Once you’ve pitched your guest post like a pro, wowed the admins of the blog you wish to write in, and have gotten their approval, it’s time to write and submit your guest post.
Knowing how to properly submit your guest post to a blog admin helps eliminate a chunk of stress from the editing and formatting process.
Most times, writers don’t realize why blog editors ask guest writers to submit a draft copy of their posts.
This is because it’s the job of the editors to format your post to fit the writing style of their blog, not yours.
Your Obligation As A Guest Writer Is To:
- Write your guest post with clarity
- Ensure you’ve covered in your post all the content areas you pitched.
- Submit your post within an agreed timeframe
- Check for grammatical errors
The Obligation Of A Blog Editor Is To:
- Carry out editorial edits on your draft post
- Refine your draft post to fit their blog writing style
- Check for inconsistencies with blog voice representation in your post and fix it
- Ensure your post content match the outlines in your pitch
- Format your post to match their blog style
- Schedule your post for publishing
How do your post submissions cause editorial stress for the blog admins?
This is because undoing the formatting you’ve added while writing might disrupt the copy you sent, which will push the editors to rearrange your post from scratch if that happens.
Worse than undoing post formatting is copying an entire blog post from an email into a word doc file.
It’s double work. This is because the editors first have to add it into a word docs file before undoing the formatting.
Not only are you forcing them to help you edit and format your post from scratch, but you’re also making them rack their brains trying to follow your train of thought.
That’s unprofessional behavior on your part as a writer, and it breeds doubts about your abilities.
Worse still, you might lose the opportunity to write for that blog again.
It’s said, once bitten, twice shy.
And evil.
With the enormous pile of editorial edits, an admin has to cover with one post, and you choose to add file-type conversation to it.
That’s not so cool.
Doing that may send your file into the forgotten zone if it’s a blog, or the admin might reject it with reasons, or worse, discard it totally without a word to you.
The best file to submit your draft is a word doc file. Not pdf file. Not a Google Drive file or even in the body of an email.
Have this knowledge at your fingertips.
How To Properly Submit Your Guest Post To A Blog
Maintaining good work ethics with blogs you guest write for will keep always you in their mind.
You can build good work rapport with the blogs you write for, by submitting quality, error-free, unplagiarized posts, meeting up with your submission timeline, and properly submitting your drafts.
In this article, I’ll share with you 4 ways to submit your guest post.
Submit Your Draft Post In A Word Docs File In The Body Of An Email
It matters not to the blog editor where you wrote your article, what matters is the file you submit it in.
As earlier said, pdf files, Google docs files, or submitting in the body of an email is wrong.
The proper way is to use a subject in your mail telling the admin you’re submitting your post, write a very brief note in the body of the mail, and attach your word doc file.
Don’t Add Any Difficult Formatting To Your Draft Posts
Every blog formats its posts differently using different styles.
Adding difficult formatting to your draft post makes it stressful to copy your post directly into the WordPress writing dashboard because it won’t appear pretty and will need adjustments.
Light formatting, like adding bold highlights for titles and subtitles, is enough.
If there are listicles with notes within your subtitles, make the bold also rather than use bullets.
But if you have listicles without notes, don’t make them bold or bullet them. Make only the subtitles bold.
This is because different blogs use different styles to highlight listicles.
Do not add images to your draft posts, or increase the font size beyond what is required. This goes for both your titles, subtitles and the body of your post.
Make The Paragraphs In Your Article Visible
You must pitch and submit your guest post should like a pro — even when you aren’t one.
Don’t deliver a post jumbled together from start to finish.
Write your articles with adequate paragraphs in them. Begin a new train of thought on a fresh paragraph.
Use subheadings and subtitles to make your articles shine, be legible, and be clear.
Don’t jam 100 words into one paragraph. Separate them, and ensure it flows well and makes sense.
Avoid The Urge To Double Space Every New Sentence
Except if explicitly asked to double-space your submission, please don’t.
It makes your article terrible and makes the blog editor curse you for making their jobs harder.
A simple 1.5 spacing or default word docs spacing will do just fine.
If the submission guidelines didn’t point out a font to use, please use Times New Roman. Size 12 or 14 is acceptable.
Endnotes
Getting accepted by a blog to guest write for them is a big deal for you.
Ensure you don’t change their perception of your abilities by submitting your guest post haphazardly.
Take notes of this submission guide and effect it in your next guest blog post submission.