Guest posting, when done correctly, can be an extremely powerful marketing tool with benefits ranging from improved SEO to increased sales.
However, it's not as simple as just publishing your content on someone else's blog.
There are a lot of factors that go into making guest posting successful.
In this article, we'll break down 13 key benefits of guest posting and explain why each one is important.
We'll also provide tips on how you can make sure you're getting the most out of your guest posts.
So let's get started.
SEO Guest Posting Benefits
Build Quality and Natural Backlinks
If you want to get a high quality backlink, guest posting on a website with high domain authority, strong editorial standards, and a well-known brand name is a great way to do it.
The website owner will allow you to include a backlink in the author bio as well as a couple links within the body.
Backlinks are an essential component of search engine optimization and building a strong backlink profile can improve your organic traffic.
However, getting accepted onto high quality websites can be difficult because they are prone to ignore outreach or require a large body of work.
Many lower quality websites will accept your content for a fee, but sites that charge for guest posts are usually not the type of high quality websites that Google favors.
After you do outreach and get ignored or rejected by high end outlets, it can be tempting to go for these kinds of links.
However, it's better to focus on just getting one great guest post on an authority site, and then leverage that into more opportunities.
Building a system to do this is the best way to get the most out of your guest posting efforts.
Our system for teaching you how to guest post can help you get started.
Increase Brand Authority for SEO
Google trusts brands that have a history of creating quality content and interactions with their audience.
Consistently guest posting on authority sites is one way to build brand authority and improve your SEO.
This establishes your website as a credible source, strengthens your rankings, and makes it easier for your content to rank in Google searches.
In link building terms, a strong brand has lots of homepage links with branded anchor text.
A link from the bio of a guest post is usually a homepage link with a branded anchor text.
That's why guest posting and brand authority building for SEO go hand in hand.
By consistently creating high-quality content and interacting with your audience, you can build the kind of brand that Google trusts - and that will help you rank higher in search engine results.
Increase Topical Relevance
Guest posting is a great way to build your topical relevance and improve your website's ranking.
When you guest post on niche-relevant websites, your authority in that topic grows.
Over time, this makes your blog content more likely to rank higher.
The key is to stick to websites in your niche and not be tempted by less relevant opportunities.
If you're considering a guest post, ask yourself if it will help improve your topical relevance or if it will just muddy the waters of what your website is about.
Strengthen Your Online Authority
We talked about backlinks, brand authority and topical authority. All these combined lead to your strengthened online authority - partly thanks to guest posts.
If you can consistently land high quality guest posts, your high online authority will help all the content on your website rank higher and boost your traffic, leads and sales.
The important thing here is to be patience and focus on quality. It's easy to go out today and buy 100 guest posts from a vendor in an effort to improve your online authority.
Even though your number of backlinks and third party domain authority metrics might go up - your standing in Google probably won't.
Focus on getting high quality backlinks through building relationship with bloggers and avoid easy tricks.
Boost Rankings
If you want to improve your rankings on Google, guest posting on high-quality websites is a great way to do it.
Backlinks are a major ranking factor for Google, and in competitive industries, they can help show which content is more relevant to a particular keyword.
However, if you don't execute your guest post correctly, it could hurt your rankings just as easily.
If you're only guest posting for the sake of the backlink, chances are that you haven't invested much into making the content unique or valuable to the audience.
Additionally, if you're mostly paying bloggers to publish your guest posts, Google may discount the value of those links.
As recently as October 2022, Google's SpamBrain documentation noted how spammy guest post links could be discounted.
However, if you focus on guest posting for quality sites, there are still plenty of great ranking benefits to be had.
Sales Benefits of Guest Posting
Bring in New Audiences
Most blogs will share their newly published content across their social media channel, have the article on the homepage for a while and sometimes blast the article to their newsletter.
If this content is your guest post then you get the benefit of this exposure.
However, most guest posts don't get any special treatment by the editor and its hard to stand out on busy blogs.
If you plan on submitting a high quality piece of content, consider speaking with the editor about what makes your content especially noteworthy and why they should take extra care to promote it to their audience.
Generate Qualified Leads
If you're strategic about the type of websites you target - you can also generate qualified leads from your guest posts.
For example, if you're a B2B company that sells to small businesses - look for guest posting opportunities on popular small business websites and blogs.
When you reach out to the website owner or editor - let them know about the unique expertise you have that makes you the perfect person to write for their website.
Not only will this help you get your foot in the door - but it will also give you an opportunity to share a taste of what you do with their audience and generate leads that are already interested in what you have to offer.
In exchange for your valuable content, you can ask the website owner if they're open to including a call-to-action (CTA) in your guest post that leads to a landing page on your website.
This is a great way to generate qualified leads from your guest posts without being too salesy or pushy.
If the website owner isn't convinced, introduce them to the Value First Outreach framework and offer some offpage value to his business, the same as they're doing for you.
Build Your Email List
Another one of the benefits of guest posting is that it can help you grow your email list.
Similar to generating qualified leads, if you're strategic about the type of websites you target - you can use your guest posts to build your email list.
For example, if you write a guest post for a popular website in your industry - you can include a CTA at the end of the post that leads to a free resource on your website.
In exchange for the free resource, you can ask the website visitor to sign up for your email list.
This is a great way to grow your email list with high quality leads that will be interested in hearing from you in the future.
Boost Referral Traffic
Guest posting allows you to publish your message and brand on websites that have significantly more authority and a larger audience than your own.
That alone doesn't guarantee referral traffic but if you can craft an article that speaks to the blog's audience and solve a problem they're having, a well placed contextual link or bio link can send you referral traffic for years.
Keep in mind that 90% of blog posts don't get any traffic from Google so ongoing referral traffic is the exception, not the norm.
To boost the chances of your guest post generating continuous traffic, the blog post needs to be SEO optimized for a high to medium traffic query and will probably need some backlinks to cement rankings.
Personal Benefits to Guest Posting
Network with Other Bloggers and Webmasters
Guest posting can help you build relationships with other bloggers and expand your reach.
To be successful, focus on producing high-quality content that is SEO optimized and gets traffic.
This will show potential guest post hosts that you are a skilled writer and worth working with.
From there, you can explore opportunities for collaborations, such as content sharing, social media promotion, and joint YouTube videos.
By forming these partnerships, you can create a powerful influencer network.
Grow Your Social Media Following
The benefits of guest posting don't stop at your website. In fact, they can also help increase your social media following.
Social media is a necessary part of any digital marketing strategy and as you begin to get more opportunities to guest post - you'll have an opportunity to share your work with a new audience and expand your social media reach.
The best part is, if you're strategic about the platforms you use - this can be a low cost or even free way to grow your social media following.
For example, if Instagram is important to your business - look for guest posting opportunities with websites that have a strong Instagram presence and offer to do an Instagram take over or post as part of your guest post.
You can also offer to do a Twitter thread or Facebook Lives - the options are endless and its a great way to get in front of a new audience without breaking the bank.
Improve Your Writing Skills
If you're serious about becoming a better writer - guest posting is a great way to get started.
Not only will you get practice writing on a variety of topics - but you'll also get feedback from editors and website owners on what works well and what needs improvement.
This feedback is invaluable and will help you hone your craft and become a better writer over time.
Plus, the more you write - the easier it will be to come up with new ideas and topics to write about in the future.
It also allows you to familiarize yourself with the rapidly revolving world of AI content assistance tools.
Your growing experienced combined with the efficiency of tools like WriterZen, Jasper and Surfer SEO will help keep you on the cutting edge of writing tech.
Expand Your Portfolio
If you're a freelance writer, marketer or entrepreneur - guest blogging is a great way to expand your portfolio of work.
As a freelancer, you can showcase the your previous work to attract new clients.
As a marketer or entrepreneur, guest posts are a great way to get your foot in the door of the next authority publication.
This goes back to the rule of focusing on creating one amazing guest post at a time.
That will open to the door to an even better publication and soon enough, any website would be happy to have you write for them.
Improves Credibility
As a writer or marketer, having a history of being published on well-respected websites can help you stand out from the competition and boost your credibility.
You can mention where you've been published on your Twitter bio or Linkedin profile, and display publisher logos on your website.
This will help show potential clients, users, and speaking engagement or media mention prospects that you're a credible source.
In Conclusion
Guest posting is a great way to get exposure, build relationships, improve your writing skills and expand your portfolio of work.
When done well, it can also help you boost your rankings, grow your email list and improve your credibility.
Keep these benefits in mind the next time you're looking for ways to grow your business or blog.
If you're looking for a high quality guest post partner who can find great publishers and write in your brand voice, check out our guest blogging service.
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