When done right, guest posting can effectively contribute to your marketing ROI. Contributing to reputable websites in your niche helps establish yourself as an authority, gain valuable backlinks for your own site, build credibility and trust, and improve your search rankings. In all, it enhances your overall online visibility.
In fact, guest posting is one of marketers’ favorite ways to earn backlinks naturally without being spammy. 55% of marketers vouch for it, followed by link building strategies such as broken link building and link-worthy asset creation.
In this article, we will explore what guest blogging is, the benefits it offers, and the best practices to use it to your advantage. Let’s dive in!
What is guest posting?
Guest posting, also known as guest blogging, is the practice of writing and publishing a post on another person’s or company’s website. Most guest bloggers receive credit for their content as a guest author or contributor, along with a backlink to their own site.
It’s a win-win for both the parties involved. While you get a bylined article and a backlink, the site gets a fresh piece of content for their audience without investing in content creation.
What are the benefits of guest posting?
Guest posting offers several benefits, which include:
- It helps you build meaningful relationships with other bloggers and publishers in your niche and open collaboration opportunities.
- Publishing your content on third-party websites exposes your content to their audiences, increasing your reader base and brand awareness. If their readers find your content and writing style helpful, they are likely to follow your own blog and social channels for more such content.
- You earn SEO-boosting backlinks for your site from sites with a high domain rating. These links will help improve your website’s authority and search rankings.
- Contributing to relevant industry publications on specific niche topics helps establish you as an industry expert. For example, I have bylines on sites such as Statusbrew, Snov.io, and Mention, establishing myself as a B2B SaaS marketing expert.
The key here is to use a consistent author bio that clearly defines your expertise and what readers can expect from your content.
- When people visit your site to check out more of your content and engage with it through comments and shares, it signals Google that you are offering value. This helps boost your rankings.
While guest blogging is advantageous for your overall visibility, it may be challenging to find the right opportunities. That’s where our guest posting services help you secure contributorships and backlinks, all thanks to our solid relationships with other bloggers and publications. Schedule a call with us to get started.
Caution: You must not overdo guest blogging to build backlinks to a specific page on a particular anchor text from multiple pages. Google may penalize your site for using manipulative tactics to affect your page rankings.
Using the best guest posting practices and ensuring topical relevance is crucial for success. Else, you may do more harm than good to your website’s SEO.
Tips to enhance your guest posting strategy
- While many companies allow you to include links to your site in the body of the blog, some prohibit it or change the link once the blog post becomes old. Your author bio is likely the only place that will include a permanent backlink to your website. Therefore, it is essential to write a clear concise author bio. Include a link in a way that prompts people to click on it.
- In addition to including a link back to your website, try to include one or two relevant internal links back to the company’s previous blog posts.
When there is more than one link from different sources, Google considers that article as well-researched. Also, it will help increase the traffic to the host website and in turn your guest post. - Include a call-to-action at the end of every blog where you ask readers to leave comments on your post along with sharing or subscribing to your blog. The more engagement your post can drive, the better it will be for your website’s SEO.
- Share your guest post links on all your social media networks to increase its visibility and direct traffic from your contacts (and followers) to the host’s website.
- Keep track of how much traffic your guest post is generating. You can use Google Analytics or any other analytics tool for that. This will give you an idea of how successful your post is and what your readers want to hear.
Conclusion
Guest posting is a great inbound marketing technique that can boost your SEO rankings. The key is to avoid creating or accepting spammy content. Follow the steps outlined above to produce high-quality, SEO friendly content and build credible links that enhance your brand awareness and dominate the search results.
