The Value of Guest Blogging

The Value of Guest Blogging

The data demonstrates the effectiveness of content marketing for small business websites. These strategies are proven to build inbound traffic, increase brand credibility, and generate leads. One of the most powerful methods for content marketing is guest blogging. While pay-per-click programs can be expensive, publishing guest blog posts on another site is a cost-effective way to engage new audiences.

Even though guest blogging is a crucial but often overlooked component of content marketing, the perks are undeniable. It seems counterintuitive to create content for another company or website. However, writing guest blog posts can positively impact the marketing efforts of your small business.

Improve SEO

When a blogger or another company publishes a blog post you wrote, you get to include a byline or a short bio that links back to your website.  Not only does this encourage readers to click through to your site, it also creates a backlink. When one website directly links to another, this backlink has a significant effect on increasing a website’s SEO ranking. The more guest blog posts you provide for other websites, the more of these worthwhile backlinks are created for your company’s site.

Expand Brand Awareness

Guest blog posts are an opportunity for you to address an entirely new audience. This means you have the chance to educate a whole new group of users about your industry. Just as you share owned content on your company’s social media channels and in email newsletters, the host of your guest blog posts will share your work to their network. Whether the size of this group is 10 or 10,000, they are still new people who have a newfound familiarity with you. The potential for lead generation from this newfound brand awareness is incalculable.

Establish Industry Expertise

By now, your audience knows you’re a thought leader in your field. A guest blog post empowers you to flex your industry expertise muscle for different colleagues and thought leaders that aren’t familiar with you. Peers who don’t know you or your business learn you are an important player in your vertical when they read your guest blog post. This can result in new networking and lead generation opportunities.

New Content for Your Blog

Since you have created posts for other websites, other authors may want to contribute content to your blog. This allows you to publish fresh content without having to write anything. You can re-engage former clients and reach out to new leads by providing a whole new perspective on topics of interest.

How to Guest Post the Right Way

Clearly, guest blog posts are a valuable content marketing strategy but how do you do it correctly? Consider these tips:

• Put your best foot forward. Make sure any guest post you submit to another website is your highest quality content.
• In return, don’t accept low-quality content from another author for your website.
• Never offer to write about topics that you are not passionate about just so you can say that authored a guest blog post for another site.
• Always pitch your ideas to reputable sites that will reflect well on your work.
• When pitching your content to other sites, be mindful of their goals and respectful of their feedback.
• Be careful how you backlink to ensure Google doesn’t view it as a direct trade.
• Don’t forget to share and promote any of your guest blog posts that are published.

For the cost of writing a blog post and networking with sites to publish it, you can accomplish more than you realize. Even if you’re not totally convinced, the expense of the experiment is worth seeing what results are yielded. Content marketing methods, such as guest blogging, are numerous and multifaceted. Connect with experts now who can develop and execute a content marketing strategy for your small business or nonprofit organization.