At one time in the SEO world guest blogging was the be all, do all thing to increase your search engine rankings. Just recently, Google’s very own Matt Cutts says guest blogging for SEO is a no-no. I guess it was a ploy to stop people from doing “secret tricks” to game the system. Hey, I’m all for that. There’s no magic pill or button that will get you to the top of the search engines over night.
I must admit, I have never been one to follow the rules of SEO. I never knew much about back linking or meta tags. In fact, I still don’t. I did however always think, if you do what adds value to your readers and visitors, the traffic will come. I still believe this and this strategy has worked for us here at ConvertWithContent and it will work for you too.
As opposed to an SEO person, I’ve always been a social media girl. And as a social media girl, naturally I believe in building relationships online to increase your trust, authority and traffic. I do guest blog, but not for SEO purposes. I do it for relationship building. No matter what the newest thoughts on Guest Blogging might be, I’m going to continue to contribute to other blogs and publications as much as I can because I’ve seen the benefits first hand. And that includes increased traffic.
Yes, getting search traffic is important. But as the internet evolves, I see search engines evolving too. They are going to rely on different factors to rank your website. Things like blogging, being social and sharing will continue to play a role. I even predict social media being a prime searching and social discovery channel. People will rely more and more on finding you through social means. And social media will continue to grow as a search engine. That means in order to get found you, and your website must be shared and talked about.
A guest blog post on a popular blog is a great way to get found. Here are the top 5 reasons why I think you should continue to guest blog or add guest blogging to your arsenal of online activity. I know we’ll continue!
5 Benefits Of Guest Blogging
1. Guest Blogging Builds Your Network
I wrote about guest blogging as a means to increase your network in this post here. Guest blogging increases your network because it introduces you to a new audience. The publications and blogs you write for want to promote their website and drive traffic back to their site via your article so you can expect them to share your bio and social links. When you add value to their audience they will promote the heck out of you. Thus, your social profiles are shared via a trusted source and their followers will join in.
Beyond building your network it allows you to connect and build relationships with these people. Relationships is the backbone of the social web.
2. Guest Blogging Increases Your Authority
Guest blogging increases your authority because it shows that you are worthy of writing for others. When someone looks your name up and finds you on various websites outside of your own you have the perception of knowing what you are talking about. And this perception is probably true. You clearly know what you’re talking about, otherwise no one would allow you to blog for them.
3. Guest Blogging Brands You As An Expert
See number 2. Same story here but now you have the ability to brand yourself as an expert on a given topic. If you keep your guest blogging to one subject on various blogs you can show your expertise to various different audiences while remaining true to yourself.
4. Guest Blogging Brings You New Traffic
Well this one is a given. Each time you guest blog you get a little link love back to your website. Whether this is in your bio on a given site you blog for or within the article. Most likely if you are a regular contributor somewhere you will be given a little author bio area. If you blog often this bio will show up often linking people back to your site. If they new readers like what you have to say they will be on their way to checking out more of your awesome content.
5. Guest Blogging Gives Your Bragging Rights
Hi, I’m Stephanie and I blog for.. Sounds good right? Go on brag. You deserve it.
Do you want to guest blog for us? We’d love to talk. Email me here.
