How Guest Blogging Made Me 5-Figures in 2009
The following is the the first post in the series of guest blogging success stories. The series is dedicated to my new venture My Blog Guest, the community of guest bloggers. I am building the site where you can build links and your brand completely for free and by providing real quality, so go ahead: join, participate and help me build it!
The guest post was provided by Glen Allsopp, a talented writer and a well-known blogger who has been building his name by guest blogging.
When I go at new things, I go at them full-force. Naturally, I only take on projects that I’m very passionate about, so the ones I do take on get my absolute attention. When I started a brand new blog mid-way through 2008, things were no different.
The blog I was starting would probably be best defined as a member of the ‘personal development’ niche. A site that helps people with life struggles, productivity, motivation and things like time-management. Something that I was very interested in at the time.
Although I classed myself as a very good internet marketer, I was a total nobody in the personal development niche. I had a new blog and no audience. I decided that instead of going down the usual methods of blog promotion I would try a new strategy to get myself more readers: write blog posts for other sites.
Guest Posts
Guest posts make total sense and provide a winning situation for multiple parties. First of all, the blogger who is accepting a guest post on their site gets free, quality content for their audience. The audience of that blog gets great content to read. The writer of the article gets a link from the post and potentially new subscribers on their site.
As long as the post is of a high quality, everybody wins.
People have been advocating the benefits of guest posting for years, and it’s nothing new. But these people usually recommend it on a small scale. I had the idea of guest posting thanks to Leo Babauta from Zen Habits who claimed that it helped him grow his site so quickly. (I think it was the 50+ digg homepages, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt).
I started writing. And I wrote some more. I took a break. And then continued to write. Instead of writing a post a month or even a post a week, I wrote 2-3 every single week. I wrote more guest posts than anyone else I had ever seen writing them, and things were going well.
Subscribers were up massively, traffic was up, and the links back to the website were now in the thousands. Guest blogging was really taking off for me. In the space of a few months I had written nearly 40 individual guest posts for other websites and was now enjoying a feed count of over 4,000 subscribers.
A Five-Figure Income
I don’t like to reveal exactly how much money I make, but through blogging alone in 2009 I made well over $50,000. This is completely through blog that was built from scratch; not any of the other sites I run. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if I had not written one guest post in the last 12 months, that figure would be more like $10,000-$20,000.
You see, I think there really is no effective way to market a blog these days. I mean, you can spend hours interacting on forums or blog comments and hoping to get a few clicks. Or, you can spend an hour writing a quality article that shows a brand new audience what you’re about a get both links and traffic to your site.
To me it was a no-brainer, so I kept the strategy going.
In fact, this worked so well that guest posts on some sites would send me over 400 subscribers. That’s right, one article could really increase my feed count so much. Do this on the scale I was doing things, and you start to see how I became successful.
Now that you’ve seen the power of guest posting, let me share some final tips.
Tips from My Experience
Based on everything I have learned over the past year, I just have three main points to make:
- Vary Your Posting: Some people just focus on the biggest sites and that’s it. Instead, I wrote for the ’small fish’ and the ‘big guys’. Both improve the number of backlinks to your site and you never know when a small fish could become a great contact or even a big fish.
- Send it and See: Most people think it’s not only polite but also ‘right’ to ask a blog author if they like a blog post idea first before sending it. I definitely think it is more polite, but I wouldn’t say it’s the best thing to do. Instead, in my experience, I have simply wrote articles I think other bloggers would like and I send it to them. Then they can clearly say yes or no with the content in front of them.
- Accept Rejection: If someone doesn’t want you to write on their site or they don’t like the content you’ve wrote, just accept it. There have been plenty of sites who didn’t think my work was good enough for them, yet Technorati Top 100 blogs that loved my writing. Rejection doesn’t mean anything about you specifically as a person, so just accept it with grace and move on.
So, you still don’t think guest blogging is ineffective, do you?
This article was written by Glen Allsopp who blogs about Viral Marketing. As you can see, he is a big advocate of guest posting.
Got a guest blogging success story? Send it to me and I’ll spread the word! seosmarty@gmail.com
Related posts:
Stumble it!
34 Responses to “How Guest Blogging Made Me 5-Figures in 2009”
I have known Viper chill since few months. He has done good at viperchill 1000000 in a year challenge. Congrats to Glen.
In the last week google page rank update, i can see many bloggers in my niche got amazing page rank jumps. Most of them did by guest posts in big blogs.
I am also going to take a try.
By Pascal on Jan 4, 2010
where does the money come from? I’m reading your blog, I’ve written some of my own, no one has paid me, I’ve not paid you …??? call me dumb but please provide the answer!
By dumbee on Jan 4, 2010
I would say guest posts is one of the easiest methods for bloggers who aren’t that good at self-marketing (for whatever reason) their own work.
For me personally, I’m more of the curtain opener, backstage orchestrator type rather than the lead actor, spokesman type.
So for me, guest posts help me network with other bloggers in my field, get backlink, etc, without the need to do my own cheerleading.
By Matt SF on Jan 4, 2010
@Pascal – Thanks buddy, glad to have you as a reader!
Good luck.
@dumbee Hey, my income comes from a lot of places:
– Sidebar ads
– Adsense
– Selling my own products (this alone made me over $30,000 in 09)
– Selling the products of others for a commission
And so on. There’s lots of ways to make money if you test.
@Matt_SF I don’t think guest posts should be viewed as a fix or need for people who are bad at self-marketing. It’s simply another strategy to get eyeballs on your (hopefully) excellent content.
Glad you all liked the article, and thanks to Ann for inviting me here!
By Glen Allsopp on Jan 4, 2010
One of my big focuses in 2010 will be guest posting.
By John Paul Aguiar on Jan 4, 2010
Great post Glen! I too have seen great results from guest blog posts. This article has inspired me to “take it to the next level” in 2010.
In the past I feel I’ve done “some” work in this area. But I’ve never really focused on it enough at a consistent pace.
One question I have for you:
Do you post portions of your guest posts on your own blog as content or are all your guest posts completely original content?
Part of what’s held me back in the past is “giving up” what I feel is great content to other blogs and not having the time or understanding on how I can still add that great content to my own site.
Thoughts?
Thanks again!
By Nate Moller on Jan 5, 2010
Glenn,
I’ve have been sold on the idea and actively guest blogging for about a year now. In fact Ann is the one that introduced me to the concept. I haven’t done it to the extent you have, however this year i am upping the ante so to speak.
Great post!
By Gerald Weber on Jan 5, 2010
I just had a guest post come via BloggerLinkup email. It turned out that I became an affiliate of his products. I got a great post for my blog. Plus we plan on working together on new projects.
Not only is it great to guest post but also to be a regular contributor. I write for SmallBizTrends.com and have for MarketingPilgrim.com and others. Great for reaching new audiences.
Now that I have my own products (a book and a DVD about Online PR) I have even more reason to guest post. As I’ve gotten busier it’s more important to look for ways to get content on my blog. Traffic drops off significantly when you stop blogging regularly.
Let me know if you’re interested in guest posting for me or having me guest post for you. 2 blogs to choose from.
Best
Janet
http://www.NewspaperGrl.com
http://www.OnlinePRBook.com/blog
By Janet Thaeler on Jan 5, 2010
Great article! Reading my mind! Know this is true, logging into Links / url on Yahoo, and seeing inbound links to site, gives the juice all sites need to stay a float these days!
By Cal Phillips on Jan 5, 2010
I can’t believe you made that much just with guest blogging! If you can find the right gigs at the right sites, really any amount is possible
By Inside the Webb on Jan 5, 2010
Solid post my man. It’s also worth mentioning that guest blogging can help drive large surges in Twitter following (if you’re into that sort of thing).
Keep up the good work, Glen.
Hugo
By Hugo at Zeta on Jan 6, 2010
A guest post on guest posting. All that’s left is a guest post compiling the best guest posts
By Marios Alexandrou on Jan 6, 2010
@Marios, actually, this is a good idea
By Ann Smarty on Jan 7, 2010
That’s impressive, good for you. Guest blogging definitely seems like a win-win. The blogger gets exposure and new connections, and the blog gets new content and a fresh outside perspective.
By Adam Sherk on Jan 7, 2010
But he never answers the question of how he made money by guest blogging. He just talks about how he produced a lot of guest blog posts and got them posted. Great. Now how does that bring him any money? I mean, even $1, much less 5 figures?
By Jenni Olson on Jan 8, 2010
@Jenni, guest posting was the way to market the blog. Then the blog earned the money:
– Sidebar ads
– Adsense
– Selling his own products
– Selling the products of others for a commission
By Ann Smarty on Jan 9, 2010
I have been blogging from last one year but did not earn money from adsense. Not i got some great ideas. Thank you.
By Allen on Jan 11, 2010
Great article.It gives me some idea about guest posting.
By allen on Jan 11, 2010
Glen you are definitely an example to look up to.
My main blog has been going for exactly 12 months, but in all that time the traffic really has not increased.
I have had several guest authors write for me, but the traffic then has not really gone BOOM!
I think that maybe by guest writing myself, as you have done, the traffic and exposure might just appear.
I think we all have to take risks if we are to earn anything online. If a formula isn’t working, we can either say “give it another couple of months”, or try and augment what we have with something else.
Wishing you even more success in 2010, and my blog is open for guest authors too.
By Tony on Jan 13, 2010
Good article. In the end it comes down to investing and sharing. You’ll pick the fruits later!
By Steven van Vessum on Jan 15, 2010
It’s impressive enough to motivate me about Guest Blogging this year.
Let’s see what happens.
Thanks
By Ankit on Jan 17, 2010
That was great Glen.
By Sam Wilson on Feb 2, 2010
Yeah, I agree with Tony. You are a good example I should learn from.
By PTFE Membrane Filters on Feb 2, 2010
Thank you for sharing, very good suggestions.
By SEO Tools on Feb 2, 2010
Awesome! I’m going to try that out. I’ve been focussed on creating backlinks but have been wondering how to tap into the blogs that have many more followers than I do right now (even though my following is slowly growing every single day). Thanks for the tips!
By Griff (Financial Freedom 5G Team) on Feb 3, 2010
Thanks for nice article, very informative and good poing here………….
By autoboss on Feb 5, 2010
Thanks for a well written and concise article on guest blogging, Ann. Knowing this is one of many areas of Web 2.0 that is important today. Being a “Babe in the woods” so to speak, I feel better surrounding myself with experts like yourself!~Cal
http://paintingdenver.net/blog/
By Cal on Feb 9, 2010
Very interesting article. Guest blogging is a win-win situation for all those involved.
By George on Feb 10, 2010
Great information here! I have been blogging for years, but I never really thought about making money doing it. I used it as a way to vent and get conversations started, but guest blogging is a wonderfully awesome idea. I could only wish I thought of it myself. Even if I am not trying to “get rich” writing online guest blogging is a cool way to get people back to my blog. Thanks for this gem of an idea!!
Lena Brown
By lenabrown on Feb 11, 2010