No, seriously.

It is after all what I started out doing in the first place back in 1997 just for fun and then for a handful of paying clients over the next couple of years. It’s really what lead me to doing everything else I do these days in the first place.

In fact, stuff I’ve designed has actually been mentioned on a couple of big design blogs (smashingmagazine.com, for example), which is always pretty cool.

And in all this time, I can honestly say that the design and development process really hasn’t changed much for me at all. It’s still the same 5 steps.

What 5 steps? These 5 steps:

Step 1: Think.

Before I start actually doing anything, the very first thing I do it sit and think. What am I looking to do? What do I want this site to be? What is its goal? What is my goal with it? Who is it for? What is it for? What will it have? What won’t it have? What would make it fucking amazing? What would make it suck?

This will usually lead to me making a sloppy unorganized list of things that I will need to keep in mind and look back at throughout this entire design process.

This is a very underrated step in the creation of a new site in my opinion. It GREATLY helps ensure that I won’t get deep into the design phase only to stop and realize “oh shit, I needed to have this over here or this like this or this can’t be like that.”

This step allows the design process to run smoothly in one direction without me having to stop and go back and fix things.

Not only is it a potential time/work saver, but it makes it really hard for things to get left out or forgotten along the way.

Step 2: Lay it out with pencil and paper.

This is really where the actual design work begins. I always wonder if this step started because I used to draw site designs in class rather than take notes or pay attention in high school. If I didn’t do that, would the design process still begin on paper for me?

Who knows. All I do know is that this is how I kick this shit off… good old pencil and paper.

What I do here is literally draw the site. I’ll draw headers and footers and sidebars and logos and everything else I plan for the site to have. I’ll make myself little notes about things like widths and colors and fonts. I might write “put a border here” or “this should have a gradient background.”

If I plan for the site to have an email list, I’ll draw the sign-up form into the design in the spot I think will be ideal. I’ll even draw in stuff like Retweet buttons and RSS icons.

This of course is all just basic layout related stuff. If all I’m creating here is something simple like a blog, that might be all I need to do. But lots of times I’m creating a bit more than just a simple blog. In those cases, I’ll take it way further and draw out stuff like user interfaces and conversion pages.

I’ll usually go through quite a few pieces of paper and draw a few different versions of everything.

Basically, whatever it is I’m looking to create here with this new site, I first draw out every single aspect of it that I can envision it containing.

Now that I typed all of that, I just realized I could have summed this entire step up with the word “blueprint.”

I’m a dumbass.

Even still, that’s what this step ends up leaving me with… a blueprint of what the site will be.

Step 3: Create a mockup with Photoshop.

Once I have the site pretty well mapped/planned out on paper, it’s time to bring it to life off paper. How?

With Photoshop.

I’ll open a new file the height/width the site will be, and then put everything I sketched out on paper into place. I’ll essentially transfer that “blueprint” of mine from paper to computer, only it won’t just be a blueprint anymore. This is when I actually make it look like what the site will look like.

Colors, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, backgrounds, images, gradients, shadows, fonts, text, buttons, etc. etc. etc. go into place in the way they should ACTUALLY look. On paper I might have drawn a little box somewhere with some instructions in it, now I actually follow those instructions and make that little box into what it’s supposed to be.

By the end of this step, just about every image the site will need (including a logo) will be made, the color scheme will be picked, and the entire design of the site will now exist in the form of a PSD file (which is Photoshop’s image file format in case that’s not obvious enough).

Step 4: Build it with code.

Once the full design of the site has been created with Photoshop, it’s time to break it all down and build it back up with actual code.

There isn’t much designing or creativity in this step. This is really just me taking the mockup image of my site that I made in Photoshop and turning it into an actual website. Meaning, this is when all of the HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and whatever else the site will need gets written.

It’s the least fun step of them all, for sure. Although, seeing this thing gradually become a website is kind of exciting. Just 1 more important step to go.

Step 5: Make an infinite number of changes that make everything WAY better than I ever imagined it being.

This is really where all the magic happens for me. This is where everything I have originally thought up, planned for, mapped out, sketched and Photoshopped becomes a little less like exactly what the site will be, and a little more like my guide to exactly what the site should be.

What I mean is, this is when I basically change, test, move, try, imagine, and generally fuck with EVERYTHING. Really, this is when the obsessive perfectionist in me comes out and just goes nuts.

This of course can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For me, it’s always a good thing because it works. Time and time again, this is really when I make shit happen design-wise.

However, it’s bad because this could go on forever. There is really never a point in the design process where I stop and think “this is it, this is perfect.” Instead, I’ll just keep thinking “this is better” or “I know I could still improve this” or “this is almost perfect” no matter how perfect it actually ends up getting.

As you can imagine, this could potentially suck up a ton of time that could have been better spent on things more important to the overall success of this site.

Don’t get me wrong, the design process is important (sometimes even extremely important), it’s just that spending days/weeks trying to bring the design from “amazingly super duper perfect” to “slightly more amazingly super duper perfect” is rarely ever important or necessary, and is almost always a waste of time.

Over the years I’ve sort of trained myself to where I can usually snap myself out of it when I reach this point and feel this start happening. But man, it ain’t always easy. The important thing for me though is that by the time I’ve reached this point, I always have something really special to show for it.

Thanks crazy-obsessive-perfectionist-version-of-me. You da man.

Sometimes what I end up with is just a much better version of everything I originally planned for the site to be, and sometimes that original blueprint of mine is only barely noticeable anymore.

Whatever it ends up being though, it’s perfect, and there is never a doubt in my mind that it required every second of every single one of these steps for me to get it that way.

This time was no different. The design = done.

Unless of course your “excuse” is relevant to the topic of your blog. That would be the one possible exception.

Let me clarify…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because I was too busy driving across the country in an attempt to see a game at every stadium along the way.

That’s a great time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. Your excuse is something relevant to the topic of your blog, and that means your readers will care and be interested.

On the other hand…

I didn’t get to post about baseball on my baseball blog this week because A) things have been hectic at work, B) my internet has been down/computer is broken, C) I’m busy packing for my big move, D) kids started school, E) my girlfriend’s sister is getting married, F) anything similar.

This is a horrible time to do an “I’m sorry I didn’t get to post” post. In this case, you should be posting whatever you would have posted had everything been normal and on schedule. Anything else is just a big annoying bunch of nonsense to your readers.

With all of that being said…

With all of that being said, I’m only a couple of weeks into The Successful Site Experiment, and I’m already a full week behind trying to blog about it in real time.

This is harder than I thought.

Reason being, I have a funny work ethic. I only want to go at 100% at all times. I can’t (or just don’t want to) put 50% into this, 50% into that. I’d much rather put 100% into this, and 0% into that.

This means my new site is getting literally 100% of my time and effort right now, and 0% is being put into blogging about the entire process over here in real time like I intended to. My bad.

Now, this really wouldn’t be so bad if I just forget the “real time” idea and just blogged about it all anyway. I mean, so what, it won’t be in complete “real time” and my blogging here may be slightly behind what I’m actually up to.

The problem with that is that when I’m in (let’s say) the design and development phase, blogging about finding a web host (something I did before the design and development phase) is already uninteresting to me and feels like a chore to blog about at that exact moment.

So, what’s the solution?

Simple. I’m going to keep the “real time” concept going even if it means chronology gets fucked up along the way. Meaning, I may leave some stuff out and then come back to it later on.

For example, I’m currently in the design and development phase of this site, so that’s what I’m currently in the mood to blog about. (See next post.)

However, doing so would mean I’ve skipped blogging about the “finding the perfect web host” phase. It’s ok, I’ll just come back to it some time later on in this process.

There ya go, problem solved. Hooray!

One other excuse you’ll be interested in.

While I’m on the subject of giving you excuses for not blogging (note that these are relevant excuses that you will care about), I woke up today to find something else that will eat up a tiny bit of my time over the next day or two. This…

That’s a screen shot of traffic stats for another site of mine that I took today at about 11:30am.

As you can see (underlined in red for added obviousness), the site is at over 25,000 unique visitors as of 11:30am today which is well above its usual daily traffic (I’m guessing it will hit at least double that by the end of the day).

This is due to a piece of content from this site getting mentioned by a pretty huge blog sometime early this morning.

So now I’ll be spending some time today basically managing everything that happens as a result of a huge influx of traffic like this. I must say though, if anything was going to take some of my time away from working on this new site… this is definitely what I want it to be.

One thing I won’t be doing today though is worrying about this site staying up or slowing down or having any similar problems as a result of all of this traffic. Why? Because I have the perfect web host.

Shit. I knew I should have just written the “finding the perfect web host” post.

First up? This bad boy needs a domain name.

In my 10+ years of playing with the internet for a living, the naming process always proves to be one of the key parts of the eventual success of every one of my sites.

That’s not at all to say that these sites would have been doomed to fail if I ended up with a less than perfect domain name.

It’s just to say that, if you do end up with the perfect domain name, the odds of your site being a success increase big time and the work required to make it happen becomes a little easier.

And yeah, I have the first hand experience to back that up.

For this reason, the naming process for me always begins with one very specific goal in mind: to get this shit as perfect as possible.

How? Like this…

The 10 Characteristics of a Perfect Domain Name

Whenever I need to register a domain name, there are about 10 very specific characteristics that I either aim for or avoid to ensure that I end up with THE perfect domain name. In no special order, here are those 10 characteristics:

1. It should be identical to the name of the site.

If you want to name your site Super Cool Site, then you need to register SuperCoolSite.com. If it’s unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with a new name. Simple as that.

Having a domain name that is one thing and a site named something else will just confuse the crap out of people no matter how ALMOST identical they are.

In my opinion, domain name availability should most definitely dictate the naming of your site. It always has (and always will) for me, and it certainly should for you, too.

2. It should end in .com.

In my opinion, if the .com version of your ideal domain name is unavailable, fuck it… time to come up with something else. Simple as that.

The only time I have ever registered a domain name that ended with something besides .com is when I already registered the .com version first and then went and got the .net/.org to prevent other people from getting it.

The reason why is simple… people think domain names and they automatically think .com. Therefore anything that isn’t .com is automatically not perfect and a potential cause for confusion/problems.

End of the world? No. Just far from perfect, and I’m aiming for absolutely perfect. You should too.

And for everyone thinking “well what about sites like problogger.net and seomoz.org and the many other very successful sites that end in something besides .com?” Here’s what…

Send that site owner an email and ask them what they would do if they found a time machine.

I got 20 bucks that says their answer will be to go back and start off on the .com version of their domain name.

And not to mention, 9 times out of 10 that site owner has since gone on to do whatever the hell they needed to do to get the .com version of their domain name. Why? Because they have come to find that having a domain name that ends in something besides .com is a pain in the ass.

So, save yourself the headache and go .com only.

Oh, and if you’re even considering .info or .biz, please kindly leave this blog and never come back. Thank you.

3. It should not contain hyphens or numbers.

Speaking of pains in the ass, hyphens fit that description for various reasons. First, no one ever remembers they are there (this includes both visitors AND the people who want to tell others about your site). Second, it takes about 10 tries before you can verbally say your domain name to someone and have them actually understand it.

Bare in mind, this is coming from a guy who actually has a site with a hyphen in its domain name, and that site averages about 20,000 unique visitors per day.

Obviously I overcame the disadvantages of the hyphen, but it was and still sometimes is a big pain in the ass (enough so that I’d never do it again).

Well, except once… in the case of an exact keyword match (like weight-loss.com or internet-marketing.com or firstname-lastname.com). This is the 1 true exception to the no-hyphen rule, and even then I’d give it some thought.

Numbers in domain names are bad for similar reasons. Is it the number 4 or the word four? The number 50 or the word fifty? Is it to, too, two or 2?

Anything that’s even remotely confusing should be avoided, and numbers and hyphens fall into that category.

4. It should be easy to spell.

People are idiots and very few of them can spell. Keep this in mind when registering your domain name. If it contains something people may have a hard time spelling, don’t use it

Why? For starters, some people will never get to your site. They’ll just misspell something and end up somewhere else, or maybe figure your site just disappeared. Some may realize they’re spelling something wrong and figure it out and fix it. Most won’t bother.

And, people will just as easily misspell your domain name when trying to link to you. Happens all the time. People end up linking to nothing or just some other site altogether and you miss out on both traffic and what the SEO nerds call link juice.

This is another argument for avoiding hyphens, numbers and anything else that has any chance of causing any confusion.

5. It should be as short as possible.

How short? No idea. I have no specific number of letters that I aim for. I just try to keep it as short as possible.

The longer a domain name is the harder it will be to remember or type without mistakes/typos. The shorter it is the easier it will be to read in a link, a tweet, a search engine results page, etc..

And keep in mind that the domain name isn’t the URL of every page of your site. 99% of it will be www.domainname.com/content-of-some-kind. The shorter the “domainname.com” part is, the more visible the “content-of-some-kind” part is.

6. It should be descriptive and accurate to some degree.

No, the domain name of your car blog doesn’t need to be ThisIsAReallyCoolBlogAboutNewCarsAndOldCarsAndTheresAForumToo.com.

It just needs to give people some idea of what the site is before they actually see what it is. Is it something they might like, want, need or be interested in? The domain name should at least partially give them an answer.

Similarly, your domain name shouldn’t make your site seem like it’s going to be something it isn’t.

7. It shouldn’t sound like or resemble something you don’t own.

Oh the horror stories you will hear from people who registered a domain name with someone else’s trademarked name in it. They create this great site with great content and great search engine rankings and great traffic and great earnings.

And then, one day out of the blue the company whose name is being used in your domain name finally notices you and calls their lawyers.

What happens next? You’re fucked, that’s what. They always win this battle, and you will always have to get a new domain name for your site.

How fun does that sound? Reaching the point of having a successful site and then being forced to change its domain name? I’m not quite dumb enough to have experienced this myself, but from what I hear, “the complete opposite of fun” is a pretty accurate description.

8. It shouldn’t be tainted.

Millions of domain names are already taken. And, millions of the ones that aren’t were taken at one time. If your perfect domain name turns out to be one of the ones that were taken at one time, you’re job is to find out what the hell it used to be and what kind of reputation is associated with it.

Basically, your job is to find out if it’s tainted. If it turns out it is… fuck it. Find something else.

Tainted how, you wonder? It could have been porn, could be banned from Google, could be blacklisted, all sorts of stuff. Granted, there are ways to fix this… but why start off with the unnecessary headache of having to fix the problems someone else caused?

As for how to find out if your domain name is or is not tainted, the first place to start is the Wayback Machine. Enter your URL and see what (if anything) it used to be. Beyond that, just searching for it in Google will turn up all kinds of stuff (assuming there is anything to turn up in the first place).

9. It should be brandable, memorable, unique and awesome.

Reading through this list may make you temporarily forget one other teeny-tiny thing you want in a domain name.

It should be great.

You know, something that you can build an audience around. Something that people will remember. Something that expresses an identity. Something that is just flat out great.

Obvious? Maybe, but still a huge part of what makes a perfect domain name perfect in the first place.

10. It should contain your site’s #1 goal keyword/keyphrase.

Here’s the thing. The majority of the links to your site will use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text whether you like it or not.

And, if you read the SEO Flowchart To Awesome Search Engine Rankings, you know that the biggest SEO key of all is really just getting a shit load of high quality links and having your goal keyword(s) in the anchor text of those links.

So then, if most of your site’s backlinks are going to use your site’s name/domain name in the anchor text, and your site’s name/domain name happens to contain your goal keyword… do you know what’s going to happen if you end up getting lots of high quality links?

SEO magic, that’s what.

But wait… stop.

This doesn’t mean you should register weightlosspillsmortgagesfreeporn.com or anything equally dumb. It just means that before you begin this whole domain name process, you should have a really good idea of what your site’s main goal keywords are.

Then, you should aim to get the prettiest one of them all into your domain name.

BUT, it must only be done in a way that makes sense and doesn’t interfere at all with the other 9 items on this list.

Got that? Good.

Wanna hear a secret? I rank amazingly for some of the most competitive keywords in existence. Some are just really competitive, but others are on a whole other level. You know, the kind of stuff most smart SEOs will tell you never to bother even trying to rank well for.

I have these rankings for 3 reasons. First, I created amazing content and provided crazy amounts of value. Second, I marketed the crap out of it and got a ton of super high quality links. Third, my domain name contains my site’s #1 goal keyword therefore causing most of these links to use this keyword in the anchor text.

The result is that I ended up ranking very well for these very competitive, highly sought after keywords. Here’s an example…

You know that site I talk about in the How to Increase Traffic to a New Site or Blog case study? Well, that site’s domain name happens to contain its goal keyword. Not a keyword it would be nice to rank well for, but the super duper bestest keyword of them all.

And, because of how well that launch went and how well marketed that site was and how many amazing links it ended up getting and the fact that many of those links ended up using my #1 goal keyword in the anchor text, I ended up ranking very well for that keyword.

Now, if you keep everything in that scenario the same but remove that keyword from my domain name, sure… that site would still be a huge success and have a ton of amazing rankings. No argument there.

But, would I rank as well or even at all for that specific #1 goal keyword of mine? No, I wouldn’t. It was having it in my domain name that played a huge part in making that happen.

My Results

The domain name for my new site has now been registered, and it’s perfect. On a scale of 1-10, it’s a 10. It really couldn’t be any better. It’s absolutely perfect.

Specifically, it…

• is the same name as the site.
• ends with .com.
• does not contain hyphens or numbers.
• is easy to spell.
• is short enough.
• is extremely descriptive and accurate.
• doesn’t screw with any trademarks/copyrights.
• has been registered before, but is not tainted at all.
• is as brandable and memorable as can be.
• contains my #1 goal keyword.

It’s the perfect domain name.

Question & Answer

What registrar did you use? GoDaddy.com

Where did you look up domain names throughout this process? AJAXWhois

How do you know what your site’s goal keyword is? A combination of researching my niche/audience/competitors, the AdWords Keyword Tool, and experience.

Did you do a private or public domain registration? Public. Any site that I am really truly serious about is ALWAYS a public registration. I only use private registrations for little side projects I don’t really care about and this one blog where I may occasionally discuss how much money I make and therefore don’t exactly want my name and address easily visible (that’d be this blog in case it’s not obvious enough).

What if I don’t have/didn’t end up with the perfect domain name? Great content + great marketing can overcome anything, even a not-so-good domain name. Get it perfect though and good things will happen because of it.

What’s next?

Finding the perfect web host. This will be easy because I kind of already found it 5 years ago.

You’ll see.

However, everything I already know about this niche comes from the perspective of the visitor, the user, the customer.

Now I’m looking at it from the perspective of someone who will HAVE the visitors, the users and the customers.

There’s a big difference there, and it’s worth noting.

So, here’s what I know so far…

The Niche And Its Audience

The overall niche my new site will be a part of is quite big and popular. Actually, it’s really big and popular.

The much more specific sub-niche that the site will truly focus on is not quite as big and popular as this larger overall niche. However, it is still definitely big and popular enough to eliminate any concerns of there being a lack of interest in it. No doubt about that at all.

Plus, despite focusing solely on this specific sub-niche, my site will definitely appeal to this entire niche as a whole. It’s all connected, really.

For the sake of an example, think of the sports niche, and imagine my site is about baseball.

As for audience potential, there really is no specific demographic I’d be targeting or avoiding. Old, young, male, female, black, white, rich, poor, fat, skinny, dumb, smart… doesn’t matter. The site will equally appeal to everyone.

Location is a slightly different story. The site will be US (and Canada) oriented for sure. People in other countries probably wouldn’t have much use for it.

The traffic potential of this specific sub-niche is pretty tough to gauge (although using my top secret internet powers I see a potential competitor of mine is averaging around 8000 unique visitors per day).

But what I can tell for you sure though is that the bigger niche my sub-niche is a part of has virtually unlimited traffic potential.

I’d like to make sweet sweet love to those 4 words.

So basically, the interest is there. The audience is there. The traffic potential is there. All systems go.

The Competition

My goal here was to figure out not only how much competition I have, but to see exactly what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, how successful they are at it, how it can be done better, how big their audiences are, and really to find out how doable it will be for me to not just compete, but stand out and overtake.

I also paid some attention to additional things of eventual interest such as what their methods of monetization are, how many links they have, where those links are from, what their sites look like, if there’s an RSS feed or a blog or an email list or a forum… stuff like that.

What I discovered during all of this research is pretty much what I already thought… competition in this specific sub-niche is pretty slim.

The bigger overall niche has too much competition to count (huge, HUGE niche), but this sub-niche… there’s really very few sites out there focusing solely on this.

There’s really only a handful worth paying attention to, and honestly, I only view one of them as a legit competitor. Why? Well, they’ve pretty much single-handedly dominated this sub-niche since – wait for it – 1997.

I have a feeling that this fact is a big reason this sub-niche is so uncrowded. You see this site, you see they’re already doing what you want to do (and they’re doing it very well), you see they’ve been “the man” in this sub-niche for a pretty impressive 13 years, you take a peak at the crazy number of links they’ve built up during that time (not to mention trust and authority), and it’s enough to make some people think “nah, forget this.”

Me? Nope. I see someone doing something that I’m going to do differently and better. How much better? That’s the key. It needs to be “better” to the point where if their visitors were shown their site and my site and asked to pick one… they’d pick mine.

This is why you really need to be able to step back and objectively look at what you’re doing a lot of the time. Is your site, your design, your piece of content, your writing, your whatever… is it better because it truly is better, or is it better because it’s yours?

In my best objective view, my site will be better because it truly is better.

In my mind, it’s really just going to be a matter of getting this audience to notice my site and realize there is in fact someone out there doing it better than everyone else.

Also worth mentioning about my competition is that there are a lot of sites in that bigger overall niche of mine that “cover” what my site will “cover.” So, counting them, I guess there technically is a lot of competition.

However, these huge sites are all forced to do it in more of a “and we also do this” sort of way. I’m going to be doing it in a “this is all we do” and “this is our only care and focus” sort of way.

That’s a huge advantage to me, and stealing away everyone who goes to these sites for things related to this sub-niche should be fairly easy. But like I said, this can only happen if they actually know I exist.

And – confident psychic spoiler alert – they will. I’m going to kill this shit. Very excited about the marketing phase.

The Earning Potential

Don’t know, don’t care.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it a million more times: I don’t give a shit about making money until I reach the point where I have something I can actually make money from.

Making money is the easy part. Any idiot can do it. Doesn’t matter what kind of site you have or what kind of niche you’re in. There will always be a way to make money.

It’s reaching the point where you are actually capable of making money that takes work.

So sure, thoughts of monetization will pop into my head at various points throughout this process. And yes, if any of these thoughts seem interesting I will certainly write them down.

But, that will pretty much be the extent of my care about money until I have a site that is actually capable of making some.

Until then, 100% of my time, effort and focus will be on reaching that point.

That point = money. Simple as that.

What’s Next?

Names. Coming up with the perfect name for the site itself, and then registering the perfect domain name for it. They’ll both happen simultaneously, and they are both going to be key to my site’s eventual SEO.

You’ll see.

In this series of posts, I will take you guys through exactly what I’m thinking, exactly what I’m doing, exactly how I’m doing it, exactly why I’m doing it, and of course everything that happens as a result of it all.

I’m calling it The Successful Site Experiment.

And it starts… now.

I figure the very best way to kick this off is with a little description of what the site/my idea for it actually is. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I’m not really comfortable with discussing the really specific specifics, but here’s what I can and will tell you about it.

What The Site ISN’T

For starters, it’s not a blog or an article site. It will definitely have a blog, and that blog will definitely be where all of this site’s article-like content (which there will definitely be a lot of) will go and be managed. But the big picture of the site is not at all about blog posts or articles.

It’s not a membership site either, as there is no reason or need whatsoever to have members or users… at least not in the short term. Long term may be a different story.

It’s also not a community/social site, or a site built around user generated content, or really even a web app.

In terms of my role, I will not be the expert/teacher. On the blog you’re reading now, that’s pretty much the side I’m on. On this other site, there’s really nothing to teach, so there’s really nothing to be an expert in. I’ll therefore be on the same level as every visitor to the site. Just another dude interested in the same thing they are, only I just so happened to create a badass site about it that they will love.

What The Site IS

The best way I can explain it is by calling it a compilation of information. And that rhymes, so hell yeah that’s how I’m going to explain it!

I’m the Dr. Seuss of internet marketing.

Basically, there is information that exists, and it changes on both a daily and weekly basis. This information is freely available online and any idiot can find it and use it if they wanted to (and MANY people do).

What I’m going to do is take all of this information from all of the various sources that are putting it out there, and compile it all in one super pretty, perfectly usable, ultra convenient format.

And as this information continues to change on the daily/weekly basis that it will infinitely change on, my site will update accordingly. My very early guess is that this site will require about 1-2 hours of work per week to maintain. While obviously FAR from a lot, it’s actually 1-2 hours more than any of my current sites require. Should be worth it, though.

In addition, I’m going to be doing something else with it all that will make the entire thing a little extra special. This will also be the thing that sets my site apart from (and makes it way better than) anyone else doing anything similar.

That is, of course, if anyone else actually is doing anything similar. Speaking of which…

What’s Next?

In a word, research. There are certain things I want to learn more about before I actually start working on the site itself.

Specifically, I want to get to know all of my potential competitors (and begin planning how to pwn all their asses), and learn a little more about this niche as a whole, its audience, and my traffic and earning potential.

You’ll see.

Basically, I have an idea for a site, and I’m going to create it, market it, and if all goes well… profit from it. And like I said, I’m going to share the entire process with you right here.

The thing is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, constantly referring to it as “that new site I’m working on” is pretty fucking lame.

So, I need a code name.

Pretty please leave your code name suggestions in the comments and I’ll pick the best one (or just the one that sucks the least).

Whoever ends up suggesting the code name I use will win!

Win what? I don’t know… something at some point in the future. If I keep this up long enough, I’m sure I’ll eventually end up with cool stuff to give away, or maybe even my own product of some kind, who knows. Whatever it is, you’ll be the first person on my list of people to give free stuff to.

So get on your mark, get set… code name!!!!

I think it could be the weather, because here in NY it’s almost beginning to switch from super hot to comfortably cool.

It may also be that my brain has been pre-programmed to switch to some other gear around this time due to the many years of school starting back up about now.

Then again, it could all just be a crazy coincidence.

Whatever it is, I always seem to end up doing some big time significant things around this time of the year. Some of the many examples:

• You know that case study post I did about how to increase traffic to a new site or blog? Take a look at those traffic stats and pay attention to what month they start at. Yup, the very end of September through October and November.
• You know that post I did about how I increased Adsense revenue from $1,000 per month to $10,000 per month? Nothing in that post actually has a date on it, but it was on October 31st that I first started messing around with the stuff that would go on to cause that increase. I remember literally running back and forth from the computer (to play with Adsense) to the door (to give out candy).
• My very first (real) site – the one that pretty much single-handedly started everything for me and basically put me on the path to where I’m at now – originally started on some shitty free host in 1999. I then redesigned it, moved it to a real host, and registered a domain name for it in 2001. That domain name’s registration date? September 1st, 2001.

Like I said, there’s something wacky about the 3 month span of September, October and November that leads to me starting things that end up being pretty significant in hindsight.

And now, sure enough… it’s happening again.

And a big difference this time around is that I’m going to blog about it all right here.

Blog about what, you ask? The new site I’m about to start working on.

See, this past Saturday (Sept 12th), I had one of those light-bulb-over-head, “I need to write this down immediately” moments.

About 30 minutes later I ended up with this big unorganized mess of thoughts and ideas ranging from stuff as broad as the best way to develop the overall idea and how to market it effectively, to stuff as specific as exactly how the logo should look and the first 3 domain names I should check for availability.

This unorganized mess gradually became bigger and messier over the weekend as I continued thinking about it and adding to it.

So I guess what I’m getting at here is that while I’m still a bit uncomfortable with getting into the really specific specifics of any of my sites (names, URLs, niches, etc.), I will definitely be telling you about everything else there is to tell about this new site, and I’ll be doing it in real time as it’s happening.

This will likely include:

• coming up with and molding this site’s idea/concept
• evaluating its monetization potential
• evaluating my potential competitors
• gauging what type of audience exists for this site and how big this potential audience can become
• naming it
• registering the perfect domain name
• the entire design and development process
• the site’s launch
• the entire marketing process (the part I’m looking forward to the most)
• full traffic stats from day 1
• where that traffic is coming from and what I did to get it
• monetization strategies
• and when the time comes, how much money this site goes on to earn

This is the point when you subscribe if you haven’t already done so. It’s gonna be fun.

That’s not super crazy huge, but it’s a pretty nice size. It’s actually a really nice size when you consider that I don’t really promote it at all beyond having a simple text box with something like “enter your email address to subscribe” written under it in my sidebar.

Anyway, I host this email list with AWeber (go ahead, click it… it’s not an affiliate link). In case you’re interested, anything I am doing or will ever do involving email marketing will always be done with AWeber.

They’re the shit.

One of the many things I love about AWeber is that they have this comment box on their unsubscribe page. So, when someone decides to unsubscribe from my email list, they have the option of leaving comments explaining their reason for unsubscribing.

Despite this being optional, I find that most unsubscribers do it anyway.

I think my unsubscribe rate is pretty low, which is a good thing, but I must admit… I get a sort of perverse feeling of excitement out of seeing someone unsubscribe because I know there’s a really good chance they left comments telling me why.

And I just love reading those comments.

While I do get the occasional “you suck, I hate you!” or the always entertaining “I didn’t sign up to receive ads” after the one time I link to a product, most of my unsubscribe comments have surprisingly little to do with me or the quality of my email list.

That seems strange, I agree, but let me show you what I mean.

In no specific order, here’s what I estimate to be the 3 most common comments I get from the people who unsubscribe from my email list:

1. My inbox is too full/crowded.

Like I said, nothing to do with me at all. This is just someone who is apparently getting a lot of email and for whatever reason lacks the ability to deal with it to the point where they are forced to unsubscribe from an email list they truly wanted to sign up for at some point.

I also notice that the people unsubscribing for this reason tend to be really polite and complimentary. As in: “Your site is awesome and I love the info in these emails, but my inbox is just too crowded. Sorry.”

Odd, don’t ya think?

2. I’m no longer interested in this information.

Again, really nothing to do with me or my email list. These are just weird people who either lacked the reading comprehension needed to understand what my email list was going to be about in the first place, or just people who truly lost interest in the subject my site/email list is about.

Fun!

3. I never signed up for this!! Stop spamming me asshole!!

This one always puts a smile on my face.

See, this is a real legit email list hosted by a real legit email list host. That means that this list is required to be confirmed opt-in.

And what that means is that someone had to fill out some sort of subscription form where they entered their email address AND THEN received a confirmation email at that provided email address AND THEN opened it up and clicked the unique confirmation link inside that email therefore officially confirming their subscription to this list.

So, you forgetful bastard, you did indeed sign up for this.

Either that or your email account has been hacked and the hacker had nothing better to do than sign you up for a bunch of email lists and then confirm the subscriptions.

At one point back in the day, I’d actually take the time to email some of these people to let them know everything I just told you. It didn’t change anything, of course, but it made them feel pretty dumb and that made me feel pretty good.

I’m such a people person.

What comments do you get?

I’m curious… do you have an email list? If so, what kind of comments do you get from the people who unsubscribe?

If they’re anything like mine, I think it’s safe to say you’re doing a pretty good job.

If they’re more focused on you, your content, and the overall quality of your email list, you should probably take that as a sign that it’s time to make some improvements.

Welcome to the 4th and final part of this guest posting series. If you’ve been playing along at home, you’ve already learned just about everything you will ever need to know about guest posting.

All that’s left to learn now are some final tips for getting as much out of this as you possibly can. I’m talking MaXiMuM GueST PoSTiNG SuCCeSS!!!

And hey, what a coincidence, I’m going to explain exactly that in the convenient form of a list of “DOs” and “DON’Ts.”

And it’s going to start right… about… now.

DO have an amazing post already written and ready to be posted before your guest post goes live.

Pay lots of attention here.

Before your guest post gets published, you need to write up a truly amazing post for your own blog and save it. Don’t publish it yet, just have it fully written and ready to go.

Then, the second your guest post goes live, publish this amazing post of yours.

Why?

So when all of this brand new traffic comes to your site in one big immediate burst, this will be the very first thing they see.

Take my word for it, this will do more for converting this traffic into regular readers than anything else you can possibly do. And the more amazing this post of yours is, the more of this traffic you will convert.

I’m not guessing, by the way. I’m guaranteeing.

The truth is, right after guest posting, a bunch of people who didn’t even know you existed will show up on your site. And just as soon as they show up, they will leave and never return. Your goal (and your job) is to grab them and keep them there for as long as possible. Oh, and you’ll only have about 3 seconds to do it.

This means you need to ensure that the very first thing these people see is something that they just HAVE to read. If it is, they will stay and possibly go on to subscribe, sign up, join, buy, or do whatever the hell else it is you want them to do on your site.

If it’s not, you’ll have lost them forever.

Long story short, you only have one shot at converting guest post traffic, and this little strategy here is the single greatest way of making it happen. Prepare an amazing post in advance and publish it immediately after your guest post goes live.

DO make sure your next post is pretty damn good, too.

Yup, for pretty much the same reasons mentioned above for why that most recent post of yours needs to be amazing, your very next post after that needs to be pretty damn good too.

This post is the one that proves to these new readers of yours that your most recent amazing post – the one that made them stay and go on to subscribe – wasn’t a fluke.

If the guest post is the one that draws them in, and that amazing post above is the one that hooks them, this next post of yours is the one that keeps them.

Make sure it’s something capable of accomplishing this.

DO mention to your own readers on your own blog that you did a guest post.

If you wrote it, your readers will probably like it. So, be sure to tell them about your guest post and let them know where to find it.

DON’T tell your readers about your guest post until a few days later.

Yup. You should definitely tell your readers about your guest post, just not right away.

The reason why should be pretty obvious if you read the very first DO in this post. You know, the one about writing an amazing post and putting it live right after your guest post gets published so it’s the first thing all of this new traffic sees?

Well, the worst thing you can do is have the first post they see be a post along the lines of: “Hey guys, just did a guest post, check it out!”

Click, gone.

They just came from that guest post, so this is something all of this traffic is guaranteed to not give a shit about it. They’ll of course express this to you by leaving your site immediately.

Like I said before, you will only have one shot at converting these people into regular readers (or at the very least people who go deeper into your site to look around and then possibly become regular readers), so ensuring that the first thing they see is something they will love and not something they couldn’t care less about is of the utmost importance.

You should therefore hold off for a few days on mentioning that you did a guest post. There’s no real rush to tell your own readers anyway, so wait until most (or all) of that guest post traffic dies down and then do this post.

Or, better yet, publish that next amazing post first, and then make your “guest post mention” post.

So basically:

1. Your guest post gets published.
2. You publish a super amazing post on your own blog the second you see your guest post is live.
3. You publish another post that is also above average on the scale of awesomeness soon after (how soon after depends on whatever your typical posting frequency is).
4. Your next post can be the one where you mention you did a guest post.
5. You go right back to posting awesome content.

Rinse, repeat.

DO contact the blog owner and thank them for letting you guest post.

If you have an ounce of common sense (or manners), this one was probably pretty obvious. For those of you that don’t, be sure to contact the blog owner after your guest post gets published and thank them for letting you do it.

DO create an opening for future guest posts.

Whether you really want to guest post on that same blog again or if you have absolutely no intention of ever guest posting there in a million years, it’s always a smart move to at least create an opening for it.

This is pretty easy to do. In that “thank you” email you send (see above), just throwing in something as simple as “would love to do it again sometime” at the end should do the trick.

Real world example: I guest posted for John Chow, and I sent him an email right after my post went live thanking him for letting me do it and literally included the words “would love to do it again sometime” at the end of the email despite having little interest at the time in doing it again.

He replied back with something like “sure, whenever you have another post just send it over” and that was that.

Next thing you know, I felt like guest posting for him again, sent my post over, and it was live on his blog the next day. Oh, and it went on to be 50 times more beneficial to me than the first post. Good thing I created an opening for future guest posts.

Be sure to do the same.

DO pay attention to the comments on your post, and reply to them.

Assuming you guest posted on a blog that has an audience, and assuming your guest post didn’t completely suck, there’s a strong chance that there will be people leaving comments.

And, even though it’s not your blog, you should treat the comments on your guest post as though it IS your blog.

Reply to everything that warrants a reply. Answer questions, give advice, join the discussion, give your (expert) opinion, argue politely and intelligently with anyone who decides to argue against something you said in your post, and basically just use the comments to show these people (and all future people who come across this post) that you are a total badass in whatever subject your post was about.

Forget that replying to the comments is just the right thing to do for many obvious reasons, it’s also another perfect place to promote the crap out of yourself and show this blog’s readers how knowledgeable, credible and all around awesome you are.

Oh, and in the case where you guest post and the readers of that blog don’t actually realize it was a guest post (crazy right?), responding to the comments as the writer of that post is the best way of correcting that.

DON’T publicly make fun of that blog’s owner or readers.

Only a truly sick individual would do something like publicly poke fun at that fact that the readers of the blog they guest posted on weren’t exactly smart enough to realize that it was actually a guest post. (A nice example of do as I say and not as I do, kids.)

Even though it caused no problems for me at all (hell, I even brought it up a second time), it’s still a really good idea to avoid doing silly stuff like this that may jeopardize your chance of ever guest posting on that same blog again in future.

While on that subject…

DON’T publicly complain about anything related to your guest post or the experience as a whole.

Don’t publicly whine and complain about how little traffic your guest post brought you, or how they removed the link you added within the post even though they never actually said you could do that, or that they did some barely noticeable editing to your post, or that it took them a while to publish it, or really any similar thing that is seriously NOT AT ALL worth complaining about.

Just let this kind of stuff slide and don’t be a dick about it.

Well, unless of course it’s really, REALLY deserved.

In some very rare cases, something happens during your guest posting experience that makes some public complaining justified. I mean, I’ve heard of people submitting guest posts and then having their link nofollowed (when it clearly wasn’t supposed to be), or not having any link back at all, or not getting any credit of any kind (not even a name), or having their post edited to the point where it makes them sound horrible/wrong/dumb, and other equally crappy things.

Again, this kind of stuff is rare, and if you paid attention during Part 2 you will have picked a blog to guest post on that wouldn’t pull lame shit like this in the first place. But, in the event that something like this does happen, by all means feel free to strike down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger.

In all others cases though, just let it go. It’s not worth it, it won’t accomplish anything, and you’ll most likely end up looking like a dumbass in the process.

DO guest post on this blog again.

If you get a guest post published on a blog, you just instantly increased your chances of getting future guest posts published on that same blog. This is something you should definitely take advantage of.

Use everything you learned from the previous guest post to make the next one even more successful.

Take my John Chow guest posts for example. I did 2. The first did okay. Got some alright traffic, nothing crazy. What I learned though is that many of his readers aren’t very bright (look at me, I brought it up again) and failed to realize it was actually a guest post.

So, what did I do? Fueled by a combination of annoyance and vengeance, I guest posted a second time and corrected that problem… big time. And then I topped it off with some equally big time self promotion.

While that second guest post of mine definitely provided value (still the key to any successful guest post), it was really just a blatant attempt at self promotion (seriously, the whole post is me explaining what I’ve accomplished and how awesome I am for doing it) and making sure everyone who read it knew without a doubt that it was a guest post (3 words into the post I literally said the words “guest post”).

The result was me getting more traffic in this post’s first couple of hours than my first guest post brought in its first couple of weeks.

Of course, including a REALLY click-through-enticing link within the post itself certainly didn’t hurt, either. And this is another one of the perks of guest posting a second time on the same blog. You have a little more leeway in terms of the stuff you can do compared to your first guest post on that blog.

In this case, that “leeway” was me including a perfectly relevant link back to a specific post of mine within this guest post.

This wasn’t a coincidence. I wrote that second guest post with the intent of including that specific link. And if I wasn’t so busy at the time, I probably would have worked in a second link too. Even still, the results were exactly what I expected/wanted them to be.

The moral: Sometimes your first guest post on a blog goes really bad, just okay, or quite good. Either way, you’ll have learned something, and you can use that “something” to ensure your second (and third, fourth, etc.) guest posts on that blog go progressively better.

The End Of Part 4 (And This Whole Guest Post Series)

And that wraps up this guest posting series. You’ve now learned:

1. The point, purpose and benefits of guest posting.
2. How to find the perfect blog(s) to guest post on.
3. How to write your guest post and actually get it published.
4. What you need to do (and not do) in order to get as much out of all of this as possible.

If you made it this far, you are officially a guest posting badass. Congrats.

Now go guest post somewhere.

(This is Part 4 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)

In Part 1 of this series, you learned why guest posting is a super terrific way of marketing your blog and probably realized that you should do it.

In Part 2 you learned how to find the perfect blog(s) to guest post on.

And now, in Part 3, you’re going to learn how to write a successful guest post and actually get it published on the blog you’d like to get it published on.

Away we go…

How To Write A Successful Guest Post

Before we can go any further, you’re going to need to know what the definition of a “successful guest post” actually is.

Simply put, a successful guest post is a guest post that is both:

1. A success on the blog it was posted on (in terms of it generating a lot of comments, positive feedback, discussion, as well as getting lots of links, social bookmarks, traffic and really just anything that shows it was popular and well liked on this blog or anywhere else)
   AND
2. As beneficial to you, the guest poster, as possible (in terms of how much traffic it sends you, how much (and what kind) of exposure it gives you, how many new subscribers/users/customers it gets you, etc.).

You really can’t have one without the other, which is why the success of a guest post is really equally dependent on making both happen.

So, just how do you make your guest post a success? Simple. Do all of this:

Make it useful, awesome and full of value.

Everything you’re going to read below is pretty important, but nothing is more important than this. Your guest post needs to be useful and awesome and full of value.

It’s really easy to get caught up in the fact that what guest posting really is is a way for you to market your own blog. As true as that is, you can not lose sight of the fact that goal #1 is to write a great post that this blog’s readers will truly love.

No matter how perfectly you get every other aspect of guest posting, this is the one that carries the most significance in terms of how well it all works out for you. Get it right.

Follow instructions.

If they recommend a specific post length, do it! If they recommend a specific post format, do it! If they recommend using a picture in the post, do it! Whatever instructions or recommendations/suggestions they give (if any), DO IT!

And don’t just do it… do it to their exact specifications.

Write for their audience, not yours.

This isn’t a post for your own blog, and this isn’t your audience. That means that whatever you write needs to be geared specifically towards this blog’s readers and no one else.

Just because it’s a similar niche does not mean you are writing for a similar audience. You need to spend some time on this blog getting to know the people who read it, and make sure you keep them (and them alone) in mind when writing your guest post.

Make sure you end up with something that this specific blog’s readers will like and find useful, and make sure it’s something that is completely relevant to this specific blog.

Make it click-through enticing.

This is the hardest one to explain, the hardest one to teach, yet one of the most important ones to make happen. You need to write a guest post that entices everyone who reads it to click through to your site immediately after.

What’s that you say? There will be a link to your site at the beginning or end (or both) of your guest post and people will click it when they see it? Ha, that’s cute.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Here’s how it does work…

If your guest post doesn’t grab its readers in some way and make them WANT to check out the site of the person who wrote it, your link will be completely invisible to them. Sort of like ad blindness. Unless you cause a thought along the lines of “I want more of this person” to pop into the head of the people reading this post, your link might as well not even exist.

So, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to not only write something that is great and useful and full of value, but to write something that makes people want more of you, the writer.

Whether your post leaves them wanting to learn more about you and your background, read other stuff you’ve written, subscribe to your blog right then and there, or buy whatever you’re selling, it doesn’t really matter.

As long as you can get them to WANT to click through to your site when they see your link at the end of the post, you did your job.

Research what type of posts work best on this blog, and use them as guidelines.

I don’t mean find out what posts on this blog are the most successful and then rip them off. I mean figure out what kind of posts tend to work best on this blog (most comments, most social bookmarks, most traffic, etc.) and then use them all as guidelines for your guest post.

For example, if you see list posts (20 ways to blah blah blah, 10 best blah blah blah) work fantastically on this blog, write a list.

If you see that posts with a massive collection of data complete with graphs and charts work tremendously well, try something like that.

If how-to posts work best, write a how-to post.

If you see posts about one specific topic work best, make your guest post about that topic.

Basically, do some research on this blog. Find out what posts seem to be the most popular and successful, and then use them to your advantage.

Show your personality.

Just because you are writing a post for someone else’s blog, it doesn’t mean you should try to act like them or sound like them. In fact, you should do your best to do the complete opposite of that.

The less you sound like them, the more you’ll stand out. And the more you stand out, the more likely you are to catch the attention of this blog’s readers. Let your personality come through in your writing. Feel free to be funny if it calls for it. Be original and unique and write in your voice only.

As nauseating as this is going to sound, it’s the truth: just be yourself.*

(* Unless of course you suck. Then feel free to pretend to be someone who doesn’t suck.)

Be confident.

It’s easy to get a little scared/nervous/intimidated at the prospect of writing for a big, popular blog (or really just any blog that is bigger and more popular than your own).

Don’t.

It will come through in your writing and probably hurt the quality of your post. Not to mention, people won’t want to click through to the site of someone who pees their pants due to guest posting. And trust me, they’ll notice (that is assuming the blog’s owner actually accepts the post of someone who clearly appears to be in way over their head).

Instead, be confident in your writing ability, your knowledge of the topic you’re writing about, and how truly capable you are of writing something for any blog, anywhere, at any time.

This too will come through in your writing, and it will be a good thing.

Don’t repeat something they’ve already said and done.

Imagine if this blog accepted guest posts, and I got an email from someone who wanted to do a post about a method of building links whereby you create content that is relevant to both your own niche and some other completely different niche thus allowing you to sort of “crossover” into that niche for the purpose of having a whole new audience to get links from.

Sound familiar? (Link Building Method: The Niche Crossover)

Don’t be that guy.

Do a quick search of that blog before you write your own post to make sure you aren’t writing something that this blog has already written. (Or, better yet, check your idea over with the blog’s owner before running with it.)

Don’t guest post about a topic they JUST posted about.

Imagine if this blog accepted guest posts, and someone emailed me today about doing a guest post about guest posting.

Don’t be that guy, either.

Check the blog’s most recent posts and try to stay away from topics they literally just finished blogging about.

Make sure this is all new, original content.

I’m not talking about posting some new, original idea (sure would be nice, though), I’m talking about the content itself and making sure it’s not something that’s already been posted on your own blog or anywhere else for that matter.

I for one can’t believe that I actually even need to include this part, but it happens often enough that I do. Don’t be an idiot. Or an asshole. Don’t try to pass off your own already-written stuff as a brand new guest post, and don’t steal content from other sources and try to pass it off as your own.

The blog’s owner will find out eventually, and you can bet your sweet ass that they will make you look like the idiot you are when they do. I know damn well I would.

How To Ensure Your Guest Post Gets Published

Alright, so you have a pretty good grasp on what goes into creating a successful guest post. All you need to do now is actually get it published on that perfect blog you want to get it published on.

There’s just one teeny tiny problem… most guest posts will get turned down.

It’s easy to understand why if you think about it. For starters, most people can’t write worth a damn, and many of the ones who can lack the creativity, knowledge and whatever else to actually use that writing ability to create great content.

Not to mention, there’s a lot of people out there who understand the benefits of guest posting, and a lot of these people are submitting guest posts to the same blogs you (and many other people) are. These blogs just can’t accept the majority of them because they really aren’t interested in posting 40 guest posts a day.

For these reasons, many people will fail at this point. They’ll find the perfect blog to guest post on, write what they think is the perfect post, and fail to actually get it accepted by that blog.

So I guess what you’re probably wondering now is, how do you get around this and be the person who gets their post accepted?

Good question.

The single biggest factor in getting your post published on your blog of choice is your ability to create great, well written content. If you can’t do that, the rest of this doesn’t matter because you’ll be screwed no matter what.

So, take your creativity and knowledge and combine it with everything I mentioned above to ensure that the post you’re submitting is truly worthy of being submitted and truly has “successful guest post” potential written all over it.

Once you have that, there are still a bunch of additional factors playing a large role in whether your post gets accepted or not. Getting them right may not guarantee your post gets accepted (it will certainly help, though), but getting them wrong may very well guarantee that it won’t.

So, pay attention.

Follow instructions.

I know, I mentioned the importance of following instructions earlier, but I was talking about guest post writing instructions. There’s actually a whole other set of instructions that you can fuck up following… the guest post submission instructions.

Take it from someone who has gotten hundreds of guest post requests over the last few years… there is nothing that guarantees your guest post request will be turned down on sight quite like your inability to follow simple instructions.

For example, if a blog says to email all guest post requests with the words “guest post” in the subject, DO IT! If they say to fill out a form instead of emailing them directly, DO IT!

And please, for the sake of all humanity, send them what they ask for! If a blog says to email them with your guest post idea, email them with your guest post idea! Don’t email them a full post, or to tell them you’re interested in guest posting, or to see if they accept guest posts.

Email them what they asked you to email them. If it’s ideas, send ideas. If it’s a full finished post, include the full finished post.

Whatever instructions they give, follow them to a tee.

What if there are no instructions?

Here’s a very quick and simple template to follow when emailing a blog about doing a guest post. If they don’t give any specific instructions, do it basically just like this. If they do give some specific instructions, just edit where needed.

Hey [Blog Owner's Name (see A)],

[Something short about you being a fan of their blog (See B)]. [Something short and to the point that shows you aren't making that previous sentence up even though you just might be (See C)]

I noticed that you accept guest posts and would love to do one. I had an idea (or a couple of ideas) in mind. [Very briefly explain your guest post idea(s) (See D)].

You can find some examples of my writing here: [link to your blog or to a couple of your best posts (See E)]

Let me know what you think or if you have a specific topic in mind you’d like me to write about.

Thanks for your time.

[your name/link to your blog]

• A – Nothing says “don’t bother reading this” quite like an email that starts “Dear Website Owner” or “Dear Webmaster” or “Dear Sir” or “Dear Anything-equally-generic-that-proves-I-didn’t-actually-spend-a-second-on-your-blog-and-am-probably-sending-this-exact-email-to-1000-other-people.” Take a few minutes to find something resembling a name of some sort and put it there. Be it their first name, nickname, username, screename, or just whatever the hell it is they call themselves (or other people call them) on this blog.
• B – Put something along the lines of “Love the blog, been reading it for a while.” or “Big fan of your blog, subscribed to it a few months ago.” Basically, in one short simple sentence, show that you are a fan of their blog and not someone who just discovered it 5 minutes ago while looking for blogs to guest post on.
• C – Here’s where you prove B even though you may have been lying. And again, you do it as quickly and briefly as possible (noticing a theme here?). The easiest way to do this is by referencing a specific post of theirs that you like or by agreeing with/complimenting something they said or did somewhere on their blog. Basically, something that shows that you are a real live human sending a real personalized email to a blog owner whose blog you’ve spent at least 20 seconds reading.
• D – The key word here is “briefly.” Just give a very quick and to-the-point description of your guest post idea(s) and, if possible, why this blog’s readers will like it/find it useful. Once again, be brief and to the point.
• E – Don’t link to 100 posts. Either link to the front page of your blog, or link to a couple of what you think are your best posts.

Check grammar and spelling. Then check it 10 more times.

Seriously, the blog owner you are contacting is not your 5th grade English teacher, and the last thing they want to do is play the role of your 5th grade English teacher. Don’t give them the job of having to correct spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and typos. That’s your job.

Make sure you check your post over (and then over again) before submitting it. You’d be surprised how many guest posts are turned down as a result of them looking like they’ve been written by an elementary school dropout.

Always give 100%.

Some people (this is me raising my hand) have a really hard time giving 100% of their best when creating something that they’ll pretty much be handing over to someone else (it’s a big part of the reason why I stopped taking clients a decade ago).

Case in point… the guest post.

Sure, you’re certainly not doing it for free, as you are going to get something out of it. But even still, some people (hi!) find it really hard to create a great piece of content and then just let it exist on someone else’s blog.

This will usually cause one of two things to happen for these people. Either they’ll end up hardly ever guest posting (this is me raising my hand again) and thus miss out on all of its potential benefits, or they’ll end up trying to guest post a lot but rarely (if ever) actually get accepted.

And in the rare case that they do get accepted, they won’t get much out of it due to the low quality of the post.

So that brings us to yet another nauseatingly cliche line: always try your best.

Especially when guest posting.

The better your post is, the better the benefits will be. I promise.

Be patient.

Assuming you paid attention during Part 2 of this series, you should be trying to get this guest post on a blog that is fairly popular. The thing about a blog that is fairly popular is that the blog owner will probably be fairly busy.

And this of course means that you need to be a patient guest poster if you really want to get your post accepted.

If you submit your post and don’t hear back that day, or the next day, or even the day after that, chill out and keep waiting. There are few things quite as annoying as receiving a “Hey, haven’t heard back from you yet, blah blah blah” type email.

It’s one thing to do it a week later (and if a week or more passes without hearing back, you should email them and see what’s up), but to do it after a day (or a couple of days)… that’s just annoying and enough to get me to tell you to shove your guest post up your ass.

So, be patient.

Don’t write about something that will piss off the blog’s owner or readers.

Meaning, don’t trash products this blog sells/recommends, don’t trash blogs this blog regularly links to, don’t trash people this blog is friends with, don’t disagree with something this blog and its readers agree with, and so on and so on.

Save the trash talking, anti-establishment rebel routine for your own blog. This is a guest post. You don’t have to be a complete sheep, but the “sheepier” you are, the more likely you are to get your guest post published.

And since that’s your goal here, it’s a pretty good idea to hold off on doing stuff that will piss off the owner and readers of this blog.

Don’t make any special requests.

Do NOT submit your guest post, get it accepted and then make special requests for when and how it gets posted. Stuff like “I’d prefer it gets posted on Monday at 9am” is the kind of thing that will end your guest post career at that blog.

Just write a great post, get it accepted, and let the blog owner do whatever the hell they want from that point on. In the future, when you have formed a relationship with this blog and its owner and you are comfortable enough with each other to make requests like this, go for it.

But until that point, keep your requests and demands and preferences to yourself because, quite honestly, nobody gives a shit.

Don’t link to your own site (yet) and don’t include affiliate links (ever).

I think it’s a really good idea and in really good taste to NOT even attempt to include a link to your own blog within your post when you are guest posting on a blog for the first time. In future guest posts on that blog? That’s a whole other story. But the very first time? Nah, I strongly advise against it.

It’s certainly doable and does happen, but more often than not it will be the reason you get turned down. Sure, guest posting is all about self promotion. The blog owner definitely knows that. But even still, going that extra step to include a link within your first post just screams of being overly self promotional… and that’s a big no no.

A much better idea is to safely get that first guest post on the blog so that some sort of relationship gets formed and the odds of you doing future guest posts for them increases. Then, in said future posts on that blog… if it makes sense for you to include a link, go for it.

Real life example: look at the 2 guest posts I did for John Chow. I included a link to a post of mine within the second guest post. Could I have gotten away with it in the first post? Maybe, but I know it really wasn’t worth the risk of getting turned down because of it and then not getting anything published there ever.

Instead, I made sure that first post got published and created an opening for a second. I then used that second post to up the self-promotion a little. Unsurprisingly, that link within the second post brought more traffic in its first few hours than the first post brought in its first few weeks.

The moral of this story: it pays to hold off on links within the post until you’re a little more confident in your ability to get away with it.

Speaking of “getting away with,” here’s something you’ll never get away with in a guest post: affiliate links. Unless the blog owner flat out said “hey, feel free to include some affiliate links in your guest posts,” don’t even try it. EVER.

The End Of Part 3

There you go. That’s pretty much everything you will need to know to ensure that you write a successful guest post and get it published on whatever blog you want.

So uhhh, what’s left now?

Oh, that’s right, knowing what to do (and not do) directly before and after your guest post gets published so that you end up getting as much out of it as you possibly can.

The 4th and final part of this series will take care of that: 10 Guest Posting DOs and DON’Ts for Maximum Success

(This is Part 3 of my series “The Guest Post: The Ultimate Guide To Guest Blogging.” To become a total guest posting badass, be sure to read the entire series.)