Blogging is a vital tool for attracting the right visitors to your website as any savvy inbound marketer knows. You might’ve begun toying with the idea of guest blogging too if you’ve been blogging for any length of time.

If you’re a blogger and you’re not completely happy with the level of traffic being driven to your site, you need to ask yourself a simple question – is it worth investing more time in guest posting?

The answer should be a resounding yes if you’ve got your head screwed on right and you know your stuff.

Guest posting is still one of the best ways to grow your audience and drive traffic to your site despite some speculation about the longevity of this particular inbound marketing strategy.

And if you’ve been wavering with that idea, we’re here to let you know: You absolutely should.

What is Guest Posting?

Guest blogging, also called “guest posting,” is the act of writing content for another company’s website. Generally, guest bloggers write for similar blogs within their industry in order to:

• Attract traffic back to their website

• Boost their domain authority using external links to high-authority domains

• Increase their brand credibility and awareness, and

• Build relationships with peers in their industry.

When you decide to hop on the guest blogging bandwagon, you should consider featuring posts by guest bloggers on your own website, too. In other words, guest blogging is a two-way street. This is why almost always, guest blogging offers mutual benefits for both the guest blogger and the website hosting the guest content.

What Does Guest Posting Accomplish?

For a start, what does guest blogging accomplish from the perspective of the guest?

Firstly, guest blogging is about building relationships. You’re networking with other bloggers and making new connections which might prove useful later on down the line.

Bloggers chatter makes up a large proportion of conversation on the internet which makes them very influential people.

You might indirectly end up increasing your influence in the social media world through guest posting and getting to know people.

Secondly, guest blogging introduces you to a new audience. You are making a pitch to an already established community ready to hear what you have to say by essentially tapping into the host blog’s audience.

A big focus of guest blogging is on the next, third point, but the effect of actual click throughs to your blog shouldn’t be neglected if you’re adding value to their reading experience, then they’re likely to head over to your blog to check out your other content.

Thirdly, guest posting is big in the world of SEO (search engine optimisation). This is the context in which it is most often discussed, and guest blogging is indeed an undeniably important way to drive traffic to your blog.

The one thing you should be adamant about is their inclusion of a link to your own blog when you post on another person’s site.

This might be embedded in the text, or might be included in the author bio. However it’s incorporated, generating these links is one of the main goals of guest blogging.

Quality sites are a big factor in how big search engines decide to rank your blog when being referenced on reputable sites.

That’s why people refer to guest blogging as being ‘good for SEO’ because over time, generating these backlinks will help boost you in the search engine rankings.

Why Is Guest Blogging Important For Your Business?

By sharing your expertise on other companies’ websites, you can establish yourself as an authority figure within your market, build relationships with other thought leaders in your field and expose your brand to an entirely new audience which is why guest blogging offers a number of benefits for any business.

Additionally, featuring guest posts on your own blog will help you deliver new perspectives and fresh content to your audience. We’re all guilty of falling victim to a routine and growing tired of the same old stuff, so featuring guest posts is a great way to keep readers engaged — not to mention the promotional boost that occurs when your guest bloggers share their blogs with their personal network.

Some blogs, like OpenView, source the majority of their content from other leaders in their industry. Guest bloggers can help you offer new content to your readers without much additional time and effort needed by your team even if you don’t have the resources to stick to a robust blogging cadence.

How To Go About Guest Posting

So, guest posting is good for SEO, it introduces you to a new audience, and it helps you make friends. How do you get started?

Make sure you’re clear about what you’re looking to get out of the guest posting experience before you get started with guest posting. Look for industry blogs by non-competitor companies where you can deliver real insight to readers.

First step, you need to find a blog that will host you. There are a few ways you might want to do this. There are some sites out there that actively list blogs which are up for guest posting. However, the links can be unreliable. Moreover, you might not be getting the quality hosting that you’re truly aiming for.

A good old Google search is probably the most obvious thing to try. Just type in ‘top [your industry] blog list’ and see what pops up.

Alternatively, you can try an advanced search, specifying strings of phrases like “write for us”, and “blogging”. This will help you find blogs that are actively looking for guest contributors.

It’s simply a question of trawling and making a judgement about the blogs you find if you’re using the tried and tested search engine method.

It’s all about balancing a need for quality with the likelihood of the blog in question accepting you.

Like any application process, it’ll largely be a numbers game and you should expect to be rejected plenty of time as you just need to shoot off a bunch of emails.

When it comes to successful guest blogging, research is essential.

It’s no secret that there is a lot of spam surfacing the web. It’s your job to make sure you’re not posting to these types of blogs — or publishing any spammy content on your own blog.

You might also find good guest blogging hosts by looking for people guest posting on sites that you regularly read. Check the author out and see who else they’re writing for.

Basically, once you have found one good site, pull the thread and follow where it leads – you’re essentially benefiting from the other guest bloggers’ hard work.

You can even search on Google using the author’s name and specifying the search term “guest post”.

Also, remember that if the content doesn’t align with your business, personas or brand voice, guest blogging can have a swift and negative impact on your company.

Here are a few things to look for before offering to guest blog or vice-versa:

• Does this blog or blogger have a slew of followers who are actively posting comments, sharing blogs with their networks and otherwise engaging with content?

• Do they have a Facebook or Twitter account where they share their own blog posts regularly?

• Do they have high domain authority that would amplify my own SEO ranking?

• Is their industry and expertise complementary to my own?

Pro tip: Search for a relevant industry keyword + “guest post,” “write for us” or something similar when searching for blogs to publish on. For example, if you wanted to write about inbound marketing, you could Google:

• Inbound marketing guest post

• Inbound marketing guest post guidelines

• Inbound marketing seeking guest posts

• Inbound marketing write for us

• Inbound marketing guest post submissions

… and so on. This will help you find relevant industry blogs who are interested in the topic you’re writing about and currently accepting submissions from guest bloggers.

Something To Think About When You’re Guest Blogging

The main thing to bear in mind when guest blogging is the nature of the links you incorporate into your text. The actual words hyperlinked are called anchor texts when you link a url. Which means that when you include links in your content, you should make sure it contains words that are useful.

Which words are useful? Google uses anchor texts to assess a page’s relevance, so include keywords in the anchor texts that you link to.

Google also penalises for spammy links so just make sure not to overdo it. As with most SEO strategies, the most important thing to do is to do everything you do organically – if that makes sense.

Don’t be too heavy handed or artificial with the links you embed. Most of all, make sure that the links are relevant. And if they’re relevant, they’re likely to include keywords anyway.

How Does Guest Blogging Impact SEO?

The short answer is: Guest blogging can be a great tool for building your domain authority and moving up in SEO rankings as long as you’re careful and considerate about creating high-value guest blogs for legitimate websites.

With the risk of “spam bloggers” who try to bribe blog owners into letting them post low-quality content for their own link-building and SEO benefit, many marketers have decided to opt against it entirely. This is the reason why it’s understandable why many have questioned whether or not guest blogging will hurt their business.

Ultimately, developing an SEO-boosting guest blogging strategy comes down to providing genuine, helpful and relevant content to educate readers — not low-quality content used as a mere container for links to your website.

Guest blogging is a great way to increase your site rankings as long as your content is of high quality. The way Google sees it, if other people are linking back to your blog on their own websites, then the content on your blog must be relevant and interesting. It’s much more likely to pop up first when someone googles a similar topic because when individuals comment, share, like or link to your blog, it moves up in Google’s PageRank.

But Google PageRank is only an algorithm, so it can’t tell the difference between dynamic content and spam! So while cramming your guest blog posts with links and keywords will push you farther up in the ranking, it probably won’t generate any new, high-fit traffic, and it definitely won’t establish you as an authority in your field.

What Does High-Quality Guest Blogging Look Like?

The key to writing a high-quality guest blog is to think of it as a value-add for your audience — not as an advertisement!

Your guest blogs should be intended to educate your reader, not promote your own product or service as with any type of inbound content. Of course, there’s no harm in featuring it in your blog if the topic is relevant to your product or service. But there’s a big difference between selling yourself and offering helpful, actionable information to your readers.

Instead, write guest blogs with the purpose of establishing yourself as an authority figure in your field, introducing your name to a new audience and building genuine relationships with other bloggers or businesses.

Here are a few other quick tips to help you enhance your guest blogging strategy:

• Write a clear, concise author bio. Many companies prohibit it or change the links over time although some companies allow you to include links back to your website within the main body of your blog

• Try to include at least one relevant internal link back to one of the company’s previous blog posts within your guest post. They’ll appreciate the research you’ve done and this small act helps increase their own authority and traffic.

• Conclude each post with a call-to-action that asks readers to leave comments. Remember, the more people to comment on and share your blog, the more popular your post will become in a SEO search.

• Promote your guest blog post on your own social media networks. This is a great way that will also generate more traffic back to your guest blogger and their business. By now, it’s a good way to say “thank you” for publishing your guest post and it should be second nature for you to share your content.

• Use Google Analytics to track how much traffic your guest post is generating. This will give you a broader idea of what readers want to hear about and see what is working for your business.

Reap the true benefits of guest blogging by following these tips which will also help you to avoid writing or accepting spammy content. Moreover, you should boost the credibility of your brand and reach new audiences in your industry to increase your SEO rankings.

Does Guest Blogging In Decline?

Source:

https://www.newbreedrevenue.com/blog/what-is-guest-blogging

https://digitalagencynetwork.com/what-is-guest-posting-and-how-is-it-used-for-seo/

https://outreachmonks.com/guest-posting-services/

https://neilpatel.com/blog/guide-to-guest-blogging/