When it first came about, blogging was simply about people sharing their thoughts and ideas via their own kind of online journal or weblog. However, it soon became apparent that blogging had so much more potential than simply unloading one’s daily woes. Many businesses now use blogging as an effective form of marketing as a blog is a much more personal way to promote your product or service and build trust while doing so. Not only can it help to increase the amount of traffic coming to your website, it can also help you build and maintain relationships with new and existing customers.

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is a great way of forming new relationships with other bloggers and increasing traffic to your website.  It’s also a very good way of establishing yourself as a trustworthy source in the world of blogging. Typically, guest blogging, or guest posting services, involves writing valuable content for another website owner’s blog. However, it’s not an advertisement for your own services. It is simply a post that should enlighten the reader and provide them with relevant and interesting information.

What guest blogging services are available?

The first thing you need to decide on when thinking about guest blogging is whether you’re going to go at it alone or call in the professionals. There’s no reason why you can’t go all the guest blogging yourself, but if you do want to save yourself some time a high quality paid guest posting services may be the way to go to get quality content for your brand out there.

Whether you do decide to go at it alone or call in the big guns, typically guest blogging will consist of the following:

  • Identifying what content on your website to include in the guest post. Many professional services know the kind of content that works, and if they aren’t able to find what they’re looking for on your site, they’ll often create it for you. If you’re doing it yourself, it can be difficult to know what information to use. In which case, it’s more a case of doing your research to see what topics are hot and trial and error.
  • Finding guest blogging opportunities. This is another area where professionals come in handy as the chances are that they’ve already got a whole range of blogs available to them. These are companies that they work with daily where they can quite easily secure guest posts on blogs for you that are relevant to your chosen industry. If you’re flying solo, the following will help point you in the direction of where to find the best blogging opportunities:
  • Look for repeat high-quality bloggers. In every industry, you’ll find a number of different bloggers whose names appear regularly across various sites. The sites that they appear on most often are often a very good place to start guest blogging.
  • Social media. Bloggers often share their guest blog posts on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter and can be a great place for others to get to know you quickly.
  • Google. By simply typing in certain keywords and phrases related to guest blogging Google will throw out a whole load of sites where you can submit guest blog posts. Things like “submit a guest post” or “accepting guest posts” and a keyword or two relating to your industry should lead you to a number of guest blogging opportunities that will help your business thrive.
  • Making the pitch. Once the correct guest blogging opportunities have been determined it’s time to pitch your website to the blog editors. If you’ve hired in professionals they’ll do this for you. If not, just be open and honest about what it is you want to achieve and let your website sell itself.
  • Creating the content: In creating the content yourself, you’ll get the exact message you want to across.  However, if you want to leave it to the professionals at least you know you’ll get quality content from experienced writers.
  • Publishing. Once your content’s been written it’s simply a case of publishing it for all to see. If using a guest blogging service provider, they’ll take care of this and will usually send you regular reports as to how you’re posts are doing.

Pros and cons of guest blogging 

Don’t get me wrong, guest blogging is fantastic for so many good reasons. But, as with anything, it does have its downsides, too. The following are a few of the top pros and cons of guest blogging:

Pros

  • Great content for free. Guest posting works both ways. Not only does it allow you to get yourself known on other sites but it allows others to write for you too. It’s a great way to get free quality content for your own website.
  • Builds rapport. It’s good to get to know other bloggers in your industry and being a guest blogger is the perfect way to do that. People are far more likely to recommend something to someone if they have a personal connection with. Building rapport with other bloggers will help get your name out there.
  • SEO benefits. Guest blogging can help your business achieve good rankings, but it must be done right.  Search engines such as Google love fresh, quality content. Plus, when you allow guest posting on your site, all the backlinks that are created on your site give your site authority, providing extra exposure at no extra cost.        

Cons

  • Choose wisely. Although it might be tempting to start guest blogging here, there, and everywhere, it can have detrimental effects on your business if you post on illegitimate sites. Only choose sites that are reputable to avoid unnecessary suffering.
  • Sub-standard content. Unfortunately, not all guest bloggers are brilliant writers and you have to accept that some posts will be of poor quality. The only way to really avoid this issue is to have a strict vetting process for all posts.

We hope you found the above article useful and feel a lot more confident as to what’s involved in guest blogging. If you are new to the world of guest blogging and are planning to do it yourself, just take your time and do a little research before you begin. Plan out what sites you want to write for and what content from your website you want to focus on. Similarly, if you’re planning on hiring a professional to take away some of the pressure, make sure they’re reputable too and understand exactly what it is you’re looking for. Once you know what you want, you just need to make it happen!

Get a FREE consultation.

Book a Free Consult