Guest blogging is an indirect promotional tactic that offers a variety of benefits to anyone who is willing to invest the time to write high-quality content for authoritative blogs.
Notice I said high-quality content.
The power of guest blogging comes from your ability to provide useful, meaningful content to the right audiences – high-quality content.
But that’s not all.
You also need to take time to find the right websites to publish your guest posts. These are sites with great reputations where your target audience already spends time.
What are Guest Blog Posts?
Guest blog posts are articles that you write for free and publish on other people’s blogs or websites.
The purpose is to get your name, business or brand name, and expert ideas in front of your target audience on a blog or website that they already trust to provide reliable information.
There are three primary steps to guest blogging:
- Research blogs and websites to find ones in your niche that publish guest posts (most blogs will include information about submitting posts on their websites if it’s allowed).
- Reach out to blogs and websites that allow guest posts (following the instructions on their websites if provided) and pitch your idea.
- Submit your articles following the publishers’ instructions.
If your guest post is published, you should promote it via social media, your email newsletter, and through any other channels available to you. It’s also important to respond to comments that readers post to your articles to show you’re engaged.
You won’t be paid to write guest blog posts, but you don’t have to pay for placement either (paid posts are referred to as sponsored posts). Instead, you’ll only need to invest your time, which makes it an inexpensive promotional opportunity.
The Benefits of Guest Blogging to Your Business, Brand, and Website
Guest blogging provides benefits that are valuable for you personally as well as for your business and your website. Here are nine of the most common benefits that guest blog writers get in return for their time investments:
1. Boost Search Traffic to Your Website
Guest blogging is considered one of the best search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to increase search traffic to your website but only when guest posts are published on authoritative sites with a link back to your website.
Why? Because Google’s algorithm rewards websites with backlinks from authoritative sites.
When you take the time to write high-quality content and publish it on high-quality sites that are relevant to your business and brand, your search rankings should increase, which means more search traffic for you.
Just make sure you only publish guest posts on authoritative sites or you could end up getting poor quality links to your site that ultimately hurt your search rankings and traffic.
2. Gain Wider Exposure
Guest blogging allows you to cast a wider net and get in front of new people who are similar to your target audience profiles.
When you choose sites to publish your guest post that are trusted by people who match your target buyer personas, you’ll have a chance to connect with more people than you can do on your own and for a lot less money than advertising costs.
3. Establish Thought Leadership
One of the biggest benefits of guest blogging is establishing yourself as an expert in your field and as a thought leader that other people can look to for reliable, useful information.
The key is to invest the necessary amount of time to write well-researched guest posts with actionable information that truly helps the audience. Not only will readers get to know you and think of you as an expert, but the blog owners and editors will as well.
4. Create Social Proof
When you publish guest blog posts on other people’s blogs, particularly when those blogs have large audiences, more people will share your posts to their social media followers.
As a result, even more people will be exposed to your content.
Chances are good that many of those people will connect with you and follow your social media accounts.
All of those people sharing your content and connecting with you creates a powerful form of social proof – proof that you know what you’re talking about and your content is useful.
In the online world, social proof is extremely valuable because it instantly communicates the perception of authority and trust.
5. Gain Influence
Online influencers are people who have established reputations across the internet, and as a result, they’re able to influence the people who follow them or view and read their content.
When you write guest blog posts for authoritative sites on a regular basis, the online audience will recognize you and start to listen to you. This is influence, and in time, you can leverage that influence to increase sales and profits for your business.
6. Build Trust
The more often people see your name across the web through the guest blog posts that you publish on relevant, authoritative sites, the more they’ll trust you. Consistency is essential to building trust in both personal brands and business or product brands.
Therefore, you need to be present in the online space. Don’t publish one guest post and disappear. Be persistent!
7. Generate Referral Traffic and Leads
Most blog owners allow a guest writer to include a short biography and a link to their website in their posts. This link is important because it provides an easy way for people to find you and learn more about you and your business.
People who like your content enough to click through and visit your website are often hot leads that you could convert into customers. With that in mind, make sure you can include a link back to your website in every guest blog post that you write.
8. Build Relationships
Guest blogging allows you to connect with a variety of bloggers, publishers, and brands, which can lead to collaborations, partnerships, and referrals.
Think of your outreach and subsequent communications as critical components of networking efforts. Chances are they’ll pay off nicely in the future with unique opportunities.
9. Increase Brand Awareness
Your guest blog posts shouldn’t be directly self-promotional, but that doesn’t mean they can’t boost brand awareness among your target audience.
To that end, you should you always mention your brand in your guest post author bio where it won’t be considered promotional but does get it in front of readers.
In addition, guest blogging can increase awareness of your brand among the media and open the doors to more publicity opportunities. The next time a journalist is looking for a source to provide insights and quotes for an upcoming article, they just might remember your guest post and contact you.
Guest blogging has helped many people land television, online, and radio interviews. You could be next!
Key Takeaways about Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an extremely popular marketing tactic. In fact, some of the most popular media organizations publish guest posts on their websites.
It’s clear that guest blogging adds value, but until you start identifying blogs to pitch, reaching out, and writing, you’ll miss out on all of them.
