There are numerous reasons for guest blogging on another site, including building yourself up as an industry authority, building visibility for your brand, providing more value for consumers, contributing to the online community, linking back to your blog, and funneling referral traffic back to your website.
However, while contributing guest blogs is valuable for you, what about the benefits of using a guest blogger on your site?
Of course, it is best only to accept content on your site that you believe provides value to your target audience to protect the quality of your blog.
What is Guest Blogging?
Guest blogging (or guest posting) refers to the act of writing content for another website. Generally, a guest blogger will write for a similar blog within his or her industry to:
- Attract traffic back to their site
- Increase their brand awareness and credibility
- Boost their domain authority using quality external links
- Build relationships with industry peers
Why Use a Guest Blogger?
It is advisable to allow great writers and bloggers to create content on your website, provided it’s of high quality and adds value to your audience. Below are six reasons why:
- Increases Your Blog’s Authority
Creating an authoritative blog that people trust and link to from other sources and websites will naturally increase the impression of your brand. If you jam-pack your blog with valuable content, and it attracts many high-quality bloggers to post content, others will want to link to your business or blog and share your content on social media. - Encourages New Readers
Accepting contributions from an established and well-known guest blogger with a loyal readership could encourage new readers on your site. What’s more, guest bloggers will likely share their posts on their various social media channels, driving free traffic your way. - Builds Relationships with Bloggers
Whether you are a full-time blogger or do it as a part-time content marketing strategy, building new relationships with fellow influencers and bloggers is never a bad thing. It can make it easier to promote your content, get advice, receive blog comments, and help each other out with feedback and recommendations. - Gives You More Content
The chances are that you work hard to create fresh and up-to-date content on your blog weekly – even on a tight schedule. Regular posting gives your audience something new to look up to every week. - Adds a New Dimension and Outlook to Your Blog
Sometimes adding a new voice to your blog can add a new dimension and make it more attractive and engaging to a broader readership. Just remember to introduce your guest blogger to your audience and add a disclaimer that the views they express are not necessarily yours. - Boosts Your Site’s SEO
Having a lot of valuable content on your blog allows it to perform better in search engine results, provided you have optimized it well. Accepting guest bloggers helps pack your site with more content, increases your internal and external linking structure, enhances your online presence, and helps search engine robots crawl your pages.
What to Look for in a Guest Blogger
When you source for a guest blogger or accept one, look for industry blogs by a non-competitor company that can deliver real insight to your readers. Below is a suitable checklist to follow:
- Author credibility (seek recognized experts and published freelancers, and avoid spam)
- Superior writing style with valuable and accurate content
- A high level of audience engagement
- Strategic fit with your brand identity, organizational values, and communication strategy
- Content relevance (uniqueness and recency)
- Search engine optimization ability
- The author should provide enough links to trustworthy sources
- Content ownership – check that the content is original and that you own the rights as the publisher
Wrapping Up
Accepting content from a guest blogger can offer significant benefits to your website or business. However, you must be mindful of the content and links that the authors use. Remember to audit all work before you publish it and craft a long-term marketing strategy to make guest blogging part of your marketing journey. You also stand to benefit from their knowledge, time, experience, writing ability, and readership.
