Guest blogging is one of the undisputed best ways to build your own blog’s readership.  But besides being a great way to attract readers, being a guest blogger also presents the opportunity to build your subscriber list.

There are many posts that uncover how to use guest blogging to explode your blog’s traffic in a short time.  So this article is not about that.  What it is about is how to turn that guest posting opportunity into more email subscribers.

If you’ve ever been a guest blogger before, get ready for an increase in subscribers with these 5 steps.  And if you’ve never been a guest blogger before, then this is a great lesson on what to do to when you do write that first guest post.

Do your Research and Get More Opt-ins

Why should you write a post on another blog?  What benefit does that bring to you?

Quite a few things actually, but the one we are focused on is getting more list subscribers.

Writing a guest post puts you in front of another audience.  Hopefully a bigger audience, one that is in your niche and will be interested in what you have to say.

Generating more subscribers depends on the following steps:

1)  The first step in getting more opt-ins from your guest posts is to know the blog’s audience and know them well.  Who does that blog target?  Are they in line with who you target?  The answers to these questions are not difficult to figure out – see if the blog has a guest post guidelines page and read it carefully.  Often, if the blog offers advertising, they will give a breakdown of the visitors.  Lastly, hop over to quantcast.com or alexa.com and see what the data says.

2)  Next would be to read through many of the past posts on the blog.  Read the owner’s posts as well as any other guest posts.  Take a close look at the topics and see what differentiating ideas you can write about.

3)  If you post regularly on your own blog, then you can relate to how intense it is to come up with irresistible content.  Writing a guest post magnifies this by about 10 times.  In order for your guest post to attract subscribers, your content must be irresistible, fantastic and unlike anything, anywhere else.  An epic guest post can attract subscribers to your blog for months after it’s published.

Think about it this way, as a guest author, you are given a chance to show off your expertise, your credibility and your style.  This is your opportunity to show ‘em what you’ve got.  Embrace it and craft something so irresistible they’ll be WANTING to find out more about you.

4)  After writing an incredible post, shift your focus to the one spot that lets readers know who you are and what you do – the author box.  The author box can be described as your chance to communicate your USP in 2 -3 sentences.  Answer these questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you do?
• What can you do for me?
• Why should I join your list?

Most of the time, the blog author will allow you to have 1 or 2 links in your author box.

Now this is where it gets exciting!

The more links, the merrier, but if you can only have one link, then make the most of it.

Making the Most of your Links

Now for the ultimate secret in getting more opt-ins from your guest posts…

5)  It’s all about the links in your author box.

After a reader has read your incredible post, they’ll look down at the author box to find out more about you.  They’ll see your one or two links there, click and be taken where?

The page that you take these visitors right at this very moment is crucial.  In sales, they are what’s called hot prospects.

They’ve read and been intrigued by you enough to click on your bio link.  They have no idea where that link will take them.  They probably assume it will go to your blog.  Most of them do anyway.

But the secret to getting more opt-ins from a guest post is to not send them directly to your blog.  Send them to a special page created just for them.

Here is an example of one I made for a post on Basic Blog Tips.

This is the page where I send all the readers of my guest post on Basic Blog Tips.

And THIS is how to effectively build your list using guest posting.

Be Different

Setting up a page like this does take some time.  But, once you’ve done it, you can use the same basic format again and again.  To take it a step further and for really good tracking, change the web form for every post so you know what your conversion rate is on each post. (For this reason, please don’t join my list from the sample page I showed you, join from the box below or on the sidebar.)

The key difference here is being different.  In your approach, your style, your offer to the readers.  Every aspect has to be something extraordinarily unexpected to generate an opt-in.

My list subscribers get the best stuff – join below for list building and email marketing tips – oh, and my latest eBook!

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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