A Guest Post by Rohan Pawale of WebHostingDeals.org

I’m an big fan of guest posts. I love how they allow me to reach out to new bloggers and build relationships with them. Anything and everything about guest blogging excites me, and considering the latest advice Tea has dished out about the topic, I thought it was the perfect time to follow up by adding my own insights.

So here’s how to make sure you never get your guest post rejected by an A-List Blog again.

Yes, there’s a catch: Top bloggers are flooded with guest post pitches every single day.

Nowadays, your dreaded task isn’t writing the post, it’s having your guest post request accepted. Many pitches are declined on the first round simply because they don’t stick to the blog’s guidelines for guest posts. Usually that’s because the post is off-topic or poorly composed.

The good thing is that means you can improve your posting chances just by investing some more time making your pitch unique and following a set of rules which I have perfected over time. During the last couple of months, I’ve been honored to get my posts featured on probably the most influential blogs around the internet. Here I share the exact methods I stick to, while pitching a guest post to someone.

Make it Easy

Blog authors are busy individuals. If you make them work any harder than they need to, they will rapidly send your post to the recycle bin. Your ultimate goal is to build a guest pitch that makes things simple and easy for them.

For instance: Personalize Your Author Bio: Have a glance at other guest bloggers’ bylines and revise yours to complement the general style of that blog. Pay special attention to how other writers use links within their byline. Most of the time, your bio is the first thing that will be reviewed in your pitch — especially to make sure that you are not link spamming. Here’s the pitch I sent to Tea for this guest post: guest post pitch Be HTML Friendly: Show the blog author that you prepared your guest post to go straight into their publishing queue. Take note of the formatting conventions utilized in your target blog.

For instance, use H1,Headlines and bolding properly, use the span tags and block quotes wherever necessary. They’ll see that you’re a professional and that you respect their time.

Be Ready to Accept Change: Most of the top blogs will edit your article to make it meet their style. Either they’ll do the editing or they’ll request you to do it (or both!). Never hesitate to edit your post. Actually, make sure the blog author knows that you’re happy to make any tweaks they need right in your pitch itself. Your readiness implies that you respect their quality standards.

Send Photo Recommendations: Locating the perfect picture for any post can consume an enormous chunk of time. You will look more professional should you send a higher-quality picture together with your guest post. While sending images, make sure that you are authorized to use them under its copyright policy. It’s best to create custom images instead of sourcing stock images so that the image actually adds to the value of the post instead of just a random, pretty looking picture which is already floating all over the blogosphere.

Stick Out by Mixing In

Blog authors are searching for guest posts that complement their existing content. They welcome ideas and perspectives that fill voids they have within their editorial schedule.

You can reach out to them by: Filling Content Gaps: Click through the blog archives and search for categories that are light on posts. This might be a place the author wants to fill out but no longer has sufficient ideas, time, or both. Help them out and increase your odds of having your post accepted.

Looking at Past Guest Posts: This provides you with great clues for crafting your guest post pitch and also the eventual post.

Study Head lines to find the Right Tone and Voice: Evaluate the archives from the blog you’re focusing on and carefully study the headlines. Look for posts that produced the most comments and retweets. If you consider all these factors and use them to your benefit, then you will exponentially increase your chances of getting accepted.

Be considered a Spectacular Partner

Let the site owner realize that you will work extra hard to promote the post if they accept it. Being a good partner means that you understand your responsibility and the “Guest posting bargain.” You are receiving no cost traffic and visibility in return for your articles AND support, not to mention the chance to network with another blogger in your niche (which is priceless).

Answer Comments: Answer and react to as many comments as possible. Don’t think that this is actually the blog author’s job. Remember they’ve got very little time. Start engaging the audience as soon as your post gets new comments. This is the whole essence behind guest blogging: reaching a new audience. Unfortunately a lot of people don’t get this and think guest posting is just for building links — which won’t help them in the long run.

Be gracious, neutral, and upbeat. You are borrowing valuable real estate and so you shouldn’t ruin your host’s brand by shooting off their audience with rude replies. Should you choose to do it once, you will never be welcomed anywhere again.

Be an Active Promoter: No matter if you’re a seasoned professional or a newcomer, tweet, email, and promote whenever your guest post goes live. Make sure your host sees you in multiple occasions pushing the post to the podium and working for  ‘viral.’ Always remember that the essence of a guest post is not the backlink but to grab eyeballs from a targeted fan base like Tea explained in this guest post she did for Remarkablogger (re-published on this blog after Remarkablogger closed up shop).

I’m confident that if you follow these steps then you’ll never have another guest post rejected again! Let me know if you have already tried any of these tips and how it went in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you.