Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
Guest blogging is when you or another blog owner allows others to write content for a particular website. The trade-off is a link back to the author’s own website in order to help create backlinks to improve page ranking in Google.
This also helps build an online reputation.
It’s a popular symbiotic transaction on the Internet as it helps both parties develop each website without spending a single dime. It’s a practice that many search engine optimization experts use in order to help develop a client’s reputation to increase traffic.
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How Does Guest Blogging Work for the Website Owner?
The owner of the blog allows authors to write a piece of content with specific guidelines that will be posted on the site. This content usually fits the specific niche of the site and is often unpaid
While some website owners may opt to hire freelance writers that started from guest blogs, it’s not a common enough practice. However, sometimes a site owner will pay for guest posts. But, this is also pretty rare for guest blogging.
What are the benefits for a blog owner to allow guest blogging?
- Instant material relating to your niche
- Increases the material that is crawled by search engines
- Is free to obtain and post
- Increases overall popularity
Instant Content
Instead of spending money or the time to develop content, guest bloggers can work for you. These individuals create the content regarding your specific niche or topic adding to the amount of information your site has within its pages.
The more content your blog has, the more successful it becomes. Especially if your guests write about something you have yet to cover.
Every piece of content is one more search term you could rank for. Having as much, high-quality content as possible only works to benefit your site as a whole.
Increases Material Crawled by Search Engines
You can’t expect people to visit your site if there is nothing on it to read. If you have guest bloggers helping you develop that content, it gives more material for search engines to crawl and categorize.
I’ve also seen entire website domains increase in visibility by regularly publishing articles. This is because Google favors active websites for quality control.
However, you’ll want to make sure that the content is relevant to your niche. For example, you wouldn’t want guest posts about baby clothes if your blog is about boating.
Is Free to Obtain
While you could pay your guest bloggers, most will do it for free. It helps them develop their own site’s popularity. As long as you include a bio and a link back to the individual’s site, most will write your articles without asking for money.
For those who have busy lifestyles, this can be an excellent way to generate content. It can also free up some time for yourself to focus on other elements, such as fixing performance issues.
At any rate, you can’t go wrong with free content. Well, unless the guest writes something that is completely irrelevant to your site.
Increases Overall Popularity
The more activity your website has, the higher it will rank in search engines. Every time one of your posts is clicked or accessed in search results, it begins to move up the ranking system.
This is one of the reasons why you’d want a wide selection of articles. Some posts may simply not work as well as others.
With more content, you drive more visitors. With more visitors, you increase the chances of making money. As long as you have monetization methods in place, guest blogging can help you generate a great deal of income.
What Benefits Do Guest Bloggers Receive?
Although it seems like the blog owner gets the better half of the deal, the bloggers themselves receive a variety of rewards. You don’t merely write a page of content for a site owner and then be on your merry way.
In fact, some professionals view the time in writing such content as a valuable investment. What benefits do guest bloggers get when writing content for others?
- Relevant Backlinks
- Article Recognition for Reputation
- Increased overall popularity
Relevant Backlinks
Backlinks are not as useful as they once were, but they still hold a special place in Google.
In prior years, a simple link anywhere on the Internet could increase your pagerank quite easily. In today’s SEO practices, these links need to be relevant to the content.
For instance, a website about video games may rank poorly if it’s associated with dog food products. However, guest blogging on a gaming site would be considered a relevant link.
Recognition for Reputation
Many blogs will allow you to complete a short bio at the end of the blog to help develop a reputation as an expert in the field. However, this isn’t always the case.
For most blog sites, the author is identified as the person posting the guest post. For Google, this increases the author’s reputation instead of the person that actually wrote the article in the first place.
While this bio can still help identify you as the true person writing the piece, it may not work as intended in order to increase your profile in Google and other search engines.
For many, it’s all about notoriety for creating a piece of content. And if the website is crawled regularly, the author’s name can easily be found by searching.
Increased Overall Popularity
The more relevant links are back to your blog, the more professional your site is categorized in search engines such as Google. In a way, it’s like being recognized as an expert as the content is cited more often than competing pages.
Backlinks can still be of great benefit for development as long as the links are coming from sources that are similar to your blog’s niche. It’s kind of like giving a vote to a website that has good material.
How Do You Become a Guest Blogger?
Guest blogging isn’t all that difficult to get into, as long as you have some great ideas and can get website owners to respond to your inquiries.
To start guest blogging:
- Found a website you want to write for that is relevant to your own.
- Take a look at what the website has to offer and come up with some pitch ideas.
- Create an email pitch and try to contact the site owner, editor, or another staff member.
- Add at least three ideas for blog posts you would like to write and send the email.
- Write an amazing piece of content and treat the owner with high respect. You never know if the site owner can connect you with others who may need your content.
A lot of websites will already have a system set up for guest blogging. One method that works exceptionally well is by search for “guest blogging” + “niche” in Google.
For example, I found several websites accepting posts after searching for “guest blogging freelance writing.”
Another term that might help in Google is using, “write for us.”
Add Some Guest Blogging to Your Marketing Campaigns
Guest blogging can be a great way to share your website with others. As long as you focus on writing for sites that have considerable more visitors than your own, you could drive additional traffic.
The links used in guest blogging give your site a boost from both people and search engines. If you’re a blog owner, it will help you build the site without spending your own time to develop the material.
It’s a win, win situation where everyone benefits from the articles that are created.
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