Get Traffic Through Guest Blogging: Twitter Chat #myblogguest

We have just had another fun ride with our weekly Twitter chat! This week we have chosen to talk about getting traffic to and from guest posts. How awesome is that?

Before we cover the main points from the chat, let’s talk about our plans.

You can join our Twitter chat weekly on Thursday at 11 EST

Joining the chat is very easy: just sign in to our room at TwebEvent, follow and tweet back (feel free to use any other client by using #myblogguest hashtag)!

Next week we are discussing writing a great guest post that will never be rejected and earn you lots of exposure and more power! Don’t miss it next Thursday!

Don’t forget to invite your friends to join:

Join #MyBlogGuest Twitter chat on Thursday 11 EST to discuss how to write a great guest post!

So now to the summary of our one-our Twitter event (you can see the chat storified here for more details):

Tips for Guest Post Publishers:

Build search traffic:

Create an SEO best practices checklist to help your guest authors write search-optimized posts (don’t go crazy about SEO though: make it obvious that you prefer well-written natural content over an over-optimized copy stuffed with keywords);
Always link to internal pages and previously published (guest) posts to prompt Google re-visit your old content and rank it as fresh (encourage your guest authors to link internally as well);
Use WordPress plugins to semi-automate the process:

Use SEODoctor to help guest contributors with on-page optimization;

Use Insights to help authors to find related articles from your blog;

Use SEO Smart Links to create internal links automatically within your contributors’ copies.

Encourage your guest authors to use lots of keyword research tools to help them brainstorm and optimize the pages (Again, never go to crazy. Good tip: do keyword research, then make a pause and the write a page from memory without looking into your list. This way you’ll use the keywords you remember but make it naturally!)

Free tools for your keyword brainstorming process;

Doing keyword research with Google only;

Keyword research with Google Suggest!

Attracting Social Media Shares

Install social media count buttons;
Ask your guest blogger to be the first to comment and share his / her guest post (feel free to make it a requirement);
Use lots of awesome images (this always results in many more social media shares, especially from StumbleUpon, Pinterest and Facebook).

Best-working social media sites: StumbleUpon (traffic can come for months), Reddit and Twitter. Make sure to share other people’s pages (instead of promoting only your own).

Encourage your guest author to actively participate in the whole process. rate those who promote their articles on MyBlogGuest to award them!

Tips for Guest Authors:

If you want to get traffic from the guest post, take the opportunity seriously. Never think about yourself (this will pay off later!);
If you want traffic FROM your guest post, work with the publisher on promoting your article!
Pick active (alive) blogs (forget about Google PR! See if previous articles get comments and social media shares!) Tip! Use [site:blogdomain.com guest posts] search in Google to see how actively discussed older guest posts were;
Identify which guest articles drove you most traffic and contribute their again and again! (Use Google Analytics “Traffic sources” report or our guest post traffic tracker)
Don’t use too many links there not to scare off readers, be concise but compelling. Show a *person* in your byline;

Good luck with getting free traffic and exposure! See you next week on Twitter!

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