Last week I had a guest post from my good friend, TheDailyBlonde. That day, I more than doubled my usual traffic, doubled the number of Twitter followers I typically get on a given day, and tripled my email subscribers. The same thing happened when I guest posted on Grant Griffith’s blog. And back in November, I wrote a guest post for Darren Rowes’s Twitip.com blog which quadrupled the number of new Twitter followers for that week!

Today’s guest post on Problogger’s Twitip.com, called “Measuring Your Twitter Network’s Health“, should get a big bump as well.

In addition to increasing traffic, subscribers and followers, guest posting is also a sure-fire way to influence your blog’s SEO.

Simple but powerful

The reason that guest posts are so powerful is because they leverage another blogger’s traffic, authority and effort. In effect, you instantly double your resources! And your partner benefits as well from the fresh exposure to a your readers. It’s a win, win, win situation.

But what if you have a new blog, very little traffic, and don’t know many other bloggers?

Here’s the guest post strategy I’ve used:

1. Read the blog of the person who you want partner with. Get to know their readers and their content.
2. Be sincere and genuine with your interest. A long term partnership will not blossom if you lead with a hidden, personal agenda.
3. Add valuable comments to their blog – and not “Great post, here’s a cool link.”
4. After a couple of months, a relationship will have sprouted. Email the blogger directly. Let them know how valuable their blog has been to you and ask them if they’d like to do a guest post on your blog. If it makes sense to write a post for their blog, provide links to a few example posts.
5. Have a guest post topic in mind when you make the pitch. Each time I’ve contacted Darren Rowse about writing a post on Twitip, I’ve had a clear topic in mind AND have stated why this topic might be valuable to his readers. This has made it easy for him to say, “Cool. Yes.”
6. Give them your best content. A kick ass post is the only way to go – for both parties. See Rebecca’s post for an example of “kick ass“
7. Focus on a long term relationship. Keep the personal interests of the guest blogger foremost in mind.
8. If you’re an orange, partner with an apple. You want to partner with bloggers that can add value for your readers – but from a different angle. This will enable both bloggers to be exposed to a fresh audience. This was the case with TheDailyBlonde.
9. Have fun for Christmas sake! It’s only a friggin’ blog. When Grant Griffiths asked me to write for his blog, he had no idea that I would introduce the guest post with “Grant Griffiths Shoots Dorothy, Sells Toto On Ebay“. We both had a laugh and now have a couple of projects brewing.

Promote The F**k Out Of The Guest Post

You’ve made considerable effort to develop a relationship with another blogger. So make sure that your first guest post is successful by going full guns on promoting it:

1. Tweet about your guest post by asking a question. For example, a guest post about how the National Wildlife Federation uses social media could be tweeted by asking: “What can you learn about social media from National Wildlife Federation?” On Twitter, questions beg for answers – and visitors.
2. Use social bookmarking sites like Stumbleupon, Mixx and Digg. The more votes the guest post receives, the bigger the traffic flood (and they will love you for it).
3. Direct message a few Twitter friends to visit and make a comment. Only ask the folks that you know will add value or a unique perspective. In most cases, you only need to ask about 10 folks in order to start a swell of comments.
4. Get more subscribers for the guest blogger. At the end of the guest post, embed a subscriber form or ask your readers to subscribe to the guest’s blog.

Bonus: Chris Garrett has written a valuable ebook on guest posting as a blog strategy.

What else? How have you used guest posts?