You’ve seen newspaper and magazine columnists. They write a daily, weekly or monthly column on their area of expertise.
You’ve also seen that blogs and websites use guest articles and guest blog posts. Combine these two methods to create the Featured Expert Columnist – You!
Writing articles and submitting them to article websites makes you one of hundreds of thousands. Good luck getting found, even if you do strike upon the perfect keywords.
Guest blogging is better, but it’s still not consistent in getting you exposure or driving traffic to your website.
However, becoming a columnist for websites in your niche provides you with ongoing, consistent exposure and traffic. In fact you get to be in front of their target market for as long as their site is getting traffic. As their site grows, your exposure grows, too.
You don’t have to wonder if your latest article will get published, you KNOW it will in advance.
You get links – great links – that can help you with your search engine rankings.
You can get exposure in their ezine as well, when they email their list to tell them of your new article on their blog, or even to send your article to their list. Plus your work might get added into their autoresponder, too.
Why would a blog or website owner want you to be a regular columnist for them? Four words: Fresh, Unique, QUALITY Content. Your articles appear on their website only. Your articles are fresh, they’re relevant and they’re targeted to their audience. Do you have any idea how many blog/website owners would LOVE for knowledgeable writers to write exclusive articles for their websites on a consistent basis? LOTS of them.
How do you set this up? First step, find the sites you want to write for. Choose carefully. You’re looking for sites that get a fair amount of the kind of traffic you want coming to your own website.
Next, ask. It’s that simple. Send them samples or send them to your own website and simply ask to be a regular columnist on their site. If they say no, check back with them in 2-3 months – things change. If they say yes, here’s a list of things to discuss BEFORE you get started:
Location on their website where your articles will be published. On the home page? In a certain section or channel? You don’t want surprises here.
Can you have your photo by your articles? You’ve seen the columns in newspapers and magazines – they feature a head shot of the author and you want the same here.
Length of your articles.
How often you’ll be writing (weekly, monthly, etc.) and the deadlines.
How many links you can place in your resource/bio box and the format and size of your resource/bio box
Copyright. Do not negotiate on this point – you OWN the copyright, not the blog/website owner. Period. If the website owner disagrees, find another website. You’re going to want to publish these articles in ebooks or reports later, to be either sold or given away.
Offer something specific and highly enticing in your resource/bio box to drive traffic to your website. Capture that traffic with an opt-in form and send them plenty of great information along with the occasional offer.
Track the traffic you get from each website you write guest columns for. If one of them isn’t sending you enough good traffic to make it worth your while, politely remove yourself from that site and find another.
Use your guest articles to create free reports you give away to list build, as well as to your affiliates to drive traffic to your offers. Consider compiling your best articles into ebooks and Kindle books.
WE Magazine for Women is expanding our editorial team. If you would like to write one or several articles, let me know. Visit our submission guidelines to submit single articles: http://www.staging.wemagazineforwomen.com/about/submission-guidelines/
Visit our Meet the Editors channel to learn more about becoming part of the team: http://www.staging.wemagazineforwomen.com/about/meet-the-editors/
