To improve our reach and visibility on the search engines, we do a number of things. And it never ends. Well, today we are going to talk about one such thing—Guest Blogging. So, what is guest blogging, and what you need to know about it? Read on to find.
The success of content marketing and SEO is interrelated. Hence, if you want to optimize for search engines, your content strategies also need to be on point. There are different types of content marketing but the most crucial of them is blogging. It not only helps optimize for search engines, but it also makes space for social media sharing. By reading your blogs, your target market will also be able to better connect with your brand. And not to mention how it improves audience engagement.
These were just a few benefits of blogging to name. There is a lot more.
But what if I told you that you can get even more out of blogging?
Yes!
How?
Through guest blogging!
Guest blogging has a number of benefits. But most importantly, it is very beneficial for search engine ranking. Before getting to how it can help with SEO, let’s first talk about what it is.
What is Guest Blogging?
You must have heard about ‘guest appearance’? Like when a guest appears on a show/movie/event and takes it over for a while. It’s pretty much the same concept.
As the name suggests, guest blogging is when a person publishes a blog on a third-party website which she/he isn’t a part of. Both the parties generally share the same niche. And the host website pays a certain amount to the guest blogger for the post. This is a common SEO and content marketing practice.
Guest blogging requires mutual consent of both—the blogger and the website he/she is publishing on. And similarly, it has mutual benefits. While the website gets new content, the guest blogger gets exposure. And it has a number of many other benefits. Let’s see what.
Benefits of Guest Blogging
## Link-building
As any SEO expert would tell you, link building is important when optimizing for search engines. When a guest publishes a blog on a third-party website, she/he gets a backlink for their original website. On the other hand, it allows the host website to establish its niche by linking with someone within the industry. Search engines like Google love quality links. Hence, it may give them both a ranking boost.
## Improved authority in industry
Guest blogging is great not only for search engine optimization but also helps establish your authority in the industry. An industry leader may guest blog on your website. Or you may guest blog on a website within your industry. In both cases, it won’t help just the search engine but also the audience to trust your authority in your industry. Hence, guest blogging helps improve authority in the industry.
## Content marketing
Guest blogging provides content marketing opportunities to both— the guest blogger and the publishing website. The guest blogger can market her/his content to a wider audience. On the other hand, having a guest blogger post on their website can help a business to get content that is different from their usual.
## Improved writing skills
With guest blogging, bloggers can improve their writing skills. How?
You post only on your website and have a limited group of loyal followers who only leave positive comments. If you continue to stay settled with this pattern, you won’t be able to improve.
Exposing your content to a new set of an unbiased audience can help you gain some constructive criticism. And this will naturally help improve your writing skills. Hence, guest blogging helps improve writing skills.
## Increase in web traffic
Guest blogging helps increase the organic traffic of the websites of both the guest and the host. A guest blogger would promote its guest post on a website and hence, that website will see an increase in its organic traffic. Similarly, with referring domains, the audience of the website will be directed to the guest’s original website. Hence, the guest blogger will also see an increase in her/his organic web traffic.
## High-quality web traffic
The visitors’ traffic exchanged with guest blogging is not only good for increasing the number of organic visitors. In fact, it also helps in getting quality traffic. Since guest blogging takes place within a particular industry, the audience gained through this medium will already be interested in your niche. Hence, they’d genuinely like to engage with your website. And that’s quality traffic!
## Increased brand awareness
Guest blogging paves way for a sort of cross-promotion. The blogger promotes the website for her/his guest post. Similarly, the website promotes the blogger by giving them credits. Hence, it helps both parties to improve their brand awareness.
## Social media marketing
Most businesses share their website content with their social media followers. With guest blogging, the guest blogger also benefits from that promotion. Similarly, the guest blogger may promote his content on his socials. And hence, the host website will also benefit from that promotion. Thus, guest blogging also adds to social media marketing.
So, these were some of the key benefits of guest blogging to mention. While guest blogging is mutually beneficial, it is the most advantageous for the guest bloggers. However, it can have some downsides.
Challenges in Guest Blogging
## Bloggers might not be able to connect with the audience
You know what the audience on your website like. And so, you create and post blogs accordingly. However, if you were to publish a guest blog on another website, you wouldn’t really know what they like. As a result, there are great chances that you might not be able to connect with their audience adequately. Hence, all your efforts will go wasted.
## Keyword stuffing and penalization
If you know anything about SEO, you must be aware of how search engines hate keyword stuffing. As a result, they may end up penalizing your website. Therefore, if a guest blogger would post keywords-stuffed content on your website, your ranking might suffer.
## It’s gruelling and time consuming
When you decide to be a guest blogger, it takes a lot from this decision to reach the point where you actually get published. First, you’ll need to find the right websites to guest blog for. Then, you’d need to keep pitching for months. Moreover, it is not just about writing high-quality content that also meets the requirements and expectations of your client on an extraordinary level. Building relationships is also an important part of guest blogging. This makes it a very grueling and time-consuming task.
## Success rate is very low
In the last point, I have already talked about how testing the process of guest blogging can get. And despite all these efforts, you might still not be able to get your blogs published on the desired site. Hence, the success rate in guest blogging is very low.
## Results can take very long
To find out how your guest blogs are doing can take really long. In fact, it can take several months to actually find whether your blogs succeeded or not. This makes guest blogging further more testing.
## Needs to be done regularly
In order to yield positive results (and in fact any results at all), guest blogging needs to be done continuously. This is another factor that makes guest blogging challenging.
## Guest bloggers may lose sight of their own blog
Guest blogging requires so much time, energy, effort, and persistence. As a result, guest bloggers may end up losing sight of their own blogs. This can be detrimental for their SEO.
## Fraudulent and money oriented host websites
It is not very uncommon for budding guest bloggers to get caught up with fraudulent websites. Many fraudulent websites would post your content without giving you the due credits. Moreover, the internet is full of money-oriented sites that would post your content in exchange for some bucks. Search engines have become smarter now and can spot such exchanges. As a result, they penalize such websites. And being associated with such websites can apparently harm your ranking.
So, these were some of the downsides and challenges of guest blogging. Therefore, if plan to set your foot in this field, you need to be prepared for all this.
That being said, let’s talk about…
Some best guest blogging practices and tips
## Always deal within your niche
You could be a guest blogger looking to blog for a third party, or you could be a website owner seeking guest blog entries. In both cases, it is important to make sure that the other party is well within your niche. For example, if a fashion designer would guest blog for a digital marketing agency in Chennai, it won’t make any sense. The audience won’t find it relevant and it would confuse the search engine regarding the website’s and the blogger’s niche.
## Never pay to get your content published
The process of getting your guest blogs published on a website can get really testing. In such a case, the opportunity to pay a little charge to get published as a guest blogger can get really tempting. However, you should never give in to such temptation. Or else you may end up harming your credibility and quality score.
## Call to Action
Search engine optimization and improved engagement rate are some key objectives of guest blogging. For this, effective placement of CTA elements is crucial. Hence, whether you are writing a guest blog for a website or inviting one on yours, make sure to take care of this.
## Track the performance of guest blogs
Just as you track the performance of your general blogs, you should also do so for your guest blogs. It allows you to know how well your guest posts are doing. Based on that, you can improve and take other important decisions.
## Social promotion
Constant digital promotion is important for success in guest blogging. And social media is a must in this case. Therefore, social media marketing is important to succeed in guest blogging.
Conclusion
If you have reached the end of this post, you will release that both the pros and cons of guest blogging weigh quite heavily. It works like a charm for some while for most, it doesn’t. If you are planning to set your foot in this branch of content marketing, you need to know how testing it can get to finally succeed. However, if you manage to do it right, it can greatly add to your SEO.
Hey there! We have covered broadly everything a beginner should know about guest blogging. Still, got questions? The comment option is right below!
