Can we stop ranting about how blogging can build brand authority?
No!
But did any search engine specialist tell you that guest blogging is one of the most powerful tools in the link building strategy?
If you're unsure of that, let us confess our SEO experts confirm again and again that guest blogging can enormously contribute to the link building efforts.
Think of these blogs like a sales pitch. Your B2B or B2C organization can demonstrate your expertise and attract new traffic to your site by deliberating on your customers’ pain points and presenting solutions to them.
What is Guest Blogging?
Guest Blogging or Guest posting, is basically publishing your content on other companies’ websites, preferably related to your niche/industry. When guest bloggers write for these platforms, they basically incorporate links to their sites in the blogs, indirectly driving traffic to their platform.
In fact, many companies invite partner authors to post on their blogs and publish articles on other websites, making guest blogging one a uniquely powerful kind of content and link-building strategy.
Benefits of Guest Blogging
So, why would you consider writing on somebody else’s website when you do it perfectly well on your own? Let’s discuss some benefits to this approach:
Improve your Brand Awareness:
Just like traditional marketing, the digital space demands continuous interaction with the stakeholders and the customers. This builds credibility and is especially helpful if you are looking to increase brand exposure to real buyers. When you visit different sites and leave your imprint on the web users through guest blogging, you are essentially building your brand authority.
Add Traffic to Your Site:
Adding your website link in your bio or inviting readers to sign up for your newsletter are some proven ways to increase your leads and traffic with guest blogging.
Build Partnerships:
Guest blogging helps to create partnerships with some influential companies. As you write more blogs, you enter a privileged community of contributors in your industry. This way, you gain access to a highly successful league of businesses in your industry, who are willing to help you learn from their experience and exchange knowledge and resources.
Shorten your Sales Cycle:
Interested readers usually reach the website to gain more information or insights about the topic they’re searching for. So, even if your company’s blog itself is not getting traffic, your guest posts on popular platforms will promote your brand, increasing your chances of gaining leads and higher sales.
Nofollow or Link Stripping
One problem we’ve witnessed significantly in the last few years is how some platforms make it difficult for business websites to add a link to their guest blogs. Some companies prefer using nofollow, and some have been stripping out links completely.
However, experts say that despite everything, guest blogging still scores great with link building as it promotes collaboration within a niche. Hence, you are not merely achieving user engagement but credibility inside your industry.
Moreover, the correct approach starts with finding opportunities on the right platform, especially if you are looking to engage a good-sized audience.
How to Find Relevant Guest Blogging Opportunities
Start with Google Search:
You can take advantage of Google search – finding sites that welcome guest posts. Use simple search queries which include your industry/niche and phrases like “guest post for medicine/art/design” or “write for us,” “contributor.”
Evaluate Competitors’ Links:
Evaluate the quality of guest blogs and links on your selected website. Start by analyzing their strengths and weaknesses. This is more easily done for small and medium-sized platforms. For larger platforms, there are various tools like Netpeak Spider and Moz Link Explorer, to gauge the quality of the links.
Search Influencers:
You can appraise the work of some successful guest bloggers and learn from their experience. Once you assess their blogs and understand the online behavior of these influencers, you’ll be able to compile a list of websites relevant to your industry.
Conduct Donor Analysis:
Donor analysis helps you study the web site's traffic and the keywords (which brings the traffic). This data assists in analyzing the placement cost compared with the donor’s value. Below are some considerations for the guest bloggers before you can start contributing to any blogging platform:
- Is the website’s domain authority 50 or above? Sites with DA lower than 40 are not likely to be helpful
- How’s the quality of the content on the platform? Are they posting any user-relevant stuff? Is there any definite response from the visitors?
- Does the site have high organic traffic? The more traffic a website has, the more keywords will rank in the search rankings
- Will you be allowed to add an author bio? Guest blogs are helpful only if you are permitted to add information about yourself and have it in a prominent place
- Is the site more general or does it belong to a specialized industry? If the website is more general, select an anchor about your promotion plan. If it is narrowly specialized, you can use the anchor based on donor’s top keywords
Are you Brainstorming Content Ideas for Guest Blogging?
Most of us analyze current trends, debates, news in the industry and find inspiration from the popular topics for our guest blogs. Tracking important events in your industry is always great because people are naturally interested in upcoming and future events. There are also some incredibly useful tools like BuzzSumo or CoSchedule to generate better ideas.
However, if you are still analyzing your link building strategy, reach out to our team and discuss your tactics. You can also submit your anonymous question on our monthly advice column, for more insights on gaining backlinks and guest blogging.
