Running a popular blog for small businesses means that it is part of my job to find reputable guest bloggers, but how do we find guest bloggers who are really experts in their field. and can contribute useful, actionable content? How do we weed out the real influencers from the self-marketed “experts”?
I’ve divided my process into 4 steps. I hope it helps you to find experts contributors or to offer your own expert blogging services to others.
The First Step: Finding experts in your field
We use a host of excellent tools to help us find experts to guest blog for us.
- Mention
One of our favourite tools for finding experts is Mention. Mention helps you find mentions of your brand or other keywords across the web and social media. We use it to find WiseStamp users who are experts in their field, either for one of our professional resources, or for our blog.
- BuzzSumo
For our blog we specifically look for experts and influencers in the field of marketing and branding, including SEO experts, blogging experts, design experts, etc. One of the best ways to find them is through a tool called BuzzSumo. If somebody has written a post that shows up as with the most shares for a certain keyword then we know they are the type of expert we want contributing to our blog.
- Topsy
Topsy is a great free tool which you can use to search for certain keywords or phrases on Twitter. Topsy not only tells you who is using the keyword, but how many times they have been retweeted, and if the sentiment of their post is positive or negative.
If you are looking for influencers who are also brand evangelists then Topsy could be an essential tool for you. If you are looking to guest blog, it could also be a great way to find relevant blogs in your field to contribute to.
The Second Step – Making sure they are really experts
Now you’ve got your list of potential experts, how do you make sure they are experts in their field, and not just people using a fancy title to get your attention? Here’s what we look for:
- High traffic to their website or blog. We like to use Similar Web to get an idea of how much traffic guest posters get to their content. High traffic sites mean that the potential contributors know how to write quality content, and how to successfully build an audience.
- Genuinely interactive on social media. Marketing experts usually gather a large following on their social media site of choice, be it Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. We look for a level of interaction as much as the number of followers. Real experts don’t just spew out promotional links, they really interact, and provide value to their followers.
- Guest posts in other reputable sites. Guest posters who can show you links to other reputable sites are ideal because it shows that their contributions are highly valued.
- Relevant blog posts on their own site, with lots of social shares. We look for guest posters who’ve already covered topics that will interest our users, so we look for similar posts on their own blogs, ideally with lots of social shares or comments, so we can see that the post was socially valuable.
The Third Step – Perfecting your outreach
Once we’ve identified experts that we would like to contribute to our blog, we decide how to reach out to them. Our two usual ways of reaching out are:
- via Twitter
- via Email
The big advantage of reaching out via Twitter is that they usually see the message right away, and your outreach message is kept short and to the point. Once we get a positive response we try to move the correspondence over to email.
Any outreach emails you send, either to find guest contributors or to offer your blogging services should include the following factors:
- Who you are– either in the intro or including the information in your email signature
- Why you are reaching out– keep it short and sweet
- What’s in it for them– why you are a good site for them to get exposure, why you are a quality writer for their site.
The Fourth Step – Continuing the relationship
Once an expert has contributed to a blog, we like to keep our relationship with them. We continue to promote their posts on our social sites, and via newsletters, and we recommend them to our followers as experts in their field.
Looking to get more contributions in the future? Ask your previous contributors for recommendations. The blogging world is very small, and the best bloggers are well-connected to others in their field.
Are you looking for expert contributors for your site? Are you looking for a place to contribute your expert content? Feel free to get in touch.
Naomi Goldberg is the team lead for Content Marketing at Wisestamp.
Hello Naomi and Sue,
This is really a very interesting post. We all already know the benefits guest posts offers to our blog if done very well however, what most people usually find very stressful is trying to locate good blogs they can submit their posts on.
There are actually so many ways through which you can achieve this including doing a simple Google search but, all the tips you shared here are also very simple and effective. I also uses Mention and Buzzsumo for my influencer research and both tools are simply amazing.
Similar Web is also another great tool i just discovered and its been very handy so far and i will also recommend it for everyone.
Finally, i agree with your point to always let the influencers you're trying to guest post on their blog to know what's in it for them. This is because most of them receives similar pitch every now and then therefore if they must listen to you and probably accept your offer, you must give them a good reason to ignore others.
You both have a productive week
Thanks, Theodore, for your thoughtful comments on Naomi's post.
Sue
Hey Sue,
Guest posting is great and allowing others to write at your blog is a kind of process to make more connections with reputed bloggers. As you have mentioned above that its very important to search experts to write about any topic of your choice.
I like the idea of searching people using keywords. Specially at Twitter you can find many expert writer who can relate to the niche of your blog.
Thanks for adding such points.
Have a nice day.
~Ravi
So true, Ravi!
Thanks for your comment on Naomi's post.
Sue
Hi, Sue
Guest post is not only excellent way for outreaching and branding, but also providing good post for my blog. In my opinion, it is one of the ways to give me break time when I am running out of ideas or I am in vacations.
I will explore some of the tools you recommended.
I also appreciated the example of e-mail letter so that the guest bloggers can be approached professionally and nicely.
– Thanks
Hi, Stella,
So glad Naomi's article was helpful!
Thanks for commenting.
Sue
Hello Naomi and Sue,
Thank you for this fantastic post! This can help me a lot in the near future. Like the way you go into detail including the outreach email example. I think engagement is the key to a lot more successful guest post opportunities
As usual it was a great read;)
Cheers,
Yordi
Yordi van Dijk recently posted 16 Most Essential WordPress Plugins for Bloggers
I'm so glad it helps, Yordi!
Thanks so much for your comment today.
Sue
Great post! These are some great tips for finding guest posters. I have a question though, do you try to limit contacting very popular sites? The reason I ask is I have found occasionally that they do not have the time to contribute to another blog. Do you find this a waste of time or do you consider it a good move towards building a relationship with the blogger?
Hi, Cassie,
I do both – I guest blog for blogs that have more traffic than my blog and the same amount of traffic as my blog. Building the relationship is the key to guest posting.
I hope that helps! Keep in touch and thanks for your question.
Sue
So true, Ryan! Thanks for your comment on Naomi's post.
Have a great weekend.
Sue
I personally use and recommend Buzzsumo and Mention, will give try to Topsy also. thank you for updating me with this post.
You are so welcome!
Sue
Thanks for this interesting post Naomi, and thanks for bringing it to us, Sue Anne. One small point: I'm not sure how helpful it will be to a newbie without any/much credibility or traffic etc, particularly if they want to land a guest posting gig themselves on a moderate to high traffic site. (Fortunately some well patronized bloggers like Matthew Woodward are happy to accept articles based more on the quality of the content than anything else.)
Thanks also for the tips about Buzzsumo and Mention
Kim
Hi, Kim,
It is surprising but true – most popular blogs focus on the quality of the content and not how many posts the guest blogger has on their blog or their credibility. Great writing trumps everything else when guest blogging.
Thanks for your comment!
Sue