Since the days where guest blogs were overused and abused in order to gain quick links, and the resultant website penalties that came with the roll out of the penguin update of 2012, many people have steered clear of guest blogging altogether. However, when used correctly (and within the search engine guidelines) guest blogging can be a useful tool to increase the authority of your website, attract new traffic, and generate qualified links.
Build Valuable Links
One of the benefits of posting a guest blog is gaining a backlink to your website. The more authority the blog that you are guest posting on has, the more beneficial this can be for your website.
In most cases, a blog will allow you to add at least one link back to your website from a blog post, if only from the “about author” section of the post. Not only will this make your content more discoverable and allow search engines to easily locate and index your content, a single link from a high authority website can greatly increase search engine rankings for your own site.
Additionally, if the blog you are guest posting on is within the same niche or industry as your website, obtaining a link from that blog indicates to Google that your website is also relevant to your shared industry. This will help to increase your website’s rankings for industry related terms.
Exposure To Target Audience
Another benefit of guest blogging is that it gets your brand, products, and content in front of more people. And, if you have chosen a blog to guest post on that shares a target audience or demographic, you will be able to get your brand in front of your target audience without having to spend months or even years cultivating the same audience for your own blog.
If the guest post you create is high quality and provides value, this can also lead to new traffic to your website from within your target audience.
Increase Site Traffic
A backlink from a guest post can not only increase search rankings, it can also drive new traffic to your website. However, even if the blog you are posting on does not allow an external link, simply posting on a relevant blog can drive new traffic to your website.
Not only will you drive new traffic to your site, if you have posted on a blog within your industry, then the readers of that blog are likely to be ideal customers, allowing you to gain new, qualified leads.
Generate Qualified Leads
Creating a quality guest blog for a website with a shared target audience is a great way to generate new, qualified leads. For example, if you are guest posting on a car enthusiast’s blog, most readers are likely to own their own car. So if you are promoting a car related product or service, your readers are already primed to be interested in what you have to say.
Additionally, it can be difficult to drive traffic to a new blog. However, if you’re posting on a blog that already has an established readership, you can use the traffic that they have already built to build your brand authority and generate qualified leads.
Build Website Authority
Guest posting on an authoritative site also allows you to build authority and trust for your site. If you are posting on the blog of an industry authority that many people within your target audience already know and trust, you are instantly building trust and authority for your brand.
This is because, if your potential customers already trust the website that you are guest posting on, and that website trusts your brand enough to allow a guest post, your potential customers will be more inclined to trust you as well.
Now that you know the benefits of guest blogging, you may be wondering how to find new guest blogging opportunities in a time when most webmasters have an inbox full of unread guest blogging proposals.
Click here to read our beginners guide to finding new guest blogging opportunities.