Last week I was invited to #AtomicChat again to talk about guest blogging and its future.
I think what I said there should be shared with #myblogguest community too because it represents our official stand (which has been THE SAME since day one of our existence)
Below are just my answers:
Q1: Matt Cutts said: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014 you should probably stop. What did he mean by that?
#Guestblogging for links has always been doomed.
Back in 2010 I wrote an article Why #guestblogging is useless for links and I wasn’t kidding!
Read that URL very carefully: If you are JUST guest blogging for links, you are wasting your time!
Three years ago I shared my frustration with guest blogging spam here + in this video
Guest Blogging for links is degrading (You are no longer as focused on quality) & low-efficient (It’s easy to spot = more rejections)
So I would say Matt meant exactly that: If you are worried now, chances are, you’ve been doing it wrong!
Q2: Matt Cutts said: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. What did he mean by that and how can we avoid it being “spammy”?
Too many people are doing it wrong, but that doesn’t mean you should NOT do it PROPERLY
Matt means low-quality guest blogging only (he did out a note specifying that)
You don’t stop receiving blog comments just because 90% of them are spam as the 2 real ones are PRICELESS
+1 too #fun:
LOL RT @ClassicCranmer @larrykim I just got a spammy lead form submission…I’ll no longer be accepting any lead form submissions. #logical
— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) January 24, 2014
Guest blogging is HUGELY effective for getting your name out there, building authority, trust & community
There’s nothing changing that!
Q3: How does Google Authorship play a part in this?
If I were Google I would use Authorship to
- (1) Discover low-quality patterns (Author us found to be promoting commercial sites with exact-match anchor text = might be a bad author=>check other singed articles by this author; build more patterns). Authorship can thus be used to discover low-quality guest blogging. With Google obviously learning to discover authors even when the web pages have no re=”author”, this can be even more powerful
- (2) Additionally, quality guest bloggers can benefit from extending their Authorship to more quality platforms
Q4: What if I have multiple authors on a blog, does that still work?
Sure, as Matt said in his many comments (after the industry revolved) quality multi-author blogs will still win
Q5: When someone submits a guest post request, what should we look for?
We have developed a cheatsheet for that: the anatomy of the perfect guest post.
In short: Make sure the article is visually appealing, grammatically correct, and YOU LIKE IT; look out for exact-match anchor text
Clicking all the links in the guest post to make sure they MAKE SENSE and you like where they go is a good practice
I usually prefer a well-linked guest post that has references to mentioned concepts, news, stats, tools
I think trusted links add value to the whole piece (SEO- and user-experience-wise)
Q6: Is There Still a Place for High Quality Guest Blogging, for branding benefits?
Absolutely! #Guestblogging existed long before Google and will exist after it
think about guest journalist columns, quotes from niche experts, etc
The only thing is that we should get back to basics: #Guestblogging is effective for any other reasons except links 🙂
This is how #guestblogging is re-defined today via @sejournal
Highlights from my previous chat:
Joseph
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Kalen
Couldn’t agree more Ann. Guest blogging for links has always been a ridiculously counterproductive thing to do. People who do that only end up hurting their own brand. Maybe they will realize Google is doing them a favor by penalizing spammy content.