A note on the Contact or About page about guest blogging. Some bloggers will put a line here about whether they’re open/closed to guest posts at any given point.

Read the guest blogging guidelines before submitting a pitch.

If a blog says they’re not accepting guest posts, don’t expect them to make an exception for you. However amazing your blog post idea is, you’ll want to spend your valuable time elsewhere.

This is also true if a blog says they only take guest posts by invitation—though in that case, you can potentially contact the blogger (if you have an existing relationship with them) and ask if they’d be willing to look at a blog post outline to get a feel for your style, or go through a mutual connection to get an introduction.