What Guest Blogging Is NOT: Getting It Right
Sunday, February 7, 2010 18:38
I’ve mentioned quite a few times how guest posting may help your business grow. I also shared why in my opinion this is the ideal marketing strategy – where quality matters and everyone wins.
Unfortunately, not everyone can get this right. So are three things guest blogging is NOT:
1. Guest blogging is NOT link building in the first place
I know I have emphasized link building benefits of guest posting quite a few times: but if link building aspect is the first in your list of reasons why you start guest blogging, you are getting it WRONG from the very start.
This way you have good chances to sacrifice on the quality of your content (and the strategy overall) by attempting to get as much link love as you can. Don’t think about building links at all (they will come naturally). Think about other (much more important!) aims you are going to achieve: brand awareness, fans and supporters, reputation, etc!
If you only need link, don’t even start guest blogging. Period
2. Guest blogging is NOT article distribution!
Fellow marketers, I know you feel tempted to find a leak here: “Why would I spend 2 or more hours creating a great article and then post it to only one blog? Why not publish it on several blogs?”
Now, here’s my advice: DON’T do it. You’ll just screw the relationships with powerful bloggers and influencers in your niche and achieve nothing.
Try playing by the rules and you will be amazed how much more effective it is!
3. A guest post is NOT the same as product/tool review
I’ve seen enough of that. Plenty of guest posts I’ve seen focus on the by-line: just a couple of paragraphs of mediocre content and then dozen of sentences describing who the author is, what he does and how awesome his product is.
Before submitting this useless stuff, try to imagine why would a blogger want to publish it. Remember a blogger doesn’t require anything in return for linking to your site. All he needs is some good content his readers would appreciate.
Don’t waste your time doing blogger outreach if you have nothing of value to offer.
Now, to conclude, I am a marketer myself and I’ve dealt with many people who need fast, cheap results. If you are one of them, just don’t try guest blogging. This tactic is only effective if you do it right. Just don’t waste your time.
Img by Lars Plougmann
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Interesting and encouraging comments, and maybe someone can advise me. I also thought that getting guest blogs would be good for my site, but unfortunately, since I joined MyBlog Guest a few weeks ago, I’ve had huge amounts of spam arriving on my blog. I get posts which are totally inappropriate for my site, – from more that 160 guest posts, fewer than 12 were related to my content. I now have to spend hours going through and deleting all these spam posts. What am I doing wrong?
“GUEST BLOGGING IS NOT ARTICLE DISTRIBUTION!”
Hello,
We should be providing quality posts for our fellow bloggers and the readers. Relationship based on trust is the key to becoming successful as online business owners and professional bloggers.
Thank you for writing excellent content about what guest blogging is NOT.
Stacie Walker
Woman in Leadership Founder
I couldn’t agree more with your article but in today’s internet everyone is out to make something for themselves. It is so easy nowadays to get a WordPress blog up and running so the people that actually have meaningful things to to write about, run their own blogs rather than guest posting. Seems like guest posting is now reserved for SEO companies and individuals alike.
This is solid advice. As it is true that content is King. It should be said that the real thing is quality. The same post distributed a hundred times over doesn’t have the same value as a post with original content.
Good Luck to all
I’m new to this, so thank you for clarifying that this is not article distribution. And that reputation matters. I must say, however, that Anne’s comment is disheartening. I hope this doesn’t happen to me.
I couldn’t agree with you more in getting your point across as to how important it is to get a solid
following of readers who are interested in your comments.
Hi,
Nice tips for guest blogging but i think guest blogging is a good link building tool if your blog will be accepted.
I can’t agree less. I’ve been using myblogguest for over a year. I’ve posted hundreds of articles. Some great posts, some not so great. Some great blogs, some not so great. I can count the traffic I’ve received to my site from those posts almost on 1 hand. Guest posting is all about link building.
On the other hand, MyBlogGuest gets 30% traffic from my own guest posts and 90% of them convert (because people already know the person behind that link)
great job …! i really very help full for promoting your site .!
Thanks for your fabulous words.
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Thanks for great idea. Can any one help me for my blog? I have a SEO related blog and i want some good content for this. how can I get this???
Well, this is a new experience for me and I hope it will be a good one. Thanks for the clarification. Did not realize that “article distribution” was frowned upon. Will make note,
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I have never used blog posts, A newer experience for me. Your post is surely going to help a lot. Thanks.
The purpose of guest blogging is quite simple, it’s to get backlinks, and possible traffic. However it all depends on how good the post is. A great post will receive more traffic, which means that the backlink will receive more traffic. It also means that the quality of the blog that the post is located on will increase, which will in return help the website the backlink points to.
Before you start writing, you should do research on the topic you’re writing about. There might already be 10 great posts about that subject, which means you’d be better off writing about something else.
Make sure you the topic is clear throughout the whole text, there should be a “keyword” in the title, intro, text. That way, the post will rank higher in search engines, which will result in more traffic.
“An image can speak a thousand words”, so make sure you find the correct amount of images, the correct color, and that the “quality” is perfect.
Does this make any sense?
Anyway, great post, Ann!
- Jim.
You bring up some great points here, Ann! I don’t see why people would want to publish their articles on multiple sites anyway. Associating your site with duplicate content will do nothing but hurt your rankings.
In 2013 it’s more important than ever that the guest blogs you post are unique. Google Penguin updates and cracking down on all the low quality junk on the web just means any links you gain will be discounted anyway. It’s worthwhile spending the time and effort crafting a great unique post for every high value blog you can find with a link to your site included. Quality over quantity.
Thanks for stressing the essence of correct guest posting/blogging and highlighting the few myths so many blogging rookies are having about this subject and its approach.
I came all the way from a link on Neil Patel’s Quickspot post on how to do guest blogging with other bloggers
Great site and service here. Thumb up
You should always use Copyscape. It is very cheap (5c per search) and it helped me avoid re-posts. After you publish your article try to index it as soon as possible, if somebody re-posts it on another site, at least you’ll have a priority in Google index.
You are absolutely correct , guest blogging is not link building. We can connect to many professional blogger through guest posting. It is way to build your online reputation & bringing more audience to your website with niche specific content. Many guest blogger consider guest posting wrongly & often spam guest posting
Derek Helpren in his video series said, you can create a super power solution, and change that article and then post it on other blogs as guest post. did he get it wrong?
Yes, that’s something we don’t allow