A free and effective way to bring new readers to your blog is guest posting on other blogs. A guest post places your name and writing in front of the other blog's readers, some of whom will likely visit your blog to read more. If visitors like what they see, those visitors may convert to regular readers and even product buyers on your own blog.

An effective and profitable guest posting strategy takes some careful planning. Consider these important issues before trying to arrange guest posts.

Identify target blogs with topics related to your own blog topic. Good targeting will make it easier to get permission to guest post and is more likely to net readers who may also be interested in following your blog.

Get involved with the community on the target blogs by making intelligent comments. This will establish a relationship with the host blogger increasing the chance they will later accept a guest post from you. Regular comments will also put your name in front of the other blog's readers. Even before you guest post you should notice some traffic to your blog from readers following links from your well written comments over on the target blogs.

Once you get a guest posting opportunity on a high traffic blog consider releasing a special introductory post on your own blog just before the guest post is released. Make this special introductory post especially interesting to readers of the high traffic blog. The professional bloggers differ on if it is better to specifically say "welcome" to readers of the other blog in the post or just blog normally. Either way, craft the introductory post to appeal to the new visitors. Whichever route you decide, it is best to at least mention the guest post with a note of thanks to the host blog. Remember to include a link back to your guest post so that your regular readers can check out the blog that allowed you to guest post. A little recognition back will go a long way to building relationships with other bloggers.

There are bloggers who specifically seek out guest posters to broaden the reach of their blog. Some of these blogs operate as a type of ezine with multiple regular guest authors. Sometimes these blogs even share advertising revenue (such as Adsense impressions) with guest authors. A search for sites in your niche and the words "revenue share" should turn up these kinds of guest posting opportunities.

While making some money directly for a guest post is certainly nice, an unpaid guest post that brings a big traffic bump is certainly worth doing because you can monetize the new traffic on your own blog.

Guest posting should be considered as part of a broader blog monetization strategy that will build traffic and draw in loyal readers. As you cultivate relationships with other bloggers don't restrict yourself to those at your own level or higher levels. Watch for up and coming bloggers that can help you and create a loyal following. The bigger your network the more opportunities there will be to tap into other networks of followers and friends.