Establishing a brand as a blogger (or an aspiring blogger) is an essential factor in ensuring you gain a wide readership base as well as in establishing authority in your content matter. You will always wish that your blog or website becomes the go-to site and definitive authority. But for this to happen, you must explore various digital marketing strategies (which are the actions that propel you toward the realization of your goal using online media) to ensure that you reach a wide range of readers.
Some of strategies for promoting your blog include social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), along with an arsenal of other weapons in your fight towards the top of SERPs. But as a blogger building your personal brand, guest posting may be the foremost strategy for ensuring your readership base increased over time, and that your name is established in the blogosphere.
Although it’s often dismissed as “over” or simply overlooked by some bloggers, guest posting remains a key digital marketing strategy in building your online influence. Here are 6 reasons why you should embrace it.
6 Reasons Why You Should Be Guest Posting
1. Demonstrate Authority
Guest posting gives you the opportunity to showcase expertise in your area of specialization. When you write informative articles on someone else’s blog or website, you increase their readership base. However, this also works on your side by exposing your content to readers who will engage with your content and regard you as a go-to person for information they need.
In addition to your “personal” authority, the search engines (Google, in particular) look at the authority of your website or blog. They measure this authority, in part, by the number of backlinks from other authoritative websites. These backlinks weigh into your calculated domain authority score. One catch. They must be related to your industry. So, when you’re looking into guest blogs, partner with websites that are similar in topic to yours.
2. Build Relationships
When you write articles that convert readers, chances are high that your fellow bloggers (on whose blogs or websites you write on) will enjoy your content; and considering the great influence that bloggers exhibit on social media platforms, this means you gain more influence. The result? You get to establish a good relationship with your fellow bloggers. When they need more content, they will consider reaching out to you again.
This will help you to get your portfolio and credibility established by the mere fact that these bloggers entrusted you enough to publish your quality content on their own sites. More importantly, the relationship you build with other bloggers can pay off sometime in the future if you continue the professional relationship that you’ve now started. Keep in mind, blogging is a very social business.
3. Blog/Website Traffic
Guest posting is a great way of growing your site’s traffic. Why? In most cases, when you guest post, you will be permitted to include a link to your website—which serves well by bringing more visitors to your site. When people read your blog post on other websites (and of course, love it), they’ll tend to want to know more about your services, and this is through visiting your website. Traffic can explode from a good solid guest blog.
Once your guest post is published, you will begin to see traffic referred from the host’s site. But don’t leave that to chance. Use the content to propel you forward by using this opportunity to create engaging social media content.
4. Engaging Social Media Content
After the guest blog is published, you should use it to create social media content to share across your social channels. When a host site publishes your article, it’s a professional courtesy to thank them—and tag them—on social media. It shows to your social followers how you’ve expanded your horizons while inviting them to read the new content. Plus, because you’ve tagged your host, you may pique the curiosity of their social followers with your engaging content. Thus, you could be earning yourself some new subscribers.
5. Create New Leads
When readers discover the magic that you work through your host sites, they’ll always find a way to reach your website for more of your ideas, services, or goods. This can be easy when you have direct links to your website included on your guest post.
Check with your host site to find out their backlink policy before you commit to writing a guest blog. If they disallow backlinks and you want purely the brand name exposure or to build your portfolio, go for it. If you’re using guest posting to build backlinks, however, it’s best to know up front so that you can decide if the effort is worth your time. That’s for you to decide.
6. Improve Your Writing
When you write on other’s blogs (especially authoritative blogs), you give them the chance to rate your writing skills; which may range from the way you organize your thoughts to the grammar you write. They will give you honest feedback to improve the post prior to publications. This feedback always enables you to know areas that need improvement thus providing you with better ways to relay your pack of information to the intended readers. It’s a win any time you can sharpen your writing skills.
Conclusion
Ready to build your brand or gain more exposure? Guest posting does it all. Just identify a related website (in a related niche) and email the blogger to request a chance to contribute a blog post. If the request is approved, you will submit the post - but always remember to request at least one direct link to your blog or website, as this is your major incentive for posting in the first place.
For whatever reason you consider it for, guest posting remains the most effective digital marketing strategy to build your online influence as a blogger. It’s a win-win all the way around!
To learn more about writing content for high rankings and establishing authority as a blogger, check out our posts on the following topics:
Content Marketing for Search Rankings
Content Marketing for Social Media
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