Guest blogging a good way to market your blog and enhance your reputation

Asking to be a guest blogger on another blog that reaches your target audience is an excellent way to enhance your reputation and market your own blog. Ideally, the blog on which you’ll be posting is published by a prominent player in the legal industry, has been around for a bit, and draws a steady stream of regular readers.

An example this morning is Portland’s David Rossmiller from the Insurance Coverage Law Blog posting as a guest blogger to Point of Law, published by the Manhattan Institute and American Enterprise Institute.

I’m reminded that I overlooked an important detail yesterday: to mention who I am and why you suddenly see a new name posting in this space. I am an insurance law litigator at the Dunn Carney firm in Portland, Oregon, and I am guest blogging for Walter Olson, [commentator, author, critic, and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute]. Frequent readers may have seen Walter and [Ted Frank, Director, American Enterprise Institute Liability Project] link to my posts at my own blog, Insurance Coverage Law Blog, where I have been neck-deep in analyzing Hurricane Katrina insurance litigation for many months. Now, I have been a blog reader myself for a long time, much longer than the 18 months I’ve been blogging, and I know that regular readers of a site usually are ambivalent about guest bloggers — blogging is pretty idiosyncratic and you can’t just plug in someone who is equivalent, especially to someone the caliber of Walter. So instead of trying to be Walter I will just be myself, while attempting to uphold the high standards of Walter and Ted.

Point of Law is a very well read blog with its bloggers being a who’s who of leading lawyers and law professors. I suspect David was asked to participate as a result of his writing on his own Insurance Coverage Law Blog about posts at Point of Law. By virtue of RSS, the guys at Point of Law saw David writing about them and began following David’s blog. The result was citing David’s blog, a great thing in itself, and now an invite to be a guest blogger.

Even if not asked, don’t be afraid to ask about being a guest poster on another blog. Sure, you’ll need to have been blogging a bit, know what you’re doing when it comes to blogging, and have something valuable to say. But even the best bloggers need time away and a fresh face now and again. You may be helping out a prominent blogger and yourself at the same time.

Look at Australia’s Darren Rowse at Pro Blogger. He’s one of the most prominent bloggers on the net. Darren regularly has guest bloggers. As a subscriber to Darren’s blog I enjoy those guest posts. Plus Darren travels a fair amount and needs that fresh content. A win all the way around.