Guest Blogging and Search Engine Optimization

Your online visibility is critical to your business’ success. You may have the greatest, most awesome blog on the web but if only a handful of visitors see it, your purpose is defied. That’s why bloggers use different SEO tactics to increase their audience. One of these is guest posting on blogs.

What is Guest Blogging?

Simply put, it is writing an article about your product or service in a related website or vice versa. For instance, if your business involves educational toys for children, then you should seek blogs about parenting, education and children. Done with utmost care and consideration, guest posting on blogs can and has proven to increase web traffic.Guesting posting on high traffic blogs is an effective SEO tool that is worthy of your time, effort and money.

Searching for blogs and asking the webmaster for permission to write a guest post is just a fourth of the equation. Getting the webmaster to accept your post is another portion. The main part is the post itself. It requires effective, thoughtful writing to convince the other blogger that you are worthy of a space in his blog. Your post must contain valuable information for him and his readers, be grammatically correct and have good syntax. You can do it yourself if you have the knack for writing. Otherwise, it is recommended that you outsource it to legitimate writers.Bloggers, especially the famous ones, will give you just one chance to prove yourself- don’t waste it.

Why Submit Guest Posts to Blogs?

Now that you know what guest posting on blogs is all about and how it should be done, you might wonder why you should be doing it. Here are some of the reasons why you should be guest posting on blogs:

Benefits of Guest Blogging

1. Free publicity. Since you’re a guest and not a ghost writer, you will have the privilege to include your byline. This contains your name and the website you represent. If your post contains relevant, juicy information that captivates the attention of the blogger and his readers, they will become curious about you and visit your site. Translation: You’ll have unique visitors who might even subscribe to you.
2. Trustworthiness. Guest posting on blogs that have loyal audiences who believe in those blogs’ credibility is like sporting an EXPERT label on your forehead. If their websites trust you, they can, too.
3. Social Media Following. Content is king, and that extends to social media. Have you noticed how Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn users post links of articles that have caught their attention and deem worthy of praise or sharing? How would you like to go viral
4. Link Building. Undoubtedly, this is the ultimate reason why guest posting on blogs gained popularity among bloggers. It provides them with quality, natural links to their websites. And of course, more inbound links equate to a higher pagerank in Google.

Best Practices for Guest Blog Posting

As with visiting real-life places, blogs have their own standards and norms that you must comply with to give your guest post more chances of being accepted. Ideally, you should keep in mind the following:

Guest Blogging for SEO Guidlines

• Word count counts. It’s important for guest bloggers to compose articles that are of an acceptable word. Most bloggers prefer posts with a minimum word count of 300 and a maximum of 800. What’s most important is that you’re article is complete and fully addresses the topic you aims to cover. Staying within guidelines set by the blog’s administrators, a good guest poster will use enough space to fully address the topic of the post and only enough space to address it.
• Niche is Important for SEO. Seeking out and submitting guest posts only to blogs that fall into the same category or are closely related in subject matter to the website you link to is critical. Since the Google Penguin Updates, this is more true than ever before. For instance, to promote a website selling women’s clothing and accessories, you will first want to seek out blogs that are primarily about women’s fashion to guest post on.
• Keep it contextually relevant. Once you’ve identified a list of blogs that fall into the same category as the website you’re promoting, you’ll need to write an article that is a good fit for the blog you’re submitting to. It’s important that the topic of your post be closely related to the subject of the blog or what the blog is about. Using the example above, an author guest posting on a blog about women’s fashion might write tips about choosing trendy women’s accessories, shoes, etc.
• Abide by restrictions on external links. Most reputable blogs accepting guest posts have well defined rules regarding the use of external links in blog posts. Blogs usually limit guest blog post authors to the use of one or two external links. Some blogs include additional restrictions. Limiting the use of external links to the byline or author bio at the end of the article is common. Make sure you know the policies of the blog you’re submitting to regarding the use of external links in your guest post. If the webmaster requires you to put your links only in the byline and not in the article’s body, do so.
• Format your post for the blog and for the reader. Different blogs have different formats. Ask the webmaster for guidelines on article format. Staying within the guidelines provided by the website administrator, use a format that suits the purpose of your post, is visually appealing, clean and user-friendly.
• Remember who content ownership belongs to. In most cases, when guest blogging once you submit a guest post, it becomes the property of the webmaster, and as such, cannot be used in other sites. Some webmasters allow guest post authors to edit their posts prior to publication, while others have restrictions on post publication edits and still others forbid authors from making any edits after publishing a guest post.

You can see a list of sample guest posting guidelines here. Guest posting on blogs may consume a lot of time and effort, but in the end, it pays- a lot in many cases. If you need SEO experts to implement a guest posting strategy to promote your business or brand reach out to us here. We have the expertise and resources to accomplish the guest blogging needs of your business.