Do what you do best and lead clients directly to you…
Illustrated by Ramiro Roman, Jr.
Blogging is often a confusing medium. The fact that what was once a collection of online diaries maintained by angsty teenagers is now a professional business tool and potential career option is baffling — but also pretty darn cool.
However, one of the best ways to earn money as a professional blogger is often overlooked: Guest posting.
As a freelance writer, writing you get published on someone else’s website means far more than writing you publish yourself. Because of this, guest posts have more value as clips and are far more respected than blog posts you publish on your own blog.
In addition to the respect and clips you’ll acquire from guest posting, there’s also the potential to gain freelance writing clients through your published posts. Here’s how:
Have A Website… And Link Back to It
If you have a bylined guest post on a blog, there’s also a good chance you’ll get a short author bio. If said author bio allows you to include hyperlinks, link back to your freelance writer website.
You can even go so far as to create a customized landing page for the visitors who come to you from a particular blog. So if you wrote a guest post for, say, Be A Freelance Blogger, you could link to a page on your site that says “Welcome, Be A Freelance Blogger Reader!” and has information specifically tailored for that audience.
Because if someone reads your guest post and likes it, there’s a good chance they’ll check out your author bio and click on your site’s link. And since they’re already conditioned to like your writing, there’s a good chance they’ll hire you if they’re in the market for a freelance writer.
This is why it’s a good idea to…
Write for Publications (and on Topics) You Like
Whatever you end up writing about or using as clips is often what potential clients will hire you to do more of. So if you write articles about dogs, clients will ask you to write more dog articles. Or, if you tend to write about parenting issues, you’ll likely get called upon for more parenting advice.
Therefore, it’s important that you write for publications you feel good about, and topics that you wouldn’t mind repeating.
Keep on Pitching
Finally, don’t guest post just once. Keep on pitching. Keep on getting published!
Think of each guest post you get published like buying a lottery ticket. There’s no guarantee that you’ll “win” (though your chances of “winning” through guest posting are far higher than playing the actual lottery!), but you need to buy a ticket in order to play. You know what I mean? The more tickets you buy — the more guest posts you get published — the more chances you’ll have of making it big.
Your Turn!
Have you ever written a guest post for someone before? Did you get clients from it? Let me know about your experience in the comments’ section! 
The post How to Leave a Guest Post Trail to Get More Clients appeared first on LittleZotz Writing.
