Guest blogging is the practice of giving content on another individual or organization’s website or blog. This strategy is also called guest blogging. In guest posting, a blogger acts as an independent contributor or guest writer and voluntarily submits articles to a published site. He or she may also be asked to write an article or two for free to increase their exposure. Some sites ask for a small amount of equity or incentives for guest posts.
The benefits for the guest post are great if the blog audience likes what he or she has written. When this happens, the audience trusts the quality of the content and tends to react favorably when they see it in the published materials. If the guest has successfully established an online reputation as an authority or expert, the audience will be willing to take more risks in order to publish or link to the guest. The results for the publisher can be quite rewarding.
A key to successful guest posting is to conduct keyword research ahead of time. Researching keywords that are commonly used by the target audience will increase the likelihood of the target site appearing in search engine results. A good rule of thumb is to conduct keyword research that measures how many times the targeted keywords appear on the published pages for a particular topic. For example, if target readers are researching the benefits of organic foods, their search terms might include “organic foods” or “news about organic foods”.
There are a number of tools available to help with the process of finding guest post opportunities. Using social media can be helpful but should not be used as the entire basis of the guest posting strategy. Social media tools are helpful because they allow the internet savvy audience to find interesting blogs by simply searching for certain terms. However, without using social media as part of the guest posting strategy, the blog owner risks attracting a crowd that does not represent the target audience. This results in little to no traffic to the guest blogger’s blog and does not translate into additional revenue.
The most effective guest blogging strategy involves using the social media platforms as well as SEO tools to attract interest in the guest post. When using social media as part of a guest posting strategy, the publisher must be willing to share links to his or her blog from the guest blogger’s social media accounts. In addition, there are several SEO tools available to help the publisher attract more visitors to the guest blog. These tools can be used to create content rich posts that are more likely to be featured in the search engine results.
The main goal of guest blogging is to provide backlinks to the owner’s blog and provide exposure to the business. Therefore, the content provided must be unique and interesting. A good rule of thumb when it comes to guest blogging is that the guest post should not be a duplicate of another blog. For example, if a site features an ecourse on organic gardening, the guest blogger should not post another course about planting tomatoes. While this would seem like a strategic mistake from the perspective of the publisher, the purpose of guest posting is to build backlinks for the blog and increase the number of visitors to the website.
Using guest blogging strategies also requires that the blog owner to ensure that the content on the guest blog post is appropriate for the guest. For example, if the post discusses a product that is brand new and has not been tested by users in the real world, the content may not work very well. Guest blogging takes time and effort. Therefore, the blog owner should not place any other blogs on the site during the initial period of guest posting.
Finally, the publishing process should take the form of feedback rather than comments. While comments are valuable and can help build relationships, they should not be the only goal of the guest blogging strategy. In particular, it is important to ensure that the audience reading the blog truly wants to hear from the guest bloggers and will want to respond to their comments. If they do not, the audience will lose interest and likely to unsubscribe from the blog in its entirety.