Want more traffic for your website or blog? Write a guest post for someone else’s blog.
Guest posts broaden your audience instantly. You not only receive recognition on the other blog, but you’ll hopefully get a bit of traffic to your own. It’s free advertising and it’s more effective than paid advertising.
Think about it. If you paid for an ad, you’d get a small bit of space. With a guest blog post, you get about 500 words–a much larger virtual space + your images and credit. With a guest blog post, you’re being helpful to a community and generating good karma. Not so with an ad.
So, how about writing a guest post for this blog?
From time to time, I feature guest bloggers who share their stories of success. Do you have one to share?
What has worked for you?
Since this is the Art Biz Blog, I’d like to hear your successful business tips and stories–but only one at a time please.
What–exactly–did you do to get 150 people to your art opening?
How–exactly–did you go from selling $1000 worth of art in your booth to averaging $5000 in sales?
How–exactly–did you get 1,000 people to sign up for your newsletter?
How–exactly–did you sell 25 pieces of art through Twitter in 3 month?
What is your favorite piece of software that you haven’t heard other artists using and how does it help you?
What hasn’t worked?
I’d also be interested in hearing about your failures. They say we learn more from failures.
Where did you waste some money, how did you learn from it and what will you do differently next time?
Why did no one show up at your open studio and what would you do differently next time?
What I need from you
FIRST, pitch me your story.
Tell me what you want to write about in 2 sentence. You have to sell me on the idea.
Email me and tell me what you want to write about and why it would be good for my readers. Don’t start writing until you pitch your idea.
Send me a very clear thought that is straight to the point. I don’t have time to help you formulate your post. I’m looking for a very (very!) specific story. It should be one thing you have done that has worked (or not worked) for you. There should be a clearly articulated lesson in it for my readers. We shouldn’t have to figure out the lesson for ourselves.
Your story must be original. You might have been formulating the content in other posts or articles, but the entire article must not appear anywhere else online.
Your story should not be media specific. It needs to be applicable to most artists. My readership varies from jewelers to painters to sculptors to photographers and beyond.
Your first assignment is to do the above–following directions. If I like your story and want to use it, I’ll ask for the following. Again, please follow directions.
- If you have a story, write it up! I’m looking for 300-600ish words. If you don’t think you can write, don’t fret too much. I serve as your editor and will run any major changes by you at your request. Write your story to my readers. If it contains too many personal pronouns (I, me, my, mine, myself), I can’t publish it. You’re writing for someone else–not for yourself.
- A 1-2 sentence bio that includes what you want to link to.
- A headshot about 100 x 100 pixels. (Please get me as close to this size as possible. If you can’t do it, I won’t use your picture.)
- A link to an image of yours to use. (Neither it nor the images on your side should have watermarks across the center of the image.) I need complete credit line as follows: ©Date, Artist name, Title of work. Media, dimensions (HxWxD). Please send it in this format.
What you get in return
In return for your guest post, I will:
- Credit you by name and link to your name at the top of the post.
- Credit you again with your headshot and uber-brief bio at the bottom of the post–with another link
- Link wherever you like (within reason!). Your links can go to your blog or website, but they could also go to any offer or promotion you have. Links to specific pages (funneling traffic) are more effective than entire sites.
- Feature your art on the blog post–IF you have decent photos and no watermarks in the center of the image.
- Tweet about the post and share it on the Art Biz Coach page on Facebook.
- Be eternally grateful that you have helped my readers build their art businesses.
Sample Guest Blogger posts: Maren Bargreen, Lisa McShane, Michael Lynn Adams
So . . . whaddya say?
5 thoughts on “Promote Your Art by Writing a Guest Blog Post”
Thank you Alyson for the share of my drawing ‘Winged Moon’ everyone looks so content skimming across your post.
Thank you also for the opportunity to submit ideas for a guest post for your review and possible publication…hmmmm…that’s a very enticing offer.
Thanks for the opportunity you are providing to others. I’ve done this myself on a couple of other blogs: Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with needles and I was the guest blogger for 2 weeks on the Studio Art Quilt Associates IL/WI blog
It has been a wonderful opportunity and a chance to promote myself and my artwork without the commitment to having my own blog at this time. It has brought viewers to my web site as evidenced in my monthly statistics. I also make a habit of commenting on one or two blogs each week as well (especially if I can provide my name and URL when I post).
I look forward to reading other artists guest posts.
Continued Success!
Here is a little nudge if you are on the fence about taking Alyson up on this opportunity….. DO IT!!!! NOW!!!
I have done two guest posts here. Alyson is a great editor – made me sound smarter than I am. The exposure and credibility you will benefit from is worth far more than you will get from any form of advertising. Plus we, Alyson’s readers, will benefit too.
It is a huge WIN WIN.
Alyson – I think it’s worth mentioning that when making a pitch to a blogger, it’s essential to make sure that the blogger is prepared to entertain a pitch. Also different people have different criteria for pitches. Yours work fine for you but other people might take a different approach.
For example, anybody looking at my blog would soon realise that my daily blog posts are all written by me and I’ve never given any indication that I want to invite contributions from guest bloggers
It hasn’t stopped people from volunteering! However I find that artists who do very often don’t leave a favourable impression as it just means they don’t have a clue about my blog.
Plus if anybody wants to send me a pitch I personally would expect at the very least a reference to a site where I can see a number of good quality examples of their written work ie I don’t mind editing but I don’t want it to be onerous, Again, the pitches which come in all too often don’t provide any examples of written work.
Finally – this is not an invite for anybody to send me a pitch!
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