Guest blogging is riding high right now and the whole Internet Marketing sphere is buzzing with talk about it. Some people consider guest blogging to be one of the more powerful of available tactics, while others disparage this viewpoint, saying that guest blogging is highly misunderstood and that people are misusing it.
In my honest opinion, both mindsets are correct. I recently did a cartoon post on my blog discussing (in a humorous style) how guest blogging is powerful and how it is misused by many who have failed to understand the scope of awesomeness in this practice we call guest blogging.
Guest blogging is, indeed, one of the powerful ways of building strong, high-quality relationships that may help you in multiple ways, including developing business opportunities and professional connections, setting brand value and, of course, acquisition of link juice.
But, there are many people in the industry who aren't grasping the real worth of guest blogging. They tend to view guest blogging as just another link building tactic. Because of this, they continue to build low quality content for submission to blogs that accept guest posting. Sadly, I estimate that one out of ten blogs actually publishes this junk, polluting the web with garbage.
Discussion about guest blogging as a relationship development tool vs. guest blogging as yet another vehicle for mere linkbuilding is all over the web. What makes this post different from others is that I will provide case studies and success stories to back my opinion of the real potentials of this practice.
Let’s cut the theory part and talk about the real figures! Properly executed, guest blogging can help you:
Build Relationships
So many blogs state this, but I remember when I wrote my first ever guest post. Very few people tweeted it and I wasn’t able to make any good connections out of it. I was a newbie, and didn't play my part well.
There is another common industry phrase that states, ‘Building relationships takes time’. If I merge these two phrases, it reads something like this.
Guest blogging helps you build relationships, and as it takes time, you should be consistent in your activities.
Let's hear what blogging and SEO expert, Kristi Hines, has to say about building relationships through guest blogging:
Words from Kristi Hines:
"I've built great blogging relationships through guest posting on other blogs as well as inviting others to guest post on my own. The strongest relationships you will build with other blogs are the ones on sites where you contribute regularly vs. submitting one-off posts."
Submitting a single guest post isn't enough. If you intend to forge a relationship, then your job doesn’t end with submitting your post. Plan to interact with the audience (usually through the comments) and follow up with the blog owner or editor to see how your guest post did. This will prove that you aren't just another link builder; you actually care about the community. Who knows? This might open their doors for you to a future of more guest posting opportunities and even partnerships in other areas.
Social Media Examiner is one example from my own guest blogging experience of building relationships through guest blogging. They treat all of their writers as a part of their team. They organize meet-ups at blogging conferences like New Media Expo (formerly BlogWorld), they include you in their roundup posts when your expertise matches the roundup topic, and they always offer to help you in any way they can. I've met a lot of great people through their community and even gained some clients for my freelance writing business, which is always a plus.
Become An Expert
Guest blogging can act as your doorway to gaining status as an expert in your field. The more in-depth, well-researched posts you publish on authoritative blogs, the more chances you will get to communicate and interact with people. Over time, you can become an authority in eyes of your target audience.
That's advice you'll read everywhere, but let's gain deeper insight from the words of guest blogging queen, Ann Smarty, about her journey towards the respect she has earned in the industry:
Words from Ann Smarty
"It somehow happened without me trying too much. I started blogging and was invited to guest post at Search Engine Journal. I didn't even know what a guest post was and was too humble to even include an "About author" page. Then guest posting invites kept coming. I saw traffic and more people recognizing me as an expert. I saw the benefit! So I started guest blogging actively. Then the idea of MyBlogGuest was born and my name became associated with "guest blogging" because of it. I started to guest post even more promoting MyBlogGuest. It was promoted 100% with my guest posts: no paid reviews, no ads, just "free" guest posts. And it started growing! I guess that's the best evidence of the benefits of guest blogging."
Discover Business Opportunities
This is the most delicious bite in the whole meal. Yes! With proper implementation, guest blogging surfaces new business opportunities. Don't laugh. I know it works. Rather than quoting an expert here, I'll share my own personal experience.
My last post on SEOmoz was about writing an email in a way that gets a better rate of response and it went very well. I danced twice; once when my post got promoted to the main blog and again when I received this message in my SEOmoz private message box:
While I can't reveal all the details of this message, I think it proves my point. In fact, I have received several emails like this after guest blogging elsewhere.
If you've tried guest posting without achieving this kind of success, keep the following tips in mind:
When attempting to attract business, nothing matters more than the quality of your offering. Your submission must accurately showcase your level of expertise in your field.
If you want to see traffic flowing towards your website from your efforts, you must produce the best post ever (I really mean this) on your topic and submit it to a high quality blog. Be sure your website is ready to welcome the new traffic. Make sure it's as awesome as your guest post!
Capture A Wider Audience
It's generally accepted that the more targeted traffic your website captures, the greater the chance of a high conversion rate.
The formula for a blogger is pretty much the same, but the question becomes one of how to reach that target audience. Again, enter guest blogging!
Thanks to SEOmoz for coming up with this post analytics feature on their blog. I am again highlighting a previous guest posts on SEOmoz and showing you my stats.
Around 3,016 people actually visited my post’s page and average time of their stay on the page is around 4 minutes and 20 seconds (enough time to read and comment on the post).
I am sure that if I had published my post on my own blog, I would not have gotten the same amount of traffic. My limited audience and smaller circle of influence cannot compare to that of SEOmoz (obviously). Through guest blogging, I had the chance capture a wider audience and make an impression on new people.
Moreover, a good guest post can win more blog and Twitter followers. I've noticed how my followers have quickly increased whenever I've had a post published on one of the major SEO blogs.
Retaining these followers is a completely different story, but as far as the increase in followers is concerned, I consider this one of the best gifts guest blogging offers.
...And Get The Link!
Let's not forget linkbuilding. The highest quality links will come from submitting your best content to the best blogs publishing in your niche.
My blog is in its infancy - only two months old. I currently have a Google PR of 3 and DA of almost 35. Most of my incoming links are the result of guest blogging.
I should add that I've been guest blogging for more than a year now, long before I launched my personal blog, so I haven’t been doing it for the purpose of linkbuilding, nor do I recommend this approach.
Within a few months, I achieved a reasonably good DA and Google PR score because I was getting links from valuable sites. Check out this screenshot of my link profile in OSE to see what I mean:
For me, guest blogging is fun and it provides a chance to enhance communication as well as my interpersonal skills. It also pushes me to read more and think outside-the-box to come up with something really amazing for guest post content.
If you want to enjoy all the benefits of guest blogging mentioned above, then just think creatively and put together the best (BEST ever) article for guest posting.
About the Author:
Moosa Hemani is a SEO Strategist and blogger at SETalks.com. SETalks recently launched a Guest Posting Services to help clients build high quality relationships within their targeted niches. Like this Article? Like SETalks on facebook.
Great points - there are so many tactics that aren't really good or bad, by themselves. They're bad because people take a low-value approach. I might not have an SEO career right now without YOUmoz, and 5 years later I'm blogging professionally, making 6 figures, staying home with to spend time with my kids, and have the best job I've ever had. If someone tells me guest blogging is a waste of time, I just laugh and cash more checks.
Thank you for the comment sir!
I guess most people cannot (don’t know how to) take this in the longer run and that’s why they find it a waste of time… but I always believe if you know how to go with guest blogging and how to maintain your image then you can easily be the next Dr. Pete :)
Thank you! I think because guest blogging has gotten popular SEO's are quick to think that it's spammy or something. Anything can be spammy. On the other hand, even popular spammy tactics can be extremely beneficial. Directory submissions for example are pretty spammy nowadays, but if I have the opportunity to get inside a popular industry directory like TopSEO's (for example), you bet I'm going to do it.
Nice post Moosa, guest blogging is must for the branding our firm. Your examples and research is excellent to understand benefits of guest blogging, i think it becomes necessary in todays marketing world. I am also doing guest posting and i can see traffic increment of my website. It is qualitative technique of getting link for our website. I am agreed with your word that if we published our post in our own blog, we would not have gotten the same amount of traffic.
I believe link is just a small part of it… I see guest blogging as a way to expose your brand in front of the wider audience and earn respect from them! It is similar to awareness programmers that brands do in ground marketing through their ATL and BTL activities!
Glad that you like the post sir!
Ya, exactly moosa guest blogging for others is that it increases exposure while at the same time helping us build brand. for example if you wrote a blog on your own blog it might be gives you 200 visitors instead of guest post it gives you 2000 visitors truth is your name exposed more visitors. So i believe it is one of the most powerful way of today marketing. Thanks moosa, for this useful post +1 from me.
Assuming you know what you're talking about, you're very right, Moosa! Too many spammers though!
One of the reasons guest blogging works so well is the relationship building aspect of it. If you ask someone to guest blog, they are getting something out of it as well as you. It also works extremely well in promoting through social media because there is a certain assumed trust that if you post a guest blog it will be good, and if you promote it as a guest blog it will attract more people. Obviously this is not always the case, but if your site didn't have the authority in the first place then you are not attracting high quality guest bloggers.
Building relationship with your niche bloggers helps in your good post being shared as a resource. But i would never write a post to get a link. Never.
No doubt. Putting a lot of effort in guest posting, then inserting that EMAT anywhere the body could spell trouble for most guest posters. The links-to-rank system is in a death timer, and is a strategy no longer viable in the long run.
I agree. Any SEO "strategy can be abused, guest blogging is no exception. You need to find that balance between building your brand, links and traffic and guest blogging does that perfectly. Also perfect for relationship building.
I can't agree to your point more "Guest blogging helps you build relationships, and as it takes time, you should be consistent in your activities." Indeed the goodness of Guest posting can not be overstated but it is only rightly attained when you outreach for the perfect place and you that constantly.
I think not only guest posting but any activity where branding is involved, consistency is the queen. I mean you cannot come to me the other day and say I did a guest post 3 days back and still no business lead out of it!
Consistency is the thing that is going to enjoy all the benefits mentioned above.
Building the relationship is one end of guest blogging. In the "spam spectrum" of guest blogging, that would appear to be on the squeeky clean side. But I love how you mention that we shouldn't forget about the link. Lets just be real here and say most SEO's still very much care about the link, even the ones claiming to be as white-hat as possible.
I don’t see any problem with the link… I mean if you are really passing your best content to a 3rd part website and in against of that all you are getting is 1 or 2 link pointing back to your website is fine…
Most people when talk about guest blogging usually forget link and talk all about building relationship… but IMHO, we need to be a little more real when talking about this… link is also a part of it and we should not hesitate discussing about it!
Great article! The hardest part is that you can write the best guest blog post, but if the pitch email isn't genuine or well thought out, none of your efforts will matter. Any tips on perfecting the pitch email with industry bloggers that you have no previous relationship with? Thanks again!
I'd say interact on their blog a little first. Get a feeling for the blog owners style so you can understand how to interact with them. Maybe they have a super sarcastic tone. A good starter might be something sarcastic. "Yeah so cars, I hear you like them or something. I mean I own three that I know about...". If they are more authoritative, show them you are the expert in the field. Maybe test their knowledge.
Renee I did write a post on SEOmoz only that discusses how to write an email that get a better rate of response! I guess this is exactly that you are looking for!
Hi Moosa, interesting perspectives on guest blogging. I think it's good that you mention being an expert. Being the expert is going to create even more opportunity for links and guest blogging. If you know what you're talking about and you've built the relationships you've described, it's only natural that you're going to create a situation where your new content snowballs into a shared experience and great natural links.
my point sir! :)
Something I've seen - guest blogging promotes you more as a guest blogger. I've done a few and now have been asked to do more. The gist of it is "you guestblogged for X and that went well. Wish to write one for us?" Sure! :)
I love guest blogging (and I should write a few YouMoz posts now and again.)
We know exactly what you mean. Have you been working with the rel=author tag yet? I'm interested in talking w/ some people who are really pushing it to see if they're getting the same results as we are.
I have truly always believed this to be true. When you build a relationship with another blogger you get so much more out of that relationship than just the opportunity to post once on their blog.
There are additional links that happen... There a mentions... Inclusions in other opportunities...
Completely agree... I'm glad that SEOMoz is pushing the relationship side of guest posting...
Thanks
Ryan H.
Not only all this, but guest blogging is a great way to learn about and interact with a new audience. I have learned a thing or two about my own site this way!
Dan Glad that you learn a bit or two about this from your blog… I believe more is waiting for you and you can unlock this all from the key called consistency!
Congrats on getting your post promoted from YOUmoz to the main blog! I'm a huge advocate of guest blogging - I've seen a lot of people do really well from it. As others say, however - don't abuse it. Build important relationships and you'll go far!
Hello Mossa,
Really a nice post!!!!
Another great advantage of guest blogging for others is that it increases your exposure while at the same time helping you build your brand. For example, let’s say you wrote a guest post on a blog with 20,000 visitors daily and your guest post was viewed 5,000 times. Even though you might not get more than 300 visitors to your blog from that guest post the truth is your name has just been exposed to 5,000 more people. When this keeps going on and on you will start seeing more people visit your blog or website because they’ve seen your name online enough times to make them curious about what you have to offer.
I think you have made up your name with this post.
Awesome!!! Keep the good work on.... Thanks
Guest blogging is always a great idea. I cannot see why there should be any negative aspects of guest blogging.
You promote yourself and your site, while contributing to the community - that looks like a win/win situation for me.
Couldn't agree more. I'd hate to see guest blogging treated like the old profile links did. It should be all about building relationships as you say, building a reputation and building trust and most of all high quality content. Not crappy might as well of been spun articles flooding our internet. You want people to share your blogs. If done correctly and properly you can probably even use them as an alternative traffic function!
I have a sort of hobby blog, it's been running for 14 years. Nowadays I have scrapped the forums on there and replaced them with blogs, I encourage members of the site to write their own articles, which I do the quality control on. I reach out to other established bloggers giving them a chance to extend their reach.
I don't write for too many other people, there simply isn't the time, but i do make my house open so that the people who create good content do so on my site.
Nice post Moosa! Am glad that you've come up with your own blog so now people exactly know where to find you except seomoz and twitter ;)
Glad that you like the post!... The blog is up for few months now... so yes its good for me to get some decent following for my own blog... but i don't think i will stop writing for this awesome community built by Rand and his team! :)
There's no doubt that guest blogging is one of those ways to expose your professional name to new eyes. I always like to see guest blogging as a more engaging matter. I mean blogging is one thing that can help your website, but partnership is the next goal. Guest blogging can also be the perfect proving grounds for an upcoming partnership.
in my opinion this is how Guest Blogging should be treated...
Hello Moosa, thanks for sharing great facts and tips on Guest Blogging. :) I complete agree with your techniques, it is more effective in accordance to new updates and amendments in link building. Guest Blogging is more in trend because it is correct procedure to build relationship and gain popularity on web. These tips will be more useful to me as an encouragement to do good practice and implementation on blogs. Thanks again!
Thanks for the great post, it makes me think back to the question are we SEO's or Content Marketers. Sometimes SEO can be too much about a quick link, but if your team / company is structured right guest posting like this can build relationships and have much greater long term benefits.
+1 I agree but sometimes I feel like we're quick to put people into two categories, spammers or brand builders. There is no doubt that there's a gray area and I think both SEO's and Content Marketers can be one in the same. Build your brand, get your link and develop partnerships, you can have it all!
Let's be honest, not exactly anything new here in the article, but a good read nonetheless. Guest blogging can definitely be powerful if executed right.
Thanks for Reading… Like the honest comment you come up with… but let’s just be honest again for a moment and agree on the point that the data which is available in order to prove the theory is hard to find!
Hey I have an article 500 words long and it is unique. Wanna publish this in your website, just want to get a link back.
Yeah, Guest Blogging has finally come to this thanks to some of the SEO gurus. Once believed to be a mean to gain some visitors, is now being treated as another form of article marketing. people are spinning articles, adding zero value to users experience and the blog owners are happy to publish these types of articles because it helps them earn some revenues from adsense program.
It is about sharing your views, establishing yourself as an authority and get some new clients ;)
To be very honest I am aware of it but I don’t care about it… If you are outreaching to a low quality blog for guest posting then you cannot enjoy the above benefits anyways… you need to hit the best get the above benefits and best usually never turn on lames!
On one hand, you can't put all those people offering you content into the same spam bucket, many guest bloggers that reach out like that are perfectly legitimate. Just look at HiveHealthMedia.com and Business2Community.com. They were BUILT by guest bloggers in this same fashion and they put out some excellent stuff.
I would agree with you though, many have taken guest blogging to a whole different level. Spammers gonna spam!
That’s true.. spammers will continue doing their shit and Google will kill them in the coming days (the BIG G is getting smarter very quickly)
All we have to focus on actionable content that make lot of sense to the targeted audience. I like the example of Business2Community here!
Good post. But it seems tough to reach at best websites to publish contents (of-course, the content is a unique and quality content as yours) for various industry. Most of them started to ask money for it.
In the mean time, Ann Smarty came with the idea MyBlogGuest that was a great way to communicate with bloggers, but she or her team is not so active on it which provided a bad experience to me on it. And, I created a group on facebook that works great than this. So my approach is that if Ann can make that platform more fast and moderate the bloggers with more care, it would be a great help to the current trends.
Thanks Moosa for the post.. keep it up :)
I guess relying on one platform only might not help too much but why not try multiple platforms.. there are other platforms like Bloggers Linkup, Post Joint and more... so you can always try multiple platform to get quality feedback!
This a good straightforward article. I am having trouble finding blogs for the very niche market I work in. Not only that I wouldn't even consider myself an expert in that market. I am not the content writer, but I manage the writers, who aren't experts either. Can you suggest any resources to help me create this remarkable content. I work for myself, and am paid independently to be the SEO manager. The content team is on retainer and paid separately and have no urgency in thinking outside the box.
Melen, I am not sure what exactly you are looking for but if you need resources that help you build an awesome content then I would prefer to spend some time in to QnAs and forums where your niche market is… you will find questions, problems and trend in your industry and then build your content around them.
In my opinion the best content for any industry is the one that allow readers to perform some action or get knowledgeable insight about their problems and questions…
Hope this helps!
Thanks for this article.Now a days, guest blogging is becoming a best method to get back links and also to increase traffice source to site.So thanks for sharing this informative content with us.
On a practical note, I find that most of the guest blogging examples on SEO Moz are SEO related, where the product you're selling is yourself and the audience is other SEO's.
How would you deal with a B2B customer selling a highly technical product?
WOW! This is a tough one…
Well with B2B I guess branding is more important… I think conversions though guest blogging for B2B site is difficult (especially if you are selling anything highly technical). What’s important is that you find the right blogs where your audience is available and spend time writing quality content, interact with the community and get famous within your community as an expert... this might take time but returns can be industry leadership and some awesome conversions out of it!
Inspiring article. I just started guest blogging and am very happy with the response. After your guest post is live and it is a follow back link, how long does it take for you to see the backlink appear in OSE?
OSE's index is a little small so i am not sure if it will display all of your links...also Open site explorer updates once a month (i guess) so you have to wait for their next update to see the increase in links and all...
Good article Moosahemani :).
understood the benefits. but its more better if you come up with some sample guest posts means what instructions should follow & what are the things avoided while posting.
Sorry, what's DA? I understand Google PR is PageRank but DA?
domain authority
Jill Domain Authority is similar to Page Rank but the point is page rank updates not very frequently where as DA updates every month…
For instance, if a website has page rank of 5 but they recently remove all their previous links (there can be several reasons for that), logically the Page Rank should go down but it will go down after the next update… so it’s better to use DA as an indicator as it updates every month and update more frequently than a PR of Google.
Great piece of advice. While I was trusting guest posting less and less, this article convinced me to go for high quality guest posting rather than high quantity low quality guest posts.
It is always good to be softly guided back to the reality of why we do SEO, to get people to convert. Yes the links are good, but it's people we really want to catch the attention of.
really nice and great sharing, appreciated
"The strongest relationships you will build with other blogs are the ones on sites where you contribute regularly vs. submitting one-off posts."
I completely agree with Kristi on this one. The best and stronger relationships are the ones that happen time and time again. I would never turn down a one-off post on a great blog, but you should always try to make it a repeat thing.
100% correct, when you do guest blogging you concern more about blog which you are going to post your blog post.
Nice article. Guest blogging is becoming like reciprocal linking for some - send out a generic, poorly written email to as many people as possible and hope that somebody publishes a poor quality article with a link back to a poor quality site. It is still valid if done correctly however and all depends on the quality of the article and website.
I agree with most of what has been said here but a slight disagreement on the point "Write your BEST content for guest blogging".
While I agree that getting published in top notch blogs will require writing excellent content, but I believe the BEST content should be reserved for your own blog/website. Because while submitting great content on well known blogs can be an effective way to build your brand with the community, the end goal is always to establish your own blog as an expert blog and hence build a brand in the process as well.
Moosa@
I totally agree with your points, apart from ranking, guest posting is great help to create a healthy relation as well. It also authenticate a website.
I'm sure this should make sense to a lot of people
Hi Moosa,
Thanks for the great post! Its great to read about something new when it comes to guest blogging besides the tried and true step-by-step process. Also, it helps to be reminded why guest posting is so important beyond getting that initial link. Thanks for all the great advice and keep it coming.
I'm curious with this statement:
"Most of my incoming links are the result of guest blogging."
As it seems the majority of decent blogs only allow for links in the bio area, how do you get the incoming links ? Are they from people who operate blogs / sites and place a link to you within their site ? I assume so - you are guest blogging to generate relationships.
Hey Moosa! I like your personal quote written on your website that is "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about" Just love it. Also thanks for this worth reading post. I am working on my custom assignments website and I do Guest Blogging for it.
Hi Moosa! Thanks for your efforts. I would say Guest blogging is one of the most potential white hat SEO tactics to generate quality Backlinks. I am also doing guest blogging for my website since a few months. Even though I have gone through a couple of bad experiences by sending my articles in order to get it reviewed. However I regain my content after a long messy discussion with those blogger who had published my articles without attribute. Well I learned a lot of things with my bad experiences but still I love to do Guest Blogging.
Thanks for the information, it has been very useful since I was looking for information on the subject and at last I could find something interesting
That´s right! A guest post provides a fresh voice and attracts attention from people. It helps in publicizing the blog/website at a bigger level. If the guest who posts is an expert in the field, then it makes it all the more interesting for the readers to engage with the article posted. With various techniques being adopted towards increasing web traffic in the cyber era, introducing guest posting to your website or blog as a regular feature could help you increase is popularity in the following ways. The best is that you Build Relationships! Thats true!
Guest blogging is a sure shot ways to build quality back links and targeted traffic if we used to get people attention instead of only aiming to get links. We should use link diversity in order to make it natural look.
Guest Blogging is very helpful. It helps in connecting to wider audience, sharing of thoughts & opinion. If by chance your post solves someone problem then it leads to relationship building as well.
How often do you guest blog on other people websites?
Great post. There are literally three very distinct schools of thought with guest blogging: linkbuilding and referral traffic vs. relationship marketing vs. content marketing and branding.
Busily establishing yourself in the blogsphere, it is easy to forget that the purpose behind the frantic tweeting and blogging is to develop relationships in the communities. Thanks for the timely reminder!
Hi Moosa, Guest blogging is a excellent, but for some extent, totally depending upon it, will be not good for the website....nice article.
Excellent post.In present days Guest blog posting has become the essential part of online marketing because guest post is the best way to Get Quality Traffic & build relationship etc.You are right at the point that the most important thing in guest posting is the quality content.
I run www.noyelling.com.au and we've had a great deal of success with the guest posting and content outreach we've done to date - mainly for the purpose of building solid links.
Best and most ballsy example (that I thought was a very long shot..) was getting a post on Techcrunch for something unrelated to the core of our business - it's a driving school - see https://techcrunch.com/2012/04/02/add-a-cool-linen-background-to-google-docs/
We had a lot of spin-off interviews and guest posts that resulted purely from achieving a post on Techcrunch.
The whole experience has directly influenced how we go about SEO, and we now take an approach that is geared much more to 'content marketing'.
Very good post. Though guest blogging is aimed at SEO, link building should not be the only aim. Yes - creating relations with the users through the valuable contents should be the primary objective.
This is some great information. Guest blogging has been on my list for about a year now and I still haven’t gotten around to it. I really should!
Roger, feel free to edit anything that you want to edit on my last comment. I want to be sure I am within your guidelines.
Guest blogging is a great way to interact and supply expert feed back for others to hear, then wanting to check out your website to read more educational or expert content. I get the idea. However it makes me a little nervous allowing someone else to post a guest post in my blog because what if they are posting duplicate content from somewhere else. Would my website get penalized? Possibly there is a tool to check for duplicate content, prior to the owner publishing guest posts, or is that not necessary?
The company I work for offers compliant credit card relief services, they are A+ rated with the BBB, so we have to be careful with what goes on at our website.
The last thing that I would want to do, is invite a guest blogger who posts duplicate feedback on our blog and then we get penalized. My boss would not be happy.
However on the same token our goal is to grow our community and invite other experts in to contribute.
Can anyone help me on the question regarding "allowing someone to post guest posts on my website, but what if that person was to post duplicate content that they copied from somewhere else?"
Could this hurt our rankings.
Any feedback?
Also, on the other side of the coin, if I was to post expert information as a guest post regarding credit card debt relief on a high profile blog like entrepreneur.com, where would I put my author information? A site like that does not provide you with the option to put your URL in the signature. Would you guys recommend me using a service like https://disqus.com/?
Any feedback on this?
The best thing that we have going for us is that before I post anything on our blog, I have it reviewed by one of the attorneys that work with Golden Financial Services where I work. They provide me with all accurate and the most current information in the industry, so the content that I write is filled with expert information and accurate details, where if consumers do visit the site, they are leaving informed. I just need to make sure that I understand these few questions regarding guest posting.
I am also working to grow this other blog at goldenfs.org which is the other website that I work on, but for the same company of course, and I will be looking for more contributors that have extensive experience in the financial services field. Let me know if anyone would be interested in posting guests posts.
Thanks a lot for your help over here guys. I follow this blog every day for the last several months and it is awesome. I look forward to hearing a few responses.
If anyone want to guest blog on my website, https://seomasterplace.com, please contact me, address is on my website.
Very, very helpful. Thanks, Moosa!
Just when you think there couldn't be another post on guest blogging here we are... Although many of the fundamental are repeated I still found this resourceful as a piece of content. Just shows that guest blogging is still and has always been very relevant.
Great sharing on the benefit of guest blogging.
With Panda and penguin today, its best we do it the correct way and appropriate way where it take time and commitment to produce a high quality content.
It's also to increase credibility online. readers will view guest authors as experts.
Great insights.
People are finally coming to the same conclusion about blogging and guest blogging that applies to the rest of the business world - putting actual effort into the process is a good thing! I'm delighted. Nothing's more annoying than junk blogs and junk blog comments. This post is a great example of worthwhile content that comes from actual experience and real research. I appreciate the screenshots and statistics.
Weed out the SEO cheaters!
Thanks Lindsey, Glad you like it!
I guess the approach of blogging and guest blogging is same in my opinion from day one it’s about engagement but some people are abusing it by using it for shitty link building purposes… Thanks to Panda and Penguin who are working hard on killing the low quality stuff from the internet…
Glad you actually noticed that data snapshots… In my opinion Data is the only thing by which you can challenge even Matt Cutts to re consider his decision (on anything in general where you think he is wrong).
Veru nice post Moosa :)
Great post dude, quite clear and well written for someone with an in-adequate knowledge about guest posting to understand. Thumbs Up!!!
Thanks Glenn, hope it was a good help for you!
Hey Moosa!
A lot of people who are trying guest blogging, at least during the initial stages underestimate the importance of trying to build relationships. Building long term relationships is one of the key things for making guest blogging a success.
Consistency is another thing that is very important in guest blogging and I think you have really highlighted that well.
End of the day, nothing ever comes easy and one needs to put in a lot of effort & hard work and especially be consistent in their efforts to make guest blogging a success.
Cheers,Anindita
I like that you mention the part of how easy or difficult it is.. I think relationship is always easy and natural to REAL people but if you are going to play like a bot it will be much more difficult for you because smart people usually do not get bluff by the bots…
A great article
Killer post,
I'm still pretty blown away at reaching a good PR and DA score with just guest posting. Was it that your blog articles received a ton of traffic and were located on great (high PR) sites? I just started a gist news site and I am having troubles but thankfully I follow seomoz. Thanks for your reply! P.S. I'm not kidding when I say I've learning everything I know from your site. Keep up the good work!
Good post. I get quite a few requests for guest bloggers on my blog and if their content is a match I tend to agree to let them submit a post. Your point about building a lasting relationship is very true. Most guest bloggers are just looking for a quick back link and they are gone to the next blog. This is very disconcerting because there seems to be no interest in the reaction their topic got and the traffic it generated.
I guess consistency is really important if you are looking for some people to recognize you in the industry...with one guest post on one blog might give you some positive spike in traffic and rankings but if you are really looking for business branding or (self branding) consistency and quality should be the two keywords for you!
Thanks for launching that service. Will you have a filter to separate quality and picky guest blog options rather than blogs who would accept any guest post?
When you talk about enjoying all the benefits mentioned above... then filters are necessary... like anything!
filters can be relevancy, quality of a blog when the post is going live, engagement of targeted audience on the blog, subscriber ratio, DA and few others...
Good post, just like anything else, there's the lazy way to do it which won't get you much but crappy content on crappy sites. Then there's the harder (rewarding) way writing great content for authority sites, where the payoff is.
Holy Words David!... Most people when say Guest Blogging is getting abused... they usually means from the link perspective... but there is lot other than just link which cannot be win by writing low quality content on crappy sites...
In my personal opinion... there are no shortcuts, easy ways when all you want is a REAL success...
I think guest blogging has become so saturated these days, that the reverse is more true: you need to build a relationship FIRST before you can start guest blogging, which of course can strengthen that relationship. Rarely, unless you already are a stud in your niche, can you land a guest post in a popular blog (unless they readily accept it from anyone)
Great point Henley and for most blogs this is true…
But I guess there can a different post on how to get started with guest blogging! In my opinion there are many people on twitter and other platforms looking for quality writes… I am not saying all are great opportunities but few of them really are…
You can start with a mediocre place and then your quality of content can take you to where ever you want… my believe!
To get on a reputable blog, what you're saying is absolutely true, no doubt.
Great post indeed. I started getting into the guest blogging game recently, and just this week submitted my first guest post. However, I'm struggling a bit to decide which content is best for guest posting and what is best for my company's own blog page? Any advice?
Buzzstream posted this "What Should I Write About?" guide yesterday, which hopefully is helpful to you. Google Trends can be a great tool to see what is the breaking news around your niche.
I'm also reminded of Ian Lurie's great post on "Random Affinities" - the idea that what you can write about isn't limited solely by your niche or sector.
Hope this helps!
Tom I guess Ben's question was about what to put in the guest blogging and what content to put in as his own blog... its a little confusing...and i think Moosa tried to answer this in the comment below...
Hard call Ben!
Honestly what I do is I only focus on highest quality content and when I write couple of posts I select two best posts (according to my team) and put it in the guest blogging column… rest is the food of my blog :)
Ben, I think this really depends on:
A couple examples:
My last point, is probably the simplest and most important way to decide. Just figure out whether it seems worth it financially for your company. Writing great content takes time, and you should be able to assign some monetary value to that time. Just sit down and take a look at your guest posting opportunities and ask yourself would you pay X amount for this opportunity? If not, just place it on your company blog.
I believe this is a complete and comprehensive answer to Ben's question!
Thanks you Dan for this!
Thanks for the responses Dan, Tom, Moosa, and bhomes. Very helpful.
Hey Moosa nice post once again but i want to say one thing you always promote or write about guest posting, Yes you are right guest posting has some value but there is lot more things which we should consider, and love to see if you write except guest blogging :)
I am not a guest blogger but yes i wrote some posts in social media blogs and i agree with you on this point "I had the chance capture a wider audience and make an impression on new people." because after guest post i received couple of emails who are looking for my services, and for this thing Guest blogging is one of the best technique..
J Actually I write about Guest blogging more these days may be because it is highly misunderstood… I got to know when I actually started offering this service publically… people have lot of misunderstanding of how this whole thing works!
About other stuff i guess i am writing continuously about other stuff on SETalks.com so you can always check that for more... :)
Great post.
There's no doubt that the biggest advantage of Guest Blogging is the relationships it can create.
This leads to long term benefits for both author and publisher. As time goes on there is no doubt this is going to become more and more important. Authorship will be the big thing in 2013. Getting your content seen on quality sites, with proper authorship references will ensure you get the credit you deserve!
Excellent guest post Moosahemani. A guest post about guest posting on SEOmoz. Hey, isn't that recursive?:-) Your post has inspired me to author and submit a guest post to YouMoz. Earning visibility, follows/fans/blog subscribers/authoritative links make it motivational especially in a post-Penguin/Panda world. I agree that get the benefits, quality and relevance absolutely matter. Thanks for sharing your results which will no doubt inspire other like-minded marketers to take action on Guest Blogging in a way that positions them as an expert while earning valuable and ongoing reach.
appreciate you comment Rick! glad you like it!
That's really cool that you've actually generated business from your guest blogging, two-for-one. I had a similar experience when I posted a powerful comment on Jil Whalen's Google+ post.
"Hi Matt,
I found you because you posted on Jill Whalens SEO site. The fact that you follow her makes me feel good about contacting you...."
And the email goes on to ask about my website optimization services. I thought I share that as a testimony to publishing as an industry expert as you have.
@moosahemani, I have a question for you that has been on mind. Guest blogging as part of content marketing has done well for me, but should location diversity be part of my strategy? As in, should I be careful not to publish too many guest blogs in the UK when I'm trying to target the United States?
Matt its very much depends upon the behavior of your targeted audience and niche... if you are an online store that is in the clothing line then you should focus blogs that are US based if UK is not your target... but for a industry like SEO at the moment this is not a BIG problem in my personal opinion...People in SEO industry are too much connected that location hardly matters...
Even when you are selecting a topic for a blog behavior of your targeted audience should be considered as important.
Great, thanks for the tip
Considering we're talking about relevancy quite a lot here.
Personally, if you're targeting the US, I'd target US based sites.
A few in the UK couldn't hurt, but they might not be as effective as guest posting on relevant, local sites!
This depend Sam, for instance if you have an SEO website...and you are writing on State of Search or Econsultancy (famous UK blogs) it will help you alot because they are equally authoritative as any famous blog is US...
But yes when you talk about travel industry for instance... location matters the most...
Really liked this article Moosa. Would love to know your thoughts on whether or not you find yourself having to delicately approach anchor text when you do blogging outreach. Have you ever created an article that a blog partner loved, but they asked you to change your anchor text?
To be honest I don’t much focused on having a optimized (keyword based)anchor text... if a blog owner have a problem with my anchor text, he might not have a problem with my brand name ...no? I think having a brand name is important in the longer run with the mix of some optimized keywords that looks natural.
I like your concept to build relationship with blogger network. Guest blogging is really great way to get strong backlink from authorized blog website and promote business.
I guess what you really need to consider is to give more importance to promoting business, building relationship instead of thinking too much about a link!
"I estimate that one out of ten blogs actually publishes this junk, polluting the web with garbage." -- I agree with this comment.
I am not a fan of myguestblog.com as my experience is the guest bloggers are not professional writers, though I did publish two articles from them before I abandoned that idea. My girlfriend published a number of articles from myguestblog.com, and her page rankings dropped noticeably. When my friend asked me to look at her sight to help determine the problems, I pointed out the grammar and punctuation errors and otherwise less than optimal content she had published from myguestblog.com.
In guest blogging, one must carefully consider where content is expected to be published. I made the mistake of guest blogging only to find myself surrounded by poor content, which did nothing to support my credibility as a writer.
Amazing writers may better serve their objectives by posting their work on their own websites, and then socially market themselves to deserving websites.
Amazing writers may better serve their objectives by posting their work on their own websites… I tend to disagree this statment! I believe if you are really am amazing writer who know what you are talking about (regardless of any niche) you will defiantly going to find some awesome blogs where you can write your quality posts…
As discussed earlier, there are good blogs as well as some not really good blogs available in the sphere… all you have to do is to find good blogs, build relationship with the bloggers and write for your audience and not for a link only!
Awesome Post Mossa. I agree your point of view and Research. I am doing Guest Post blogging Last 4 Years this is the best way to get backlink from other sites and these backlinks relevancy and quality are awesome and there is no spam. I like your one points to much which is One Guest blogging Post is Sufficient if you attract the audience, Yes i agree with you One post is sufficient if you get the audience.(Like Mashable, Searchengineland and SEOmoz also).
Thanks Once again Mossa for sharing wonderful post with us.
Nice post and congrats on getting promoted to the regular SEOMoz blog. It's kind of funny in a way. Your post is a Guest Post, about Guest Posting ;-)
Thanks! :) Yeah it is kind of funny but the fact that most people are getting it wrong actually made me write this...
Hi Moosa, Great post. As every one know that Content is King. But by having a quality useful content is useless unless it reaches its target audience and Guest Blogging is the best way to reach your Niche audience.
Like you write this content and you haven't published it on your blog cause might be you don't have much visitors as compare to SEOMOZ. By your this contribution you get links and your target audience. SEOMOZ get quality content for their visitors and we all visitors get value able information about industry.
So what happen? You are happy, SEOMOZ are happy, We(Visitors) are happy and the end Google is happy too and he rank your this post and blog higher than before. So Guest Posting is the key to success.
Thanks for reading it Nouman! I am actually a fan of Tad Chef so i don't care much about Google but agree with the point that...this weapon, if used correctly can create a win win situation for everyone! :)
The problem can be sometimes that you are not an industry expert. I think a great solution is to pay an industry experts (especially one with a blog) to write about a topic on your behalf and therefore stick your company name alongside their content. That way you are providing industry leading content along with exposure to your company.
Guest posts are becoming more and more grey in my opinion.People have found their way to manipulate it, and it's their fault we are about to lose this handy resource too :(
In my opinion almost every technique can be used as gray and that’s why I usually used the phrase… If done correctly.
If you are going to use this to manipulate Google SERPs may be you get a win in the short run but slowly and gradually you will see Google will kill you in the longer run! But if you are going to do this correctly you will witness business growth and promotion through this.
It depends likely on the source. I mean, guest posts here in SEOMoz blogs are top notch the site stores their content (and the writer's URL, too). Google wouldn't penalize a reputable company with www.seomoz.com in its domain, right?
Moosa,
Thanks for putting together such an informative post on this important topic. My company has been putting a lot of effort into "content based marketing" and Guest blogging is something we are starting to focus on. I am going to forward this to our marketing manager to make sure that she gets more than just link building out of the exercise.
Thanks again!
Well done.
Thanks for appreciating my efforts... and also best of luck for the service that have started offer!
It is called wonderful guest post and the best points, that you brought out.I may guess, your efforts behind your guest blogging and beyond this post. It's just awesome, really bro you've done things very nicely and with a different style.It was the first time, I think that I'm impressed with an article on guest blogging.Thanks for your article bro.
Good post...and extremely timely considering guest posting is becoming a nuisance for a lot of blog owners out there.
I came across this post, from a blogger who doesn't really care about the SEO side of things (imagine that), about the annoyance of guest posting offers, let alone from someone with a fake email address ... https://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/2012/10/02/a-gmail-address-with-a-fake-name-wont-cut-it-for-guest-posting/
There's no point trying to chase a guest post on a blog if it doesn't have any merit, or it came up in a Google Alert.
Less SEO mentality; more relationship building.
'RO' or 'relationship optimisation', perhaps? ;)
Moosa,
Great writeup, but I do not believe what you have provided adds value (and I am sorry to be the "naysayer"). Right now at least - and not to say what you have provided is irrelevant - the problem is that people are now using the Guest blogging option as the "new" article marketing...
Unfortunately the tactics you describe here are pretty much old school, albeit relevant - however the problem arises with the abusers of such an option - and then the option becomes a system which in turn leads to the article marketing type scenario.
The reason I say this is I have or get countless offers to guest post on my sites - and for the un -initiated they may think this is great, but those that are smart enough discover the sites via whois, as opposed to SERPs or even being industry involved.....
So to prevent the next G punishment what do we do? .....
Andre
Thanks Andrevw for this comment.. Trust me if there was something like start comment of the post type of system I world have given that to you for this!
Yes, I am not living in the dreamy world so I do have an idea of how people are using guest blogging as a article marketing typo scenario…but I guess every tactics in the world have their dark side!
The reasons I really have hope with the white area of guest blogging is because this cannot be abused by one side… I myself is a blogger and turn down 100s of guest blogging request that I know will not add any value to my blog!
If bloggers become more responsible and focus on quality over the quantity then I am sure the gray part of it can really go down…
If you are guest posting on any tom, dick and harry websites then you should have a fear of Google but if you target are highly authority sites then no Google is going to hurt you any time sooner!
Your guest blogging activity should not stand around Google but it should really stand around people… your targeted audience and once you will start doing that you will see conversions and traffic coming to your website even without Google!
Matt Cutts recently hinted that they determine the work put in on a guest post by the number of words.. Hence it is likely that longer guest posts with more words are passing more link juice from links in them.. I would suggest using atleast 600-700 words as a starting benchmark for a guest post.
Honestly words limit doesn’t make any sense to me if the idea is amazing and interesting! If your idea take 2000 words go for it but if the idea can be connived within 500 words why go further?
Thanks for reminding me that guest blogging is ultimately about connecting with the right audience in the right place, and the link acquired is merely a welcome bonus.
Guest blogging is still a link building tactic which ever way you look at it otherwise what is the point in doing it?? In the vein hope that a business opportunity might come of it?? This along with all the talk that good content will improve SEO etc doesn't escape the fact of what SEO'ers are trying to do...getting businesses to page one for certain keywords. Following up with the blog owner or editor to make out you're not just doing the guest blog for link building (when you are!) is just as disingenuous as paying a webmaster for a link..Google has changes the tactics but the end game remains the same.
Hello Hancock!
Thanks for your comment but I have to disagree you here!
Actually the reason I include the link part is because I think it as an important part but saying that this is the only thing why one should invest in to guest blogging is narrow mind! I guess we all need to think a little broader perspective of it and test things accordingly.
You have mentioned all the advantages of guest blogging.This is a great way of making new relationships with other bloggers and the people who comment on your article.A lot of bloggers also appreciate those who guest blog on their site so it really creates a good relationship between bloggers aside from increasing much traffic to your site.i believe guest blogging is now the best form of promoting your blog both for free traffic and backlinks.Apart from backlinks, you can expect receiving some instant traffic to your blog from links that are placed in your guest post.Mostly traffic that you will be getting from guest posts will be high quality and engaging. With increase in traffic numbers, you can expect gradual improvement in your blog subscribers which are available on your blog in the form of RSS Feed, Email Subscribe, Facebook Like and Twitter Follow etc.
I'm a freelance SEO copywriter, and guest blogging is my favourite task. The challenge of writing on a wide range of subjects is completely unique, and I always feel driven to produce top-quality work so that I represent my client well. Guest blogging is an excellent showcase for good content, and you are completely right in saying that cheap content does nothing to promote a brand. Thanks for this: shared and linked!
If you are really a creative writer and in to Guest Blogging then the best thing you will notice is that you get to understand the nature of different industries and how people react to things in different businesses.
Another positive aspect of guest blogging, from a reader's POV, is the content usually comes with Quality. As a writer, there's a challenge to be writing for someone else's blog. As a result, we want it to be extra clean and on-point. As a result, articles from guest blogging are note worthy (see all the articles here)
:-)
Creative and well crafted article, always waits for your articles here. You always comes up with something new out here.
Thumbs Up
Glad you like it buddy! :)
Thanks for this post. I had a question. Hasn't google started to devalue links from guest blogging sites? I know there is a difference between guest blogging for a blog and joining a guest blogging community but I wondered if anyone had insight on this?
Well if you mean Blogging networks… yes but here we are talking about REAL Guest blogging which means that it allows you to build relationship and an environment that create a win win situation for everyone!
Quality Guest Blogging on reputable sites… Google is no way going to discount links from it…link is a one part what about the other benefits that Business get out of this?
I think all we need to do here is to stop thinking too narrow (only links!) when it comes to Guest Blogging!
Thanks for all the valuable information.
However, I must mention that from the above post it is not very clear as to Guest Blogging is Good or not..and how it can help in our SEO efforts for organic results.
Kindly suggest
Guest blogging is that kind of platform form where you can earn lots of experience in blogging world and when you will feel now you have all those ability to become perfect blogger then i think that was the right time to earn money via guest blogging.
Nice Post moosahemani... I agree with you guest blogging is an important part of SEO and it is very helpful to increase website traffic as well as Ranking, But I think guest posting is only useful when it is related to our website or blog theme. Thanks
Great way to get someone else to write your own content hehe foolish guest bloggers FOOOLS hehe
Guest blogging is an effective way to increase you or your website exposure at the start.
Though time consuming, this is one of the most 'quality' way of driving targeted traffic to your own website.
Thanks for all the tips!
This again?
Why not? I mean we talk about education and educating people all day long… I know there is lot of junk available about this on the internet but I guess if you give your few minutes to the post you might not find this as the same junk you have seen elsewhere.
You haven't really brought anything new to the table. It's the same "guest blogging is good" post that I've read many times before. Write a post on other advanced link building techniques.
I like Clayburns reply, it summed this up with two words. "This again?"
Frank… I am not saying its new… its same like top 10 link building tactics for 2012… you read the theory everywhere but from the business perspective what really matter is the stats, data, words from the experts and more… and I almost bring all at one place!
Its same yet it is different because theory might not convince your boss to invest on guest blogging but stats and data will!.. no?
This again?