What is guest blogging or guest author and what are its advantages?
Do you know what Guest Blogging is and everything it can do for your project?
If you have a blog, guest blogging is a strategy that you should at least consider, as it can help you enhance your content strategy, work on link building and your SEO positioning, and benefit from the different synergies that may arise with this. type of collaborations.
Let’s see together what it is, what are the advantages it brings, and some important tips to keep in mind to make a good collaboration or Guest post, whether you receive guests or if you are a guest author.
Table of Contents
What is Guest Blogging?
Guest Blogging or guest author is a very common method or practice in the modern blogosphere, which consists of inviting other bloggers to write their articles on our blog. That is, it is when a person offers or is invited to write a post of their own authorship on a third party’s blog.
This technique is currently widely used both by those guest authors who seek to increase their visibility, professional prestige and reputation on the Internet, as well as by the owners of those blogs who try to offer more quantity and variety of quality content to attract more traffic and/or or diversity of readers.
What are the benefits of guest blogging or guest posting for the guest author?
1. Build a good relationship with other bloggers
Collaborations create new bonds and connections.
And thanks to this proximity, strong ties can be created with some of them and interesting synergies such as invitations to events, sharing your content on networks, mentioning you on other channels…
2. A guest post promotes more exposure
Participating as a guest author on other blogs makes it easier to make yourself known and reach new readers (and/or potential customers) who might otherwise never have had the opportunity to meet you.
3. Strengthen your personal and professional brand (Branding)
Related to the previous point. Thanks to the extra visibility that guest blogging gives you, your image and reputation begin to be greatly reinforced. The branding of your brand is strengthened.
Many of the readers of the blog/website in which you collaborate will begin to learn about your work and your professional skills thanks to the content you publish.
So, over time, those people will also see you as a successful blogger or an authority on the topics you talk about in your posts (which is why it is very important to write on websites directly or indirectly related to your target or target audience).
4. Encourage reciprocal writing or collaboration
It is a fact that if you have written a post for another blog and the relationship that has been forged with the blogger who owns it is good, he will also have a better predisposition when it comes to collaborating on yours.
In other words, an ideal scenario is created for cooperation or the exchange of quality content (but in a more natural and advantageous way for both parties).
5. Diversify the sources of traffic to your blog
Your guest posts will help you get more qualified traffic to your own blog, because the reader who enjoyed your content will be more likely to go looking for more information.
It is not that we are talking about an extraordinary figure, but at the end of the month they add up to a not insignificant amount of qualified or quality traffic.
6. Attract more followers to your social media profiles
As you may have seen, your articles on other blogs include a signature with a BIO or description and the social profiles in which you are active.
In other words, guest blogging will make it easier for other people outside of your online community to also have the opportunity to follow or connect with you.
So, if what you contribute is of good quality, you will have a significant increase in followers interested in sharing your other content.
7. A guest post improves your writing skills
Writing regularly on other websites, as well as your own blog, will also give you a chance to practice and improve your professional writing skills.
8. Extra income possibilities
Writing articles on your blog, and other blogs or online magazines, is also a great way to position yourself as a professional writer of reference. That way, you may also be able to get another source of income or earn money by creating content for other companies or communication agencies.
9. Get more leads
As I explained in points two and three, the visibility and prestige that these collaborations bring you can favor obtaining more potential clients interested in hiring your professional services.
What are the advantages of Guest Blogging when you are the one who receives a guest author?
1. You can offer content more regularly
Keeping your blog updated is very rewarding. But regularly creating quality content also requires a lot of time, dedication and perseverance.
Allowing other bloggers to publish articles from time to time on your blog will give you the opportunity to relax and/or focus for a while on other important aspects of your business or professional activity.
2. Guest Blogging allows you to publish more variety of topics and content
Guest blogging can add a little more variety to your blog, which most of your readers will probably welcome.
Having different authors also means having the opportunity to publish articles with different topics, different perspectives or points of view and different writing styles, preventing your blog from becoming a boring place.
3. Build strong relationships with other bloggers
As I have explained before, this practice allows both parties (host and guest) to have the opportunity to create relationships, ties or alliances between bloggers.
4. Increase traffic and the number of readers
If our guest blogger has a relative prestige and a good base of fans or followers, it is most likely that they will come to your blog to read their contributions. The most immediate result of this action is the natural increase in traffic and the number of readers.
5. It helps you capture more audience diversity
Related to the previous point. By increasing the number of new readers, who come to read the guest posts, the opportunities to attract new subscribers are also amplified.
In this way, thanks to a wider audience, our traffic and online reputation will be further enhanced.
6. Increase your followers on social networks
As we explained in points 4 and 5, by having more new visitors thanks to guest blogging, we will also have the possibility of attracting more followers to our profiles on social networks.
How to find blogs that accept Guest Blogging?
There are several strategies to find blogs that accept guest posting.
1. Google search operators
There are search commands in Google that offer you very precise results.
Simply, you have to write the topic that interests you in brackets, and in quotes, the keywords that are commonly used on websites that receive guest authors.
For example:
[marketing] “write for us”
[marketing] “guest post”
[marketing] “guest author”
[ marketing] “guest post” [marketing] “guest
article”
[marketing] inurl:guide guest post
2. Search on social networks like Twitter or LinkedIn
It is common to use the hashtag or the keywords “Guest Article”, “guest post” and the like. In this sense, Twitter and LinkedIn can help you easily find blogs open to collaborations.
3. Use specific Guest Blogging platforms
Like, for example, Post Market, a platform where you can search for guest authors or offer yourself to other blogs.
4. Use existing lists
Before you he had this need and after he has shared and his knowledge. You just have to ask Google to provide you with lists of blogs in your sector that accept guest posting.
5. Networking
Connecting with professionals in your sector often generates very enriching synergies and collaborations.
Use the power of social media to build professional relationships.
Guest Blogging and link building: what about the links included in guest posts?
This is important both for the guest author and for the owner of the blog in which the guest blogging takes place.
Google penalizes practices related to Spam and SEO, which encourage the construction of forced or unnatural links. You may have also heard Matt Cutts say that for this reason Google can penalize your guest blogging.
But, beware! Although this is totally real and it can happen to you, I think you shouldn’t take it so literally.
Let me explain, the search engine sees with very bad eyes and punishes articles that are forced, written by spammers or of poor quality (very short, +/- repeated, on topics that have nothing to do with yours, with poorly constructed links , from networks that market these posts or links, etc.).
In other words, if you don’t want to have problems, just accept or write original and quality posts . Also, never include more than two or three of your own links in those guest posts and do not all point to the same URL (diversify).
The anchor text or anchor text (the visible word in a hyperlink), the more natural, relevant and coherent the better (do not put that text thinking only of SEO).
As the owner of the website, do not link with bloggers who are not trustworthy or who may be selling or buying links, because if they are penalized they could negatively influence your blog (when in doubt, better take care of your health and use the relative attribute) . =“nofollow” on those links).
So, for us to understand each other better, guest blogging is not dead… What is dead is the misuse that was given to it in matters purely related to SEO positioning.
Well done guest blogging is an excellent way to work on your link building strategy.
How to be a better guest blogger?
- Study the style and theme of the site you are going to post on.
- Make sure to write articles with more than 1000 words, because shorter posts run the risk of being considered as Spam by Google.
- Deliver original content, avoid duplicate articles.
- Share high quality professional content and rule out too much self-promotion.
- Skip the use of keyword-enriched anchor text for SEO and don’t abuse links.
- Use more viral titles that can increase the CTR.
- Have a good BIO and profile photo prepared, adapted to the requirements of that blog.
Mainly, don’t post anything you wouldn’t also post on your own blog. - Share the post on your social networks.
- Be attentive to comments and respond to them quickly enough.
Conclusion:
As I explained at the beginning, the benefits of guest blogging are much more than just thinking about SEO. It is a very interesting option to expand your audience and the recognition of your brand.
So, if you want to participate as a guest writer, be sure to read the guide that Berto has prepared for us: How to get a guest post on a well-known blog?