FYI: One year after this post was published, we decided to launch the community of guest bloggers for people interested in guest blogging. So please go ahead and join: MyBlogGuest
(photo by insunlight)
New Audience: Guest posting will open up your blog to a new audience that may not have previously read your work. As long as you write something that catches their interest, they will curiously click through to your blog to see what else you have to offer.
More RSS Subscribers: Once they click through to your blog, if visitors find information that is either informative, entertaining and/or useful, they will most likely subscribe to your RSS feed to see what you are going to publish in the future. Keep in mind that in order to draw visitors (and potential RSS subscribers) to your blog, you need to write an amazing guest post that piques their interest.
Win-Win Situation: When it comes to guest blogging, both bloggers benefit from this arrangement. The guest blogger gets to expose their content to a new audience, while the other blogger gets a great free piece of exclusive content to publish.
Networking: Since a good guest blogger should be replying to reader comments, this is a great opportunity to start conversations with new readers. Not only can you establish new relationships through comments, but other people’s thoughts can also be a great tool for thinking of new topics for your future posts.
Fresh Perspective: If you are normally a solo blogger, then having a guest blogger is a great way to add a fresh perspective to your blog. This works even better if the guest blogger has a slightly different area of expertise that they can share with your readers.
(photo by morphyne)
Different Social Networks and Reach: Each of the bloggers may utilize different social networks, and have varying amounts of reach on each one. For example, my main social networks are on Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Blog Catalogue. Although I don’t have the strongest presence on Digg, I can work with a guest blogger that does (but doesn’t necessarily have a strong StumbleUpon profile). Since we will both be trying to promote each guest post through our various social networks, our combined efforts will give our content a farther reach.
This combined effort creates what I like to call “Social Media Synergy”. If you want to see “Social Media Synergy” in action, just check your analytics program a day or two after guest posting, and I know that you will be happy with the increase in traffic that you see.
Link Building: Although this last one is pretty obvious, it’s definitely a nice benefit of guest posting. Like my bio below, you can include some information about yourself (along with a link or two back to your blog and website), and this will provide you with a quality backlink to help your SEO efforts.
If you know of other benefits of guest posting, please let Ann and I know by leaving a comment!
This is a guest post by Gerald Weber. Gerald is the President and Founder of Search Engine Marketing Group, which is a leading search engine marketing and web development firm in Houston, TX. Gerald also maintains an Houston SEO blog.
*I would like to give a special thanks to Ann for not only introducing me to the concept of guest blogging, but for also being kind enough to allow me to write a post for her wonderful blog!
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As a previous guest blogger on SEOSmarty, I can safely say that its an excellent way to reach new audiences. Although I was known in the Seomoz circle of people, I wasnt to the general SEo crowd, when the post went hot and got picked up by others, more and more people interacted with me over time!
http://www.twitter.com/rishil
@Rishil, yeah, we’ve had some great time then!
@Rishil,
Thanks Rishil I’ll be sure to check out your articles. I’m following you on Twitter now. 😉
I also think that guest blogging helps increase your authority. Think about it–if other bloggers are willing to let you contribute a post to their blog, it sends readers the message that you’re respected in the industry and you have something of value to add.
@Eric,
Excellent point and well said. I completely agree with you.
Gerald: you are so right on. Writing new guest posts is one of my top priorities. For me, one of the other benefits is that I’m a professional writer, so I can write guest posts pretty quickly. Conversely, doing basic PR requires a lot of energy for me. SO guest posting is actually an easier, more fun, and more rewarding way for me to spread the word about my site. PLUS I love connecting with other bloggers.
@Alisa,
The FUN! is actually one of the best things about guest posting. I’m sure being a professional writer is certainly a bonus for you as well.
How do you go about getting invited to guest post? Do you just straight out offer?
Thanks for the informative article!
Nice post and I certainly agree. But under what criteria a blogger has to accept guest blogging?
Guest Posting is welcome on Bloghology Social Network. The only exclusive network for Bloggers and companies related to the Blogosphere. Connect, share, post with other Bloggers and Merchants globally
Hi Ann – I’ve thought a lot about guest posting. There are lots of blogs I’d like to guest post on. It’s getting the time to do it that’s the problem.
@Tracy,
Pretty much just ask yes.
@Raghavan,
There really are no hard and fast rules. There is no situation that a blogger MUST accept a guest post. It’s just a matter of networking really.
These are great points on the value of guest posting 🙂 A definite must do for all bloggers 🙂
@WebSuccessDiva Blog Marketing
Thanks for commenting. I have been reading your blog lately as well. You have a lot of great stuff there. I’ll see you around. 😉
Guest blogging is quickly replacing article marketing as my preferred method for building links. The downside is that not every niche has a plethora of blogs with bloggers open to guest blogging submissions. It does seem to be great for writing, internet marketing, and blogs about blogging though.
The only thing that concerns me about this is – links. Google has made us so nervous that ….
Otherwise – yeah – guest blogging is a great way to reach out to new audience besides building authority and getting some well earned traffic.
You are very true with your statement
Ya it,s true. Your points like New Audience, networkin and Social media are very important for every blogger.
Guest posting on other blogs is a great way to reach a new market. Make sure you use anchor text when linking to your website.
This makes perfect sense. So how does one provide a guest post? Would I target blogs that I am interested in writing for – similar to approaching a magazine with an article idea? Or do I have to wait for an invitation from bloggers to provide a guest post?
I think one of the most overlooked advantages of guest posting is the opportunity to improve your writing by getting fresh feedback. Your regular blog readers are used to your writing style and obviously are happy with it. When you expose your work to a new audience, you get the opinions of people who may have never seen your previous work, so they can give you an unbiased review of your writing.
Thank you for some good statements about the reasons and I can agree to these. I am fairly new in this business and have been taken by surprise how fast you get connected to networks filled with solid information.
Let me just add, though, that when you start guest posting, be sure your post is reflective of your personality, your public views or your life. Make sure what you are saying is something you would say on your blog, if you are guest posting for the main purpose of promoting your blog. These posts come up in searches. You can learn an awful lot about a person by their guest commenting. For example, you probably don’t want your political views to be first in line when someone google’s you unless your blog is about politics and/or you are already outspoken about your political views.
I couldn’t agree more! Thank You for pointing out seven wonderful reasons why everyone should leave a comment on a blog. Like you mentioned its always a “Win-Win” Strategy.
Great advice, I’d love to do some more guest blogging soon – especially on sites focused on executive audiences.
Great reasons there!
Actually, I think it is more of a Win-win-win solution – You win, the owner of the blog wins, and his readers win!
Really love the point guest blogging brings you new perspective of your blog. Writing in the same niche day by day in most cases will soon bore and burn out me. That’s when I should read post on other different niche blogs and do some guest blogging.
Thanks, I really agree, understood… great points of view and I learn about blogging, cause I’m new.
Lia
Very interesting.noted your seven reasons and convinced thanks
Really this great Post, Thank you SEO Smarty. I am not totally agreed with your point of view. Guest blogging is nice work but Only quality and useful information post can give you advantage.
Nice informative post… Thank you Ann Smarty. I agree with you. Social networking and Social media are very important for getting New Audience.
Haven’t really fully realized the potential of guest blogging until I read about this. I mean I know it creates a win-win situation but I could might as well look into this more seriously. It really helps expand your audience and helps build authority.
If you are willing to buy real estate, you would have to get the loans. Furthermore, my father all the time takes a sba loan, which occurs to be really fast.
Haven’t really fully realized the potential of guest blogging until I read about this. I mean I know it creates a win-win situation but I could might as well look into this more seriously. It really helps expand your audience and helps build authority
Thanks for changing my thoughts, coz before reading this post, I was thinking why should I work for some other blog without any direct favor for me. But now I know it is needed to make my blog reachable to audience. Thanks for this killer post!.
keep blogging!
Regards,
Arrghhh.. need to find some idea for my blog.
Just started reading up on guest posting today and I had never considered the additional “network reach”. Great point. You can get readers and get your articles picked up by an entirely new set of people.
wow all those garments are so amazing and fabulous I don’t come to your blog as often as I would like, but whenever I do I see some really amazing things keep up the good work! =)
Great piece!
Sometimes people focus on their businesses and do not take the time to do those things that help their business in the long run, such as guest posting.
This is a must read for every online entrepreneur!
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing. I agree with this post. All your reasons are very true especially with the win-win situation. You can guarantee that you will definitely benefit from it aside from the other one who will benefit as well. Guest posting is like reaching thousands of readers that will one day be your regular reader as well.
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What a cool post. I especially love the image with the stage and the big audience. That really brought home just how powerful guest blogging can be!
It’s sometimes easy to forget that there are all those people out there when I’m sitting at home typing away on my computer. But they ARE out there.
Checking the web stats sometimes does help, but that image really inspired me.
And the other 6 reasons too, of course.
Thanks!
The idea is not new and still working after such a big number of updates. So it’s worth to do!
I am actually trying to get people to guest blog on my site. It’s like swimming through mud. These are the people who don’t even have that many visitors…You can’t give things away for free sometimes..
Is this seen as an ok thing to do or do people just think your are spamming there blog?
Hi,
Great home work you have done Gerald, really glad that you are talented person and have good knowledge of search engine optimization, you are right about guest posting, now guest posting is the fastest way to generate high quality of back link on authority domain and high page rank website. I will remember your tips. Keep it up and share more.
Thank
Kamran
Thank you for sharing some info regarding guest posting. I am not expert at all in any social media trends but hearing different opinion from Matts – Google’s expert I’m really confused. What I do know when the blog is unbiased it is so much pleasure to thank the author for his info. If it helps SEO or SEm I have no idea as nobody shares some statistics. But to learn what is right is always helpful. Thanks again.
That’s why I am still with guest blogging. After Matt Cutts prediction, everyone is feeling afraid. But I don’t think there won’t be any problem if we do guest post for branding and exposures. Not for creating authoritative backlinks.
So, thanks a lot for inspiring us to guest post.