How To Promote Your LMS Through Guest Blogging
Guest posting seems pretty straightforward. Choose a site, ask for permission to publish, submit your article, and promote it. Share the post on your own website and all your social media accounts. Get it seen by as many eyes as possible. But long before you get there, you have to convince your host to put your work on their site. And prior to that, you need to find the right virtual locations and pitch them. Guest posting is essentially asking someone to invite you into their online home. How exactly do you persuade them to open the door and let you promote your LMS?
1. Pick The Right Site
The art of guest posting starts long before you approach blog owners. Marketers often make the mistake of focusing on high-traffic sites. While this does matter, you want the right traffic. To successfully promote your LMS, you want potential readers who are interested in your LMS product, so it has to be a relevant sector. Otherwise, site visitors will skim your article or ignore it altogether.
When compiling a list of blogs to approach, check that their preferred topics are related to yours. Their products or services should be complementary to yours, or at least tangential. Their clientele should, ideally, be your target customer. Remember to write articles similar to those on your chosen site.
2. Double-Check The Linking Policy
Guest posting has three functions. One, it identifies you as an expert in your field, which boosts credibility. Two, it exposes you to new audiences and potential buyers, often in a space where you wouldn’t ordinarily have access to. Three, it builds links that will help raise your SERP (Search Engine Page Ranking). Links are a key part of rank algorithms.
What you write about is as important as where you write. Some sites will post your article exactly as it is, links and all. Other sites will kill every web reference, nullifying all link-building efforts. The editor may not specify what their policy is. They will assume you did your homework, so make sure you do. Review their current guest posts for style tips.
3. Keep It Relevant
Once you’re clear on how your host handles links, insert the right ones. Anchor text is very important. It should briefly describe the content it’s leading to. For example, instead of saying things like ‘click here’, say ‘request your free LMS demo’. Good anchor text increases click-through rates. Ask the host if they limit the number of links per article. For maximum effect, don’t link to your homepage. Link to an appropriate blog post on your site. You could also create a landing page that highlights what you’re pushing and link to it contextually. As you write, speak to the typical visitors of your host site. This seems obvious, but if you don’t address them directly, they’ll probably ignore you. Don’t tell them what you want to say. Tell them what they want to hear without making promises you can’t keep. Follow their agenda, not yours.
4. Introduce Yourself
Guest posters often get a byline, but you’d be surprised by how few readers will notice it. Usually, a web visitor assumes everything on the blog is written by the owner. They click because they trust this owner, so they assume it’s their content. They only scroll back to the byline if the article piqued their interest, or if there was something wrong with it. If your piece feels ‘off’ or is distinctly different from what they’re used to, they may verify who wrote it. That means if you do your homework and retain the tone and style of your host, visitors won’t check. So instead of putting your details at the top, put your bio at the bottom. Include your name, your website, and your official social media accounts.
5. Be Helpful
Guest posting is your chance to promote your LMS, to toot your own horn. But readers are put off by hard-sell blog posts, especially when they masquerade as guest posts. The place for hard sell is on your website’s purchase page. That’s the only web space where it’s justifiable to sell-sell-sell. At your host’s web residence, visitors come for content, not a sales pitch. Once you have thoroughly reviewed any style guidelines and preferred topics, find an ‘in’. Think about your LMS and how it intersects with readers’ needs. Now offer some helpful advice, tips, or pointers that they’d enjoy. Tie them into your LMS so that there’s some kind of connection. It could be anything from generic study tips to compliance loopholes.
6. Never Copy-Paste
You might think it’s okay to reuse an article from your own website or from another guest post. After all, it’s not plagiarism if it’s all your work. However, many readers won’t check your byline. So if they bump into the same content elsewhere, they’ll assume it’s plagiarized. This risks your reputation, as well as your host’s credibility. Create original guest content. Double-check all your facts, and edit yourself for spelling and accuracy. Attribute correctly, so your host doesn’t get accused of stealing content. Watch your word count, too. It has to be the right length. Your host is busy. If they have to edit your work to fit into their niche, they might revoke their offer. Plus, it’s impolite to give them extra work to do.
To get the most out of your guest posting venture, you have to do it right the first time around. You don’t want to publish something no one will ever read and diminish the credibility of your gracious host. Select a site whose regulars are interested in your focal point. Find out how the host site treats backlinks, and insert high-quality contextual ones. Keep your content and style relevant, so it blends in. Lastly, create fresh articles for every guest post. Reposting is the enemy of salesmanship.
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