Today, guest posting has become a widely used strategy to increase blog views and to gain backlinks. But does it really work? Before getting into the topic, let’s get to know what exactly are we speaking about.
The term ‘Guest Posting’ has become quite familiar these days. It is also referred by the names contributor posts, partner posts or syndicated posts.
But What Does Guest Posting Really Mean?
In simple terms, when you write an article and publish it in someone else’s website or blog, it is termed Guest Blogging. You do not own the website where your blog is posted, but you only write as a guest.
It is similar to a guest lecturer in a university, where a lecturer from another university visits and lectures the students of the university that he’s visiting.
Why Is Guest Posting Used?
The benefits of guest posting are many. I have pointed out some of the important guest post perks below.
1. Building Trust And Relationships
Every website needs quality content. If you are a good writer, then you have the capability to add value to somebody’s website. This builds trust and relationship among bloggers. Bloggers have a vast social media following. So when you are friends with bloggers, you too stand a chance at gaining a following and an increase in subscribers for your blogs!
2. Gaining Backlinks
The website that hosts your article or blog includes at least one backlink to your own website. So if you are writing as a guest blogger to a renowned website, then you stand the chance of getting followers from your hosting website. Your website will also have a greater chance of selection in the Google searches.
3. Becoming A Social Influencer
When you write, your readers are influenced by you. Your influence might be positive or negative, but you become a person who they’ll remember for a long time. Guest blogging widens your influence. Your voice will span not only to the readers of your own blog, but also the audience of the host blog.
4. Building Authority, Credibility And Portfolio
Writing for a trusted website will gain you the same amount of trust and respect that your hosting website has. You become an authoritative figure and people trust your writings more when you are backed by an already famous and trustworthy site than when you are writing for your own blog. This builds your portfolio and credibility.
5. Build Your Own Brand
If you are writing something new and unique that can’t be found in other sites, then posting it on a related website having a large following can gain you a brand name.
6. Gaining Traffic And Subscribers
Posing as a guest blogger will not only gain more visitors your own website (through backlinks) but also increase the number of subscribers. You'll also earn some additional referral traffic from the sites you blog on.
7. Makes You Write Better Posts
When you write for a website that is very much larger and famous, you are expected to write content of high value and quality. This makes you want to write better and check again whether your writing is fitting for the hosting site or not.
8. Get To Know Others Views About You
You may not get honest feedback when you write for your own blog where the comments you get are from your loyal followers. But when you write for a guest blog, the readers of the host blog do not always know who you are and usually write straightforward and honest comments. This helps you analyze both your thinking and writing better.
Tips To Follow When You Write For A Guest Post
Whenever you write for a guest post, you can
• Give a link to your guest post from your own site.
• Post about it in Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
• Thank your host website.
• Reply to comments and engage in discussion.
• Offer others to guest post on your site.
Do Follow The Ethics Of Guest Posting!
When guest posting emerged as a powerful technique to improve page views, people started to misuse it to build links. Google took a stand on this and its webspam team posted a few guidelines to follow when guest posting is done on a large scale.
Also, some of the precautions that you can take to avoid misusing guest posting are:
• Check whether the site that you are writing for is genuine and trustworthy, posting valuable content.
• Find out if the content that you’ve written for the site is reviewed or not. If the site is letting anyone to upload content to it without checking the quality of the posts, avoid it.
• Write for the purpose of writing and getting your ideas to other people. Do not write just for the purpose of increasing page views.
• Do not rewrite and repost the same content over multiple websites.
Conclusion
Guest Posting is a two way street. It works for both the guest writer and the hosting website. The guest writer is benefited by getting a larger following and the hosting website gets more value-adding content to post. Hence, guest posting really works!
