Guest blogging was once quite popular and then in the past few years, it has fallen to the wayside.
As a matter of fact, Google’s Matt Cutts told bloggers to stop allowing guest posts and guest bloggers to stop guest posting for backlinks to their sites. He said the effort was futile, but there was a reason for that little problem.
The issue with guest blogging a few years ago, was that much of the content was spam, not of good quality, and some of the blogging venues were less than desirable to Google’s algorithm.
Now that you know why it went to the wayside, you need to know how to guest post and allow guest posts so that it boosts your SEO. Here are a few things you need to know about guest blogging before you start thinking guest posting is dead.
What makes good guest blogging effective?
- Good Content – High-quality content does improve your SEO, rankings, and reputation. It’s spam and redundant content that Google doesn’t want to see spread across websites.
- Reputable Links – Higher-end, authoritative sites are where you should be getting your links from and guesting posting on.
- Sharing Channels – When you share top-rated, credible content across social media networks, your popularity with surge.
Here is what you can do with the right guest blogging resources, sources, and content.
- Reputation is Key
Highly visible blog sites that allow guest blogging like MarketingProfs, the Harvard Business Review, Hubspot, and Forbes are reputable resources. There are others, but these are good examples of what kinds of guest blogging you need to do.
Stay away from less reputable sites and seek out credible blog sites. These sites will allow you to have your own byline, which gives you credibility as an authority in your business. Read and learn the writing guidelines, rules, and terms of use before you submit an article.
- Get Credible Links
Getting your links from authoritative, credible websites is crucial for search engine ranking. First, your domain name is vital to search engine rank. Your domain name needs to describe, in short form, what your site is about and what you do.
Be careful to avoid being too generic when naming your domain, or you’ll get lost among your competition, which won’t help you. Make good use of H1 tags, meta tags, page title tags, image tags, and be specific with what your site covers. One Moz survey reports that links to a site and/or page are more effective than on-site content for improving search engine rankings.
Social media is only influential if you use influential accounts. Any site can make it to the viral level on social media. If you decide to guest blog, do it with a site that are excellent about sharing the articles from guest bloggers on social media. From there, sharing and retweeting snowballs so your content can go viral. Consider using a bot.
Google’s algorithm likes it when good content gets shared, re-shared, and retweeted throughout social media when it’s through influential accounts. Therefore, if you engage and build a reputation with authoritative sites through guest blogging, you will be credible to search engines and your content will soar in the rankings, as you move up the SEO ladder.
