How to market yourself?
Free and easy-to-use blogging and guest posting software turned the Internet into an accessible platform for everyone. However, it’s not enough to bombard your readers with advertising messages to use it. The most successful way of forming a loyal audience on the Web, is to create useful content, that readers will consume, and then share it with others.
That’s why it’s obvious that guest posting is a great way to market yourself. Doesn’t matter, you are telling an amazing story or providing useful information that can help your readers solve a common problem, your main goal should be to create content, that people want to read and share.
Unfortunately, there is a widespread opinion that posting is a way of self-promotion, but it’s a mistake. Your guest posting strategy should be built around creating and expanding your audience, and this goal is difficult to achieve if you’re writing only about yourself.
What is a guest posting?
When it comes to guest posting, most people ask about the meaning of this term. Many of us know that the strategy of promoting your own blog on the forums is to leave comments and posts in which there is a link to the site. But what is guest posting?
Guest posting is the process of writing content for another blog in the hope of getting high-quality backlinks, traffic, as well as establishing relationships with the owner of this blog. It’s also can be called writing marketing essays.
The most important thing in guest posting is trying to make it comfortable for reading. The main problems you can be faced with are:
– Illiteracy. Sometimes even a high-quality text with brilliant ideas can cause irritation to the reader if there are too many mistakes. The reader doesn’t require spelling and punctuation fanaticism, but it’s very important to check the text once again before publication.
– Wrong title. The title should be as informative, as possible, but, at the same time, capacious, laconically reflect the essence of the note, and the most important – to cling. The reader will never know what you’ve written inside if the title doesn’t attract his attention. Be brave, provoke, don’t be afraid to play with words. But don’t overdo it. Never allow the title not to match the content of the text. Don’t deceive your reader. Once you make such a mistake, you risk losing his trust forever.
– Long sentences. Lack of structure, what is a conclusion in an assignment. The text should not float on the reader by one huge hopeless mass. Break it into blocks, chapters, points, think up names for them (or at least separate them from each other), break them with photos and/or pictures.
– Abuse of dots, exclamation and question marks. In the first case, you show inappropriate significance, in the second – you risk appearing too enthusiastic and emotional.
The top 6 tips on how to market yourself.
- You need to become a source of unique information.
The reader always lacks unique and original content. The Internet is packed with repetitions: the same texts are copied hundreds of times, the same thoughts are spoken in dozens of texts. And you, for certain, can tell about something special and your personal experience is not similar to the experience of other people. For example, you are interested in some particular narrow topic (for example, homeschooling, children’s camps or homemade ice cream recipes), but all the texts that came across your eyes seem insufficiently detailed, shallow or even empty. Once you are sure that your words will not be just a repetition of the truths, that is already beaten on the Internet, start to market it.
- Tell about personal stuff.
The guest posting is your own platform for presenting your opinion; this is your personal Hyde Park, your office, your parliamentary rostrum. This is an embassy named after you on the territory of our site. The posting reader expects from you not only facts but also your opinion – your experiences, doubts, beliefs, fears. Any thesis, any advice will sound brighter, if it’s backed up by personal history.
- Choose your audience.
It is extremely important to understand who is reading you. This will give a clearer idea of what you are writing about, and in what direction it’s worth moving on. Don’t take this advice as an appeal to sag: it’s about the fact that different people like different texts. Think about what books and articles your reader has already read. What terms and surnames are familiar to him, and which ones – it’s better to clarify all the same. The desire to please absolutely everyone is a very dangerous trap. You can lose one part of the readers and never find another.
- Reply to comments.
The guest posting, whose author doesn’t react to his readers, seems abandoned and inanimate, even if it’s regularly updated. The blog implies the personal presence of the author. In addition, communication with readers will not only encourage them to look more often at you but also can inspire you with fresh ideas.
- Write your posting in response to other people’s texts.
If the text of another author seemed to you outrageous, false or, on the contrary, absolutely true, if some note or news caused your emotions and a desire to answer it, don’t deny yourself such a pleasure. By responding to a fresh article or commenting on important news, you are included in the actual agenda; it always contributes to the growth of your audience.
- Don’t be shy and don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid that someone will question your right to speak, because it implies the very idea of creating the guest posting. Of course, someone can disagree with you, and this is absolutely normal.
Don’t be afraid to publish under your own name. If you are at odds with your conscience and write sincerely, there is no apparent reason not to indicate your name under your own thoughts.
Don’t be afraid that posting can take up too much of your time. Remember, that it’s one of the best ways to market yourself. You don’t sign a contract with anyone that cannot be terminated. Every author has different periods in his work, and this is normal.
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