Guest hosting (blogging?) tonight for Jay and Conan…
If you’ve been thinking about adopting a “guest blogging” strategy to increase your exposure for your business, it’s a good move. The challenge is that it’s hard to keep the content on your site fresh while dedicating additional time to creating content for someone else’s site. But in this noisy “content-eat-content” world, blogging on another blogger’s web site is a powerful way to grow your business and introduce your brand to new customers.
How exactly does guest blogging bring value to your business? Here are six benefits of a serious guest blogging strategy.
1. Increasing Exposure
You probably noticed that there are certain people whose content seems to be everywhere all the time, right? Their content is always being tweeted, re-tweeted and shared, and you hear their name from nearly everyone in your contact list. We’ll, you’ve probably guessed that this isn’t an accident. They’ve strategically increased their exposure across the web by being a part of multiple conversations. Guest blogging can help you accomplish this. With new content on multiple “channels,” you’re always part of the conversation.
2. Increasing Community & Engagement
Guest blogging also gives you the opportunity to increase the size and engagement of your community. By posting on related blogs there’s a good chance you’ll have an overlapping audience of readers who already know you, as well as the blog you’re guest-writing for.
By appearing in another of your readers’ trusted networks, you raise the trust level for your site and elevate your profile in their eyes. At the same time, you’ll also be introduced to an audience who may not be familiar with you but who is interested in the material you’re writing about. Because they found you on a site they already trust, they’re more inclined to “check you out.”
3. Attracting Different Audiences
By being strategic about your content and the sites you pitch it too, you can pursue a variety of audiences. For example, a local caterer may be focused on increasing their business in a certain area. Rather than write for other catering-related blogs, they could pursue guest blogs for:
- Recipe blogs
- Wedding blogs
- Raw cooking blogs
- Travel blogs about local cuisines
- Work at home moms in need of dinner or fun meal ideas
- Corporate events blogs
The point here is that by pursuing completely different types of readers than your main blog, you can introduce yourself and your company to people who wouldn’t have found you otherwise.
4. “Branding” You in an Area of Expertise
Consistent, authoritative blogging about a topic or niche ultimately “brands” you in that area. Pretty soon you become the Go-To source for that topic. Whether it is social media, home repair, DIY designs, etc., by increasing your exposure around the Web on your topic of expertise, you build a reputation of helpfulness and expertise that will start to follow you wherever you go on the web. This can be a big asset to building your personal brand and authority.
5. Building Relationships
Let’s face it—we could all use a little help now and then. By offering to guest blog for someone else, you’re making their load a little lighter and adding value to their community. That’s not something a most marketers and business owners are going to forget. By building that relationship now, you can benefit from it in the future. Maybe you’ll need them to “cover” for you on your blog during a really busy time or maybe you’ll want them to share an article you wrote or make an introduction for you. A pre-existing relationship helps.
6. Benefiting from improved SEO
Another benefit of guest blogging is the improved SEO and the benefits it brings. Creating a link on your guest blog back to your own Web site through keyword-rich anchor text and driving traffic to targeted pages on your site is powerful. You can also vary your author bios on the different sites you are guest-blogging on in order to improve your rankings for different keywords.
It may seem like guest blogging only means more work for you, but if you consider the benefits, it’s clear why so many successful bloggers have adopted guest blogging strategies.
Have any of you set up guest-blogging opportunities for yourself or invited guest-bloggers to blog on your site? What have been the outcomes? Would you do it again? Why or why not?
