What’s a Blog Tour and How Do I Guest Post?

What’s a Blog Tour?

I first heard about Blog Tours via Nicole Dean who did one to increase the sales of her products. You can view her Rockin’ Blog Summer Tour to see how she did it.

It is simply a way to draw attention to something you are promoting. Often times you will see this for books and most recently CrochetVille did a blog tour “A Tour Through Crochet Country”.

It was a fantastic tour that introduced top designers in the crochet world. I learned a lot during that series and found new (to me) designers to follow.

How Do I Guest Post?

1. Pitch Your Post to Blogs You Read
2. Research Your Host’s Blog
3. Write a Rockin’ Blog Post
4. Edit Your Work
5. Edit Some More
6. Develop a Bio
7. Create an Opt-in Page for Newsletter Subscribers or RSS Subscribers
8. Include Your Newsletter or RSS Subscription Link in the Bio
9. Format the Post and Send it To Your Host
10. Promote the Post & Comment

Pitch Your Post to Blogs You Read

First you will need to get up the courage to pitch your post to a blogger. It took me awhile to get comfortable doing this as I feared rejection.

Is that your fear too?

Don’t worry about it. You aren’t meant to write for every crochet blog out there. You’ll find the ones that align to your blogs mission the more bloggers you ask.

Research Your Host’s Blog

Once you get the ‘asking’ out of the way you need to start planning your post. To do this you want to visit the host’s blog to get an idea of what her readers like. Check out the top 10 posts or the top commented posts. What topics resonated most?

Can you add to the topic? How about writing an opposing view? Does the blog offer free crochet patterns? Design a pattern especially for that blogs readers. You might just find new fans.

Write a Rockin’ Blog Post

Now you need to write. This post needs to be well research, very detailed, a step-by-step post that teaches how to do something in order to get the results that the readers are searching for.

i.e. Moogly Blog “20 Christmas Holiday Craft Fair Patterns to Make”

I wrote this post earlier this month for Tamara’s blog. I know that her readers love crochet patterns. I also thought that many of them might be thinking of selling their work at craft shows.

I took this knowledge to write a post that offered tips for choosing the right show in order to increase sales by only doing shows their target market will be at.

Moogly blog is known for her pattern roundups so I used this to link to patterns with a high chance of selling at fairs.

I included two worksheets in order to figure this out. One is to interview a vendor worksheet and the other is to interview an attendee. Those who download these and take action will probably see excellent results from their holiday selling efforts.

• Useful
• Teaching
• Actionable Steps to Take

Edit, Edit and Edit

I can’t emphasize this step enough. You want your post to be accurate in facts, spelling, and grammar.

I do editing for clients and find it humorous that I make many spelling and grammar errors.

Join a group of writers that will help proof your blog post and offer suggestions on improving it.

Develop a Biography

At the end of most guest posts you are allowed to say something about you, what your offer, and include one link.

After many years of touting myself I’ve finally learned that people don’t care. Seriously! What you want to do is offer something to the reader that will help her take action on what you wrote about. i.e. worksheets to prepare for holiday fair

The actual link you use will not be yoururl.com. NO. Again, this is something I’ve learned over the years from the great mentors in my mastermind group – Solomasterminds.

What you want to do is include a link for her to subscribe to your blog or your newsletter.

Why? This connects you to new readers and subscribers.

Create an Opt-in Page for Newsletter or RSS Subscribers

One way to track the traffic you get from your guest blogging efforts is to create an opt-in page (a page where you send people to subscribe) especially for your host blog.

i.e. I wrote a post for Lorene of Cre8tion Crochet last week (3 Actionable Steps to Blow Your Competition Out the Water) and created an opt-in page for those readers. (Finding Your Ideal Customer)

When you do this you know exactly which subscribers come to you from your post and you know what information they want more of.

Include Your Newsletter or RSS Link in the Bio

Most host blogs will only allow one link and that can NOT be an affiliate link. You want this link to count. You could link to your homepage or blog but a more effective way to reach new readers is to use your opt-in page link or your RSS subscription link.

Format the Post and Sent it to Your Host

You are ready to format the post. I like to format in WordPress adding the photos I need and send the html.  Some bloggers like this and others don’t.

Another option is to write the post in Notepad including links to the images as well as proper credit if they don’t belong to you. You want to send this and the images in a .zip file. This way all your host needs to do is unzip it and add it to her blog.

Promote Your Guest Post & Comment

I normally promote the post the day it is released and for a couple weeks after. Yesterday I read a blog post by Michelle Shaeffer where she highlighted a number of ways to promote your guest posts. I loved this so much I created a worksheet for you.

Besides promoting the post you need to subscribe to the comments so you can continue to return and interact with your host’s readers.

Conclusion:

I know that this is a lot to take in. You don’t have to do it all overnight. This can be on your ‘to do’ list for now so you can take care of the other things you are doing.

Three Things to Do Right Now:

1. Make a List of 3 Crochet Blogs You’d Like to Guest Post For
2. Prepare a Pitch Based on Your Research of the Blog
3. Pitch. Ideally You Want to Be a Regular Reader so You know the Blogger before You do this.

Do You Guest Post? Why? Why Not?