Guest blogging works by publishing uniue blog posts on other bloggers sites, they get free content, you get credit and a link.
Guest blogging is a mutually beneficial relationship between bloggers because the guest poster gets to tap into a new readership and get links back to their own blog which will drive traffic and the publisher of the guest post gets free content for their blog, helping it to grow. In addition to these benefits guest posting can also be used as part of a SEO campaign.
Content and inbound links are the two most important parts of an SEO campaign and guest blog posting brings these together.
These two things will help you attract search traffic and improve your rankings. You need content because this is what the search engine reads and the reason your site will be returned in search results. In essence the more content you have, the more chances you have to be returned in search results. You need links because links are used by search engines to determine which site is the most trustworthy and reliable source of information for any particular search query.
Google’s original PageRank formula was based heavily upon making a count of links between sites to establish what sites should come top in search results. Although modern search engines; Google in particular, have come a long way since PageRank, the volume and quality of links pointing at your website is still a major factor in search rankings and building these links is the most important part of most SEO campaigns.
Back to guest blogging- increasingly professional SEO’s are using guest posts to help build links for their clients- but why are guest post links so popular?
The links created by guest posting are both free and permenant. Some link builders rent text links from webmasters for thousands of dollars a month so any links you don’t have to pay for are preferable.
Guest posts don’t only give you links either, they can be a great traffic generator. In the past article marketing was heavily used by SEO’s to build links but article sites typically drive less traffic than blogs because blogs tend to have more readers.
Guest posting doesn’t contradict Google’s webmaster guidelines. At least at the moment Google representatives seem to be suggesting that guest posting does not contravene their webmaster guidelines. Google disapprove of other link building methods like paid links.
– You can use keyword based anchor links in your guest posts. To rank for competitive keywords you need links which use your keyword in the link text or ‘anchor text’. For example if I wanted my website to rank for a keyword like ‘freelance SEO consultant’ I would look to build links which use anchor text which includes the keywords SEO brighton!
Something that’s less often talked about when the guest blogging subject comes up is the SEO benefits for the publisher of the guest post. Coming back to the 2 building blocks of an SEO campaign I talked about earlier, content is a valuable asset in SEO and being able to attract good quality, unique and free content in the form of guest blog posts can give you a really big advantage.
Where as hiring a blogger to write a post for your site would cost money, with guest posting the only payment for the content comes in the form of the link out to the guest bloggers site and linking to other blogs is something most bloggers do regularly anyway.
Aim to write at least 1 post a week and you’ll be ranking on your target keywords in no time. Because bloggers tend to produce some of their best work for guest posts these 50 articles are likely to attract links naturally from other sites and also rank in Google themselves, driving you traffic. In this way publishing guest posts alongside your usual blog posting schedule is an interesting SEO tactic for a blog site.
In order for all parties to get the most from guest posting or SEO I’d suggest the following guidance:
Make sure your guest posts display your best writing skills. Don’t regurgitate content, write something truly original and insightful. Spell check and proofread your work to avoid sill errors. Publishers should be responsible for upholding these standards and only accepting guest posts which are high quality.
As well as the backlink to your own site includde some links to other articles on the blog you’re writing for.
Bloggers should let you include at least one link in your guest post. Include keywords in your anchor text to get maximum SEO benefits from the link.
Do not publish the same article on other sites or your own blog. Don’t duplicate content, this will reduce its appeal to search engines.
Submit your content to social voting sites to give it a traffic boost.
The best guest posts won’t only give you links but traffic as well. Bloggers should start networking with other blog owners and make themselves availablee to guest write on other blogs.
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