The Ultimate Guide to Guest Posting: Just Write and Grow Your Audience

The step-by-step instructions for the tactic that brought me hundreds of subscribers.

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In my dreams, I'd spend all my time writing helpful, unique and inspiring articles while thousands of readers would spontaneously flock to my publication.

Wouldn't this be wonderful?

But I know that's just a dream. I need to spend a considerable chunk of my time promoting myself if I want to attract the right eyes.

For most writers, this usually means growing some kind of social presence. It can work. But you could also hate it from the bottom of your heart. Or find it very hard compared to writing long-form pieces. (Speaking from experience...)

I'm using another technique to get email subscribers and grow my audience: guest posting. It's much more writer-friendly, since it involves just writing long-form articles for other people's publications.

It's been working since the dawn of blogging. Many new writers totally ignore it, missing great opportunities to grow their audience while doing what they love.

With fewer than 10 guest posts on Substack I collected hundreds of subscribers (sorry, the analytics don't allow me to know the exact number). But this tactic isn't just for Substack. I used it to gather email subscribers for my Italian site, too.

In this my detailed guide you'll learn how to:

• find the right guest posting opportunities,

• write guest posts that grow your audience,

• get them published.

Why Guest Posting?

Guest posting means publishing an article on a publication that isn’t yours. It could be the site of another creator or of a company.

You can immediately see why this works. By appearing on another publication:

• you get traffic from a site that’s probably larger than yours,

• you reach a new audience,

• you borrow the credibility of the hosting publication.

Imagine publishing on a newsletter with 3000 subscribers, that never read you. If it has a reasonable open rate (around 30%), about 900 new people will read your article. If it's good, you'll surely get at a least a few dozen new subscribers.

Moreover, if you do it methodically, you create the impression of being everywhere (later, I'll show you how to be methodical). When readers see your name in multiple places, they can’t resist checking you out. It feels like you’re onto something.

I published several guest posts on Substack in the content creation niche. I noticed comments from the same people on different publications. Some of them explicitly told me, "I saw your article on the other publication".

When you write a good guest post that attracts traffic, you also do a great favor to the creator hosting it. You save them time and may even help them get more traffic.

More than once, my posts have ranked among the most-read articles in the hosting publication.

Fifth place for me!

Through this process, you build a relationship that can evolve into more guest posting opportunities or advanced collaborations like creating products together. For example, after I wrote a guest post for Veronica Llorca-Smith's publication, we collaborated on a webinar.

And, as I said, guest posts are perfect if social media writing isn't for you. Or if you don't want to depend too much on platforms.

To succeed on social networks, you often have to write very short, frequent posts, and use winning templates. You need to constantly keep up with best practices, which can change monthly. And you must hope the platform doesn’t pull the rug out from under you, for example with an algorithm change.

I could spend all day writing long-form content. When, instead, I have to follow the rules of social networks, I quickly burn out. Guest posting allows me to spend time doing what I love and know I’m good at, while also building my audience and my relationships.

Substack + Guest Posting = 💘

Guest posting is effective on any blog. But Substack seems to be made for it:

1. Substack has a collaborative culture. People often work together on single articles, entire publications, or products, so the chances of getting a “yes” are very high.

2. It’s easy to add different authors to articles. Readers clearly see your name at the top of the article, and when they click it, they’re just one step away from subscribing to your publication.

3. You also get notifications when people comment on your guest post. This helps you build relationships with new readers, increasing the chance they see you as credible and subscribe to your publication.

4. Substack readers are addicted to the Subscribe button. They're always on the lookout for new, interesting creators.

My first guest post was on David McIlroy’s publication, “How to Write for a Living”. The analytics don’t give an exact number, but I estimate it brought in over a hundred subscribers. A couple of them even became paid subscribers. The audience was already primed.

Now that you know the benefits of guest posting. Let's get our hands dirty.

The strategy is behind the paywall.