Guest Blogging: Why It’s The Best Inbound Marketing Strategy (And How To Get Started With It)

Content is king.

Is, was, and ever will be.

Whether you believe it or not.

Whether you like it or not.

Content started from being an exciting new marketing strategy and has since become an essential marketing powerhouse for virtually all businesses and industries.

If you’re asking yourself whether content is still important nowadays, the answer will always be a big YES!

Content marketing remains to be the most important part of every digital marketing strategy. It has become the heart of every digital marketing strategy. Its ability to drive high volumes of traffic to your website is incomparable. It’s still the most effective method to generate quality leads that make healthy sales growth sustainable. Properly executed content is still the most powerful way to pull a targeted audience into your website, which will ultimately convert into leads, and then revenues.

The most effective way to drive traffic to your site is by creating relevant, useful, and interesting content in your own blog. The higher the quality of your content, the more users will be inclined to engage with your site, trust your brand, and buy from you.

The power of guest blogging

It may seem counterproductive to write articles for another website while you spend a lot of time and resources trying to grow your own site. While this notion may seem strange to some, experienced marketers and bloggers know that it’s one way of driving more organic traffic to your own site.

·      What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is when you write an article and post it on another blog or site. This practice can build relationships, establish authority, increase exposure, and gain more links. However, to earn all of these benefits, you need to create high-quality, compelling, relevant, and interesting content to help increase the host site’s authority.

Google Search Quality Ratings Guidelines released a statement saying that high-quality content consists of three strong indicators: expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT). These factors determine a website’s value, including its content. EAT can also affect rankings since it also has an impact on how search engines perceive a site’s content.

The Google guidelines also state the websites or webpages that offer no benefit, cause harm, or misinform the readers should have the lowest ranking. This means that Google can penalize sites that are not unique, don’t offer much value to users, or don’t create a good user experience.

·      What are the benefits of guest blogging?

As you can see, guest blogging is an effective way of generating more traffic to your own site.

Here are other benefits of guest posting.

1. Boosts brand awareness and exposure

One of the biggest benefits of guest blogging is it can boost brand awareness and get your business more exposure. This is especially true if you’re going to guest post on a site with a higher ranking. People who didn’t know about your brand will learn about it from a credible source, establishing your site’s authority in your niche.

Since guest blog posts are a great way to increase brand visibility, you should put a lot of effort into the content that you will write for them to make a great impact.

2. Establishes authority

Websites with a lot of followers have established authority in their respective niches. This means that people trust them and turn to them for relevant information. This is why if you guest post on a trusted site, this can establish authority for your site, too.

Creating trust on the internet is difficult. This is why you should consider guest blogging if you want more people to trust you.

3. Generates organic traffic

Guest posts can include links to the authors’ websites. This means that readers of the blog where you will guest post will also be able to access your site through the link you provided. This is how guest blogging can generate organic traffic for your site. A survey showed that websites can attract an average of up to 50 referral traffic per guest blog. An estimated 15% of the guest articles surveyed generated over 100 referral sessions, some of which got more than 500 visits from referral traffic.

Every time you post a new blog to another website, you’ll also attract new visitors to your website, which can potentially increase your conversion.

4. Adds fresh content

A lot of websites welcome guest blogging because it’s a way for them to get fresh, unique content for their audience. It’s like giving your audience a fresh perspective on certain topics. This is also something that appeases the search engine gods. Google and other search engines love fresh content because it enables them to provide up-to-date information to users.

Websites that allow guest posting reap the benefits of being on Google’s radar and being indexed regularly. This is why it’s important that you always provide relevant content that will increase user engagement and reduce bounce rates.

5. Earn backlinks

Backlinks are important in telling search engine bots that your and the host site’s blog pages contain valuable and credible information. This means that the more backlinks you have on your site, the higher the chances that you will rank higher on search engine results pages.

When choosing a site or blog to guest post on, you have to make sure they have quality backlinks, too, to ensure that posting on their site can boost your website ranking. They should also have good domain authority.

6. Improves your reputation

Guest blogging can help build your and the host site’s reputation as key industry players. Linking to a credible brand automatically considers you a reputable business, too. This is especially true if you guest post on a highly authoritative site. This brings in more traffic to your site and increases sales conversion. Aside from that, establishing a reputable image can invite other sites to guest post on your site, which further increases your customer base.

Guest blogging best practices

Guest blogging is a privilege that not everyone can have. To be able to gain a credible site or blog’s permission to guest post, you have to make sure that you have worthy content on your own site.

Take a look at the best guest blogging practices you need to take into heart.

1. Do your research.

Keep in mind that one size doesn’t fit all in guest blogging. Each blog is different. They have different rules and requirements from guest bloggers. Some may only allow niche topics, have limited word counts, or only accept submissions from other known bloggers or influencers with a certain number of followers.

Since you’re asking another site or blog to allow you to write on their site or blog, it’s important that you follow their rules. This is why you need to do your research before reaching out to that site or blog you’re eyeing on. It’s also wise to read their blogs first to know what kind of topics they discuss, what kind of audience do they cater to, what tone they are using, etc.

2. Be personal and direct with your pitch.

Once you’ve found the blogs you want to guest post on, contact the owner or content manager to ask permission. Keep in mind that asking permission to guest post on another blog or site is like selling your content to another company. So, you have to make sure that you offer value to the owner, editor, or content manager of the site.

You need to provide links to your own content. Tell them how many visits your posts have. Send them screenshots of social media of your posts as proof of engagement. If you’ve worked with known publishers, bloggers, or other sites in the past, it would be worthy to note them in your email. Make sure your letter is short and straightforward. Be sure that they know exactly who you are and what your company does.

3. Write content that offers value.

To reap the most benefits from guest blogging, you need to create shareable content that offers a lot of value to the host’s readers and yours. These include how-to guides, infographics, or e-books. These kinds of content may be time-consuming but they are they guarantee more engagement and then sales conversion.

It’s important to note though that the owner of the site you are guest posing on may ask you to revise the content you created to meet their publishing guidelines. You have to be ready for such situations. Keep in mind that you’re asking them a big favor in exchange for your author bio and backlink.

Bottom line

The benefits of guest blogging are undeniable. While the process can take some time, the benefits you are going to reap far outweigh all the obstacles that you need to go through first.

If you want to get more quality backlinks without any money involved, you need to create compelling content that will drive more traffic to your site and increase your revenues.