't aware of are always the most interesting. I also like blog posts written in the author's own voice. Covering a dry or technical subject doesn't mean you have to be boring!

Create Content That Isn't Time Sensitive

Writing editorial pieces on news in your niche or industry is a great way to get a post published, but the most valuable posts are not time sensitive. Offering advice, insights or information that will still be valuable years down the road means that users will be reading your blog post long after it's been published. People don't just read blog posts when they're published! Think of writing guest posts and SEO in terms of how people will search in the future. Finding a way to write about your germ of an idea in a way that will be interesting to readers long after publication will provide a stream of steady, valuable traffic for weeks, months and years to come.

Author Bio

This is a Guest Post by Tyler Moore who works for Expected Behavior, a software development company from Indianapolis. Expected Behavior created DocRaptor, a web application used to generate Excel files from HTML code. DocRaptor uses HTTP POST requests to create Excel documents, and is better at translating CSS styling than similar programs.