One of my most popular posts on ZacJohnson.com is my article on guest blogging secrets and tips. With Google now acting like a God and throwing people out of the search results for whatever they like, the future of building links and really great content is the drive behind the craze of guest blogging. The concept is simple, find blogs that allow guest blogs and provide some great content for their site. In exchange for your time and original work, you will usually get a link back to your site.
We recently sent a bunch of questions to James Agate, the SEO Director at SkyrocketSEO.co.uk, who specializes in guest blog posting. You will see our question and his answer below.
1.) What is guest blogging and why should people be using it?
Guest blogging or guest posting is the act of developing a relationship with another blogger or web publisher, pitching a topic to them that you are an expert on and that their audience is going to love, writing the blog post and then working with them to publish it. Essentially you appear as a guest on what is otherwise “their show”.
You get the benefit of earning a link (good for search engine rankings) and engaging with a new audience (leading to referral traffic). The important thing about guest blogging is that it is beneficial all round because the audience gets some killer content and a dose of your expertise and the blogger gets “a day off” from producing content.
It is a really important online marketing technique and although not new, it has increased in importance as it is a future-proof way to develop inbound links to your website. If you develop relationships with and write for the right kinds of websites in your industry you will be earning high-authority links (which search engines appreciate and reward you for), these kinds of links will often survive Google updates (like Penguin and Panda) since the links are the high-quality, relevant and worthwhile kind that Google encourages. Additionally, we can call them future-proof because if you removed Google from the equation, these would still be links that you would want pointing at your website because they are likely to drive targeted visitors who may well convert into leads and sales.
As you can see, the benefits of guest blogging are quite effective and for any one who isn’t already actively using guest blogging to promote their web sites or business, we can bet you soon will be. Guest blogging is an excellent way to gain inbound quality links and new traffic to your site. Visit blogging.org for a full list of blogs that are currently accepting guest posts.
