I Have Hit a Wall... I need to build authority...

Originally Posted by SMRDave For the last 3 years I have built my VPN service up from an initial 1000.00 investment. I made a lot of marketing mistakes at first and google punished me accordingly. Now I have recovered and I am making good money and reinvesting a lot of my profits in what I know. Infrastructure... The thing is I know the network I have built could do so much more. I tried doing outreach. Offering up to 50% recurring affiliate comission and sponsoring content. This works for industry sites and affiliate sites but I want to reach mainstream audiences. How can I get sites like lifehacker, forbes, ars technica, etc to take us seriously?

"1. Know what to expect. Forbes wants one article per week. You don't get paid. You need to know how to use WordPress. There is no pre-publishing editorial-you're expected to write, edit, proofread, and publish all by yourself. Forbes will review your article after you post and sometimes makes minor adjustments, but in my experience this is rare. Forbes provides great group trainings, but don't expect a lot of one on one attention. 99% of what Forbes gives you is a platform, it's mostly up to you to figure out how to utilize it.

2. Get an introduction. Don't pitch an editor you've never met through LinkedIn or with a cold call or email. Get an introduction from another contributor. It may not work, but it will get your work reviewed by the right person. Note: I've pitched a few friends of mine to Forbes and other publications. These are people I think have great insights and would do a great job, and they were rejected. And some of them I pitched hard. To date, nobody I've pitched has made it through. And no, I don't pitch on behalf of people I don't know pretty well, sorry. But you can apply via a link on this page.

3. Show your best work. Don't just send your blog as a pitch. Tell the editor "This is some of my writing that think best represents what I can produce for Forbes, and you can see the full body of my writing at..." Showing work that has been published in competing publications can make you more desirable/credible.

4. Show your best, relevant work. Your best work may not be appropriate for Forbes. Don't pitch that. What you want to happen is for the editor to read what you've sent and think "Wow, I wish this were on Forbes. This would be perfect!"

There are 1,500 contributors at Forbes. That might sound like a lot, but for every person writing for Forbes, there are 50 who tried and failed. I'd like to say it was strangely easy for me to get on and perhaps I got lucky, but then again, I had been writing for 10 years before this happened. Don't expect it to be easy, but if you prepare as I've outlined above, your pitch will be better than most. Good luck!"