You’ve just written an amazing blog post. You think up a catchy title to get it noticed. You’re feeling mighty good about yourself. What do you do with that post now?
Most people would say publish it on your blog of course! But I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t.
You may be thinking: Sue, you’re crazy! Well, no I’m not. The truth is the optimal place for your best, most eloquent pieces of work is not on your own blog, but on other peoples’ blogs. I’m talking about guest posting.
Guest posting on other, well-known blogs has many (many!) benefits for you and your blog. Far more benefits than posting your best stuff on your own blog could ever bring.
Let’s Talk About Benefits
Guest posting allows you to build relationships
When you reach out to other bloggers about guest posting on their blog, it starts a relationship process. Just by contacting a popular blogger with an idea for a post allows you to introduce yourself. If the post is accepted, even better for you! You start building a relationship as you exchange emails and talk about content. Once your post is published, the host blogger will help promote your post, sharing on their own social media profiles.
This is the start of a beautiful reciprocal relationship. If your post does well, chances are the blogger will continue sharing posts from your own blog. And you should do the same in return. Popular bloggers are extremely influential; making them great people to count among your online friends.
It helps bring you more traffic
With guest posting, your goal is to post on blogs bigger than your own. Which is a great thing for you. Blog owners typically allow guest posters to include a short bio about themselves complete with a link. This gives you the potential to be seen by the blog’s entire audience.
So what should you link to? Well, you could include a link to your own blog. But better yet, include a link to a squeeze page that promotes something. It can be a link to a sales page for a specific product or service you have, or a landing page to subscribe to your email newsletter. No matter which you choose you have a greater chance of people seeing it when you include the link in your guest post bio.
Guest posting can increase your social media presence
In addition to linking back to your landing page, you can also include social media profiles in your bio. So if a reader likes your post, there’s a good chance he or she will check out your links and also follow you on social media to keep up with other posts you write.
I already mentioned that the host blogger will share your post on his or her social media profiles. If the blogger is well-known, he or she likely has a large following of interested people. Guest posting is a great way to easily increase your social media reach to more followers who are truly interested in what you write about.
It builds backlinks
I already mentioned that you will be able to add links in your bio. Not only is this great for getting new readers to your site, but it’s also great for raising your value in the search engine rankings.
Google has been known to put stock in sites that have more quality links directed to them. This is basically because the amount of backlinks your blog has indicates just how popular your site is. The more you guest post and get your links out there, the higher your search engine rankings may become.
Posting on other blogs raises your credibility
All this posting and building relationships also help to build your credibility. As trite as it may sound, if big-name bloggers start to trust you, others will believe you are trustworthy too.
Positive correlation or association with well-known bloggers and brand names is the cornerstone of credibility online. Someone who has written posts for high-traffic blogs will almost always be seen as credible just because they were featured in a blog that says they are.
If you’re thinking there is no way you can land a spot on the topmost blogs in your niche, don’t worry. You don’t have to start huge. Start with the smaller, but still popular, blogs and work your way up from there. Once you get started, your guest posting portfolio can only grow and go up.
Whether your goal is to meet influential bloggers, gain more blog traffic, increase your social media presence and influence, build quality links or even build on your niche authority, guest blogging can help you do all that. Start small by reaching out to bloggers in your niche, come up with stellar topics and always write quality posts.
