Guest Posting: Should You Do It?
Guest posting is the practice of writing informative content and pitching it to a different blog in the same niche to be posted there. Although at first it seems that another website benefits from your hard work, after some consideration many benefits emerge and make the practice worthwhile. However, not everyone can fully benefit from guest posting so let us consider who can fully take advantage of it.
First of all, the benefits of guest posting are many1. Many blog owners struggle to maintain their high ranking Google SERPs as well as gathering a strong following. Guest posting will give them instant access to another group of readers interested in the same niche and therefore the possibility of attracting new users. Furthermore, an indelible part of guest posting is the backlink which links back to your blog and attracts new traffic. With the new Penguin and Panda Updates, Google places a lot of importance on organic backlinks so the article will actually improve the ranking of your own blog. It is common practice to put a link and short description on your blog as well so that your regular readers can also see the article. Finally, guest posting helps you build strong relationships with fellow bloggers, which can be mutually beneficial.
These benefits are well worth the effort but a lot of guest posters are either not ready or they don’t take full advantage of the opportunity2. Mainly, they decide to do this without any clear goal posts or deadlines. They have not considered whether they want more followers, a greater mailing list, increases in traffic, greater sales, or anything different. Without any goal in mind they cannot tailor their article to accomplish its mission. Alternatively, some blogs may be better for selling merchandise while others are good at attracting readers, so setting goals can positively influence the choice of where to guest post.
The second most common reason some bloggers are not prepared for guest posting is that they do not have the facilities to accomplish their goals. Usually, guest posting involves backlinks, which ideally will attract visitors, but a huge surge of users can bring the site down and discourage any further traffic. Alternatively, linking back to your website should involve being added to a newsletter mailing list. This requires an easy-to-spot sign up space as well as denial of access for those that refuse.
Unfortunately, few topics can be addressed from an original point of view so guest posting can be useless if you cannot produce informative and never-before-seen content. It makes no sense to regurgitate what has been said because users will skim through it and your ranking might even suffer as a result. Even worse, the blog administrator could even refuse to publish it. Fantastic bloggers will look for unused synonyms and marginal points of view to build their argument and entertain with an interesting style.
It may seem obvious but guest posting will not be beneficial to somebody who has no website or blog. After all, the point of guest posting is to improve the traffic and rating of your personal website, not somebody else’s. It is quite easy to start a new blog and quickly develop it if you have quest posting opportunities.
Finally, guest posting isn’t beneficial to people who blog or write without any commercial gain. Guest posting can potentially secure more sales, improve your brand image, or attract freelancing contracts. Alternatively, a lot of blogs “feed” on ad revenue so increases in traffic are important issues. However, amateur blogs or websites are not strongly influenced by these parameters so guest posting for their writers will be less beneficial.
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