Thanks to Christian Antonoff from Hop Online for this amazing guest piece! 

Guest blogging is like a game of cat and mouse. You’re always on the lookout for ways to publish your content.

Since Matt Cutts’ famous rant in January 2014, guest blogging has changed significantly. It’s gone from harvesting lots of links from mediocre sites to getting a few, but quality ones. Now more than ever, this practice is about quality over quantity, and if you don’t get it, you’re in for a trouble.

Guest blogging in 2015 is all about human to human connection, adding value, and empowering others.

How to Become a Rockstar Guest Blogger

So what do you need in order to be a successful guest blogger?

1. You Need to Dig In

Guest blogging is above all research. Knowledge is power, and that is especially true for us, guest bloggers.

From discovering relevant blogs to coming up with creative, relevant topics and getting to know your audience, you really can’t get away from sitting down at your desk and devoting quite a few hours to research.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a fantastic time welcoming 2015.

The first day of the New Year is often the time when we look back at what’s happened in 2014 and what we’ve learned and achieved. And we also make some New Year’s resolutions (admit it, cliché or not, you have done so too!).

Just as I did for my 2012 and 2013 blogging at iliyanastareva.com reviews, today I am going to dive into my Google Analytics to see how the blog has performed in 2014 and what posts you liked the most. I will then tell you a little bit more about my New Year’s blogging resolutions.

But let’s start with a few things I want to mention before I move onto the data.

First, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you for following my writing. I can't believe the blog is now 3 years old! :) 

Second, I want to reflect on my biggest wish for 2014, which was to seriously advance in my career. I achieved that by joining HubSpot as a Channel Consultant in December, which was a significant career jump for me. I’m now looking forward to challenging myself at my new role, learning a lot and sharing that with you. I also can’t wait to get to know my new home and country better – Dublin, Ireland. :)

Have you ever written a blog post? If you have, you probably know that writing blog posts that not only grab, but also keep the reader’s attention is not always as easy as it may seem.

Good bloggers know what their audience likes, have great ideas how to engage it and are experts in their fields. Most importantly though, they know how to talk to that audience and how to best put their thoughts and knowledge on ‘paper’. And believe me, that’s a real challenge! This blog post will offer you some useful advice and tips to overcome it.

So, what are the ingredients of a successful blog post?

According to a brilliant infographic by WhoIsHostingThis.com that you can see below, to create a killer blog post you need a great title that grabs the reader’s attention, a catching first sentence that generates interest, and a story that keeps that attention.

Writing killer headlines

Creating a good headline is pretty much an art. And this is a skill any blogger or writer must excel at, because no matter how great the actual post it, if the headline sucks, no one will read the rest. A great headline should be clear, short and up to the point, giving a hint about the story afterwards.

5 tips and ideas:

2012 has been a fantastic year for my blog!

First of all it was the year I launched it and second, it was the year I learned so much about blogging, PR, social media, marketing, business etc. thanks to putting some great efforts into running this blog.

A lot has happened in my life in 2012 – from graduating at Plymouth University to starting my internship in a PR consultancy.

I believe I have managed to capture my experiences and what I’ve been learning in the areas of social media, marketing and PR in my writing (or at least I’ve tried, you’d be the judge :P). Researching and writing for this blog has certainly helped me enhance my knowledge in the communications and business practice.

Briefly, here are some of the blog’s highlights of the year: