Guest Post: Barbara Jolie on Common Mistakes While Guest Posting

Because of some bad planning on my part, I'm hosting two guest posts today. They are both interesting in their own way, so I hope you will check the other one out too!

The Guest Post

Three Common Mistakes People Make When Writing a Guest Post

As jobs remain scarce, more and more people are flocking to nontraditional areas of employment. One of the most popular routes people are taking is professional blogging. Newbie college graduates with minimal work experience and a need for more professional exposure are taking their college diplomas to the blogosphere. Blogging is a wonderful way to gain a name for yourself in a professional manner, offering a wonderful avenue for writing and sharing your interests and expertise. Guest posting has become one of the central facets of blogging in many ways in the online world. Not only is guest posting a wonderful way to expand your blogging repertoire, but it is also a great way to drive traffic to your blog. Many bloggers and webmasters enjoy the benefits of guest posting, with increased exposure and free quality content. However, with so many guest bloggers out there vying for a spot, there are bound to be some mistakes made. Keep things common guest blogging missteps in mind the next time you whip up a guest post.

It's Just Bad
Content is king. This little saying has ruled the blogosphere for decades now—and it's true. Blogging is all about quality content. If you write something well and the material is engaging, you're doing something right. Guest blogging is about sharing your writing style, voice, and knowledge with a new audience. You should strive to create well-written, carefully crafted, and thoroughly thought out content for any blog that you are writing for. Though sometimes we can find ourselves in time binds, it's important to realize that hastily throwing something together will only be a waste of the webmaster's time and your own.

You Don't Know Your Audience
One of the most thrilling and interesting aspects of guest blogging is writing for a new audience every time you compose something. As guest bloggers, we have to determine who it is we are writing for and what it is that will best fit with the blog we're servicing at the time. Every blog seeks to speak to a specific target audience. Whether you are writing for a finance blog, a blogging blog, a green living blog, or whatever else, you want to figure out what voice and style would best suit the blog. This is not to say that you are going to write in a way that is not your own—you just want to be sure that you are connecting as best you can with that specific audience. Know your audience and write material that you think would best benefit them.

You Fail to Review Your Post
I'm going to go out on the limb and say that editing is the number one pet peeve of all webmasters when it comes to guest posts. Guest bloggers should turn in material that is carefully crafted and carefully edited. Trust me, I know it can be hard as a guest blogger to catch some of the smaller grammatical mistakes, but you should take your time to revise. Read through your completed post and edit before you send it in. Have a friend or family member read it over briefly to see if they catch something you overlooked. As writers, we do this so often that it can be easy to overlook small mistakes or become over confident in our first drafts. Be sure to stop, slow down, and re-read your post before you send it in.

This guest post is contributed by Barbara Jolie, who writes for online classes.  She welcomes your comments at her email Id: barbara.jolie876@gmail.com.