Marc Guberti
Since the beginning of 2014, there has been an ongoing debate about whether guest blogging is still a good way to increase blog traffic. On January 28, 2014, Google said that any attempts to get spammy backlinks by writing guest posts would no longer work. Since this statement, some guest bloggers have stopped writing guest posts because headlines such as “Guest Blogging Is Dead” have appeared more often around the web.
On the contrary, guest blogging is alive and well. There are still people who are utilizing it properly and writing for popular blogs. The guest blogs that allow people to write guest posts are still sending out numerous posts every day. If you are not writing guest posts, you definitely should, and here are five reasons why you should do so.
#1: You get backlinks
One of the important takeaways from Google’s statement is that spammy backlinks that you get by writing guest posts would no longer work. When Google says spammy, that’s referring to you writing on a guest blog completely out of your niche. Spammy backlinks refers to something such as you having a social media blog and guest blogging on a fashion blog. The two topics are completely different.
The quality backlinks from guest posts, the ones on guest blogs related to your niche, are still valuable. The person with the social media blog would want to write on guest blogs about social media such as Business2Community and Social Media Today. When you write your bio for your accounts on these guest blogs, be sure to include a backlink to your main blog.
#2: You get your content in front of a large audience
When I was struggling to get 100 daily visitors, I often wrote guest posts on Business2Community. Writing these guest posts allowed more people to know about me because I was writing to a larger audience. Business2Community is a blog that gets thousands of daily visitors. Business2Community boasts an Alexa rank under 3,000 and a bounce rate under 40%.
Every guest post I put up on Business2Community got shared over 100 times. Getting shared this many times allowed more people to see my content. Some of these people scrolled down to my bio and visited my blog.
#3: You can get more blog traffic
The people who like your guest post may decide to go to your bio and read your blog. This is the common association between guest blogging and getting more traffic for your own blog. However, there are more ways to get traffic from your blog posts.
One method of getting more traffic for your guest posts is by including links to the content on your main blog throughout the content of your guest post. For some guest blogs, including a link here and there to your blog posts won’t be any trouble, but you should check the rules of writing guest posts before implementing this strategy.
Whether you can implement the first method or not, you are getting another backlink for your blog. Backlinks are still very valuable for SEO, and most of the successful blogs that get thousands of daily visitors are getting that traffic from SEO. These blogs also happen to have thousands of backlinks, and that is not a coincidence.
#4: You can get more subscribers
There are many guest blogs that allow users to write a bio, and the first three lines of that bio appear at the bottom of every guest post. If the guest blog you are writing on permits you to do this, you should tell your readers about a free prize. That free prize, whether a video or a guidebook, should be related to the guest post you just wrote.
With this in mind, your guest posts should be geared towards the free prize that you already offer. When you write these guest posts, be sure to get them to at least 1,000 words. Writing longer blog posts makes someone read your content longer, and the longer someone reads your content (as long as your content is valuable), the more content that person wants from you.
Your guidebook or video that you tell them about in the three lines that appear at the bottom of every guest post will be the content that they want. When someone clicks on the link, send that person to a landing page. Entering an email address will give that person the ability to read more of your content, and you will have another person on your list.
#5: You will become a better writer
In order to be the blogger who people come back to again and again, you need to produce valuable content. Writing more guest posts will allow you to get more practice in. The great thing about writing is that there is always room for improvement. You can be a phenomenal writer, but it is even possible for the best writers in your niche to get better.
By getting more practice with your guest posts, it will be easier for you to write valuable content on your blog as well as any books that you may write in the future. Writing is a powerful skill for dominating the web, and many people utilize it. Whether writing takes the form of a blog post or an email, it is a big factor towards success on the web.
In Conclusion
Guest blogging is alive and well. In addition, now is the perfect time to utilize guest blogging. There are numerous guest blogs in your niche that are waiting for contributors like you to submit content. You should strive to write one guest post each week so you can become a better writer and get your content in front of multiple audiences.
Some of these audiences will consist of hundreds of people while other audiences will consist of thousands of people. However, getting quality backlinks for your blog will help your blog posts rank better on SEO and get more traffic. Guest blogging is the perfect win-win because you get your content in front of people, you get the quality backlink, and the person who owns the guest blog gets more content.
Are you a guest blogger, and if not, do you plan on becoming one?
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