The Top 11 Benefits of Guest Blogging

* Original article *

Guest blogging is one of the best online marketing strategies you can invest in.

If you want to spread your brand’s message and win the trust of your target audience, start contributing content to other blogs related to your market or niche.

Not convinced you should work hard writing content for someone else’s site?

You should know that guest blogging offers many major benefits – both for your company and you, personally.

Here are the top 11 benefits of guest blogging.

1. Instant Exposure to Targeted Traffic

Regardless if you whether you get a link to your site, contributing to other blogs should pique your audience’s interest. If you manage to write a top-quality post, expect traffic to start flowing to your site once it goes live.

Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business or blog. Something as simple as a guest post can potentially translate into sales if you do it the right way.

Optimize your website’s landing pages, CTAs, and other elements to boost your chances at conversion.

2. Expand Your Personal Network

There was a time when connecting with influencers was extremely difficult. But with guest blogging, the process is now simple.

For example, some websites that accept guest posts foster a community of contributors engaged in related niches. In some cases, you’ll get the chance to take part in an email thread where contributors brainstorm potential topics. You can also collaborate with others for co-authored posts.

Regardless of what the community’s structure in a particular site is, you can always leverage your authorship. Seek partnership opportunities with influencers – from content cross-promotion to expert interviews.

All you need to do is be active in the community. Leave comments, share other posts, or cold-email your prospects. If possible, you can even invite influencers as contributors to your own blog.

3. Stimulate Social Media Shares

Generating social media shares is one way to exponentially extend your online reach. The more shares your branded content gets, the more shareworthy it’ll be in the eyes of your audience.

If you’re submitting a guest post to a blog with plenty of social media activity, then shares should come naturally once your content gets published.

To get the ball rolling faster, consider embedding highly shareable content in your guest post. Infographics, for example, can help you get 3x more engagement in social media than any other type of content.

4. Grow Your Social Media Following

Guest blogging not only increases the amount of social media shares to your content, it can also boost your follower count and accelerate your lead generation efforts.

By contributing to an authoritative blog, you are essentially getting them to vouch for your brand. This makes you look good in the eyes of their followers.

In most guest blogging arrangements, you also get to customize your contributor profile. Here you can include links to your social media accounts.

All these benefits will make it easier to win your target audience’s trust and turn them into active social media followers. Remember to reward them by posting regular updates and sharing useful information that aligns with their interests.

5. Improve Your Online Authority

Modern online marketing is all about authority. Even with the best content in the world, it’ll be difficult to convert your audience into loyal subscribers or paying customers if they don’t trust your brand.

By contributing to other authoritative blogs, you get the chance to prove your credibility as an information source. It will make your target audience realize that you’re someone who’s recognized by trustworthy brands. And as a result, they’ll be more receptive to any value proposition you may present in your own site.

6. Fortify Your Backlink Profile

Most blogs that accept guest posts allow their contributors to leave at least one link to their own site. After all, most of them don’t offer any monetary compensation for your hard work. A brief brand mention or keyword-optimized link is the least they could do to reward your efforts.

Still, even a single backlink from an authoritative blog will greatly benefit your SEO. They make your content more discoverable and indexable to search engines like Google. As much as possible, try to target websites in your own niche to build relevancy.

7. Grow Brand Awareness

Guest blogging is a great way to establish your authority in your niche.

As much as possible, try to share practical tips that aren’t already found elsewhere.

Leverage the opportunity to let them know what your company does and how it would solve problems.

Also, be sure to instill your brand’s voice into every single post you submit. This will make your personal brand more recognizable regardless of where you submit guest posts.

Some popular bloggers, such as Larry Kim, use a conversational and humorous approach to engage readers. They also avoid writing fluff while keeping sentences short and easy to read.

8. Generate Qualified Leads

One of the fundamental steps to a successful guest blogging strategy is picking the right websites.

In addition to niche relevancy, you also need to look for sites that already have a steady stream of traffic. This will help you connect with people who are already interested in what you offer as a business.

Always emphasize an actionable step when developing the page that you’re bringing traffic to. It should be related to the guest post you’ve submitted to the other blog. Otherwise, your link is nothing more than a disruption in your audience’s journey — a waste of time for them and a lost lead for you.

9. Shorten the Sales Cycle

The sales funnel has always been a challenge for content marketers. By distributing content through popular blogs, you are immediately building your target audience’s familiarity with your brand. Thus, you are shortening the sales cycle for your products and services.

Think of it this way: rather than waiting for potential leads to come to your site, you can introduce your brand’s value propositions in your guest posts.

You just need to be smart when picking or pitching topic ideas for your guest posts.

10. Get Useful Feedback from the Community

As a guest blogger, another advantage of being active in the community is that you get to receive insightful feedback from other contributors.

When you talk about strategies, for example, other experts may tune in to share their own ideas through the comments section. As a result, you can further develop or refine your strategy with their suggestions in mind.

To invite contributors to comment, try adding a call-to-action in the conclusion paragraph. You can refer to the end of this post to see how it works.

11. Sharpen Your Content Marketing Skills

Guest blogging requires every area of content marketing to be successful. It requires you to do content research, adopt the right writing voice for a particular audience, perform influencer outreach, and so on.

Remember, the best way to learn content marketing tactics is to deploy them yourself. You can’t just read about them, follow everything to the letter, and hope for the best.

By launching your own guest blogging campaign, you’re positioning yourself for growth in every facet of content marketing.

Conclusion

Guest blogging is, without a doubt, a crucial step for online marketing success. Once you grasp its benefits, give it a shot and see if you can make it work for your brand.