If your business is looking to climb up the search engine results pages (SERP), boost your search engine optimization (SEO), and effectively reach your target audience, you need to create guest posts. Before we get into the details of how these articles can help your marketing campaigns, what exactly is guest posting? In short, it's the act of writing content that will be uploaded to another website. When you create content for other websites, you're helping your own marketing efforts. Guest posting allows your brand to be mentioned outside of your own website and gives you access to a broader audience that otherwise might never have heard about you.
Each digital marketing guest post you create puts you one step closer to growing your audience base (and the revenue associated with this growth). If you're unsure how to get started, you should consider reaching out to a local SEO company to get some direction; digital marketing agencies can often help you understand how to submit a blog and provide you with guest posting tips to optimize your efforts.
Usually, the sites you'll want to guest post are within your industry, which enables you to contribute valuable, credible information to readers looking for relevant content. No matter which industry you're in, there are always guest posting opportunities available. Guest posting SEO benefits are plentiful, particularly when you find the right sites to contribute your content to.
What are the Benefits of Guest Posting?
Like anything investment, guest posting will take some work before you begin to reap the rewards. The first steps require you to research great sites to post on and learn the posting requirements for your various options, but once you've completed these, your company will have another marketing tool in its arsenal. Take a look at a few of the top benefits of guest posting.
1. Build Quality and Natural Backlinks
Search engines consider the number and quality of links pointing back to your website when they're determining your rankings. Guest posting provides you with additional avenues where you can obtain more natural backlinks. Each link you receive represents a high-quality reference to your brand. Many guest posting sites allow you to include at least one link back to your website. You'll soon learn that link-building benefits are abundant when you have the right online marketing strategy in place.
2. Boost Referral Traffic
When you contribute guest posts to other sites, it helps boost referral traffic to your own website, giving you the advantage of having a built-in audience. When traffic to your website grows, your company's web pages perform better within the search engines. Additionally, when you have backlinks in multiple guest posts, the search engines consider your content valuable, which will ultimately help you rise to the top of the SERPs.
3. Bring in New Audiences and Gain Attention from Potential New Customers
Posting content on other websites lets you connect with audiences outside of your target market. You should remember that not every guest post will immediately boost your sales; however, the content you generate for other websites is vital for building brand awareness and recognition.
In addition, guest posting allows you to create a community for your customers that will serve as a resource of information. This creates a connection in the consumer’s mind that your business is trustworthy and valuable. This is particularly important as you look for ways to grow your business and expand your market reach. Positive experiences will keep customers coming back; they'll also turn into shared experiences that entice and attract new customers.
4. Increase Brand Exposure
By providing content for established industry websites, people who haven't heard of your company before will learn about it for the first time from a credible source. Ensure your guest posts offer quality content that delivers a favorable impression of your brand. You already have a head start since you’ll be featured on a popular site. You just have to capitalize on that opportunity.
5. Strengthen Your Online Authority
Guest posting is an effective way to help people trust your brand. When you have content on other websites your prospective customers already know, it shows your audience that you're an expert in your field. Be mindful that you should always support any claims you make within your posts with relevant citations and sources.
6. Give You Channels Through Which to Network with Other Bloggers and Webmasters
When writing posts for another page, you’re provided with the avenue to foster new business relationships. The more you share knowledge with other companies and individuals, the greater your digital footprint will be. Ultimately, you could end up attracting opportunities to be a guest speaker on other business platforms, create other B2B opportunities, or develop a more comprehensive network of professionals.
7. Grow Your Social Media Following
By contributing to an authoritative blog, you're essentially getting that website to vouch for your brand. This makes you look good in the eyes of that website's social media followers. In most guest blogging arrangements, you customize your contributor profiles. Take this time to include links to your social media accounts.
8. Generate Qualified Leads
In addition to creating content that shows you're relevant within your specific niche, you also need to look for websites that have already built a solid following with reliable traffic. These sites will give you the opportunity to make connections with businesses and individuals who have already shown an interest in your offerings. Be sure to emphasize an actionable step when you're building out the page to which you're trying to drive traffic.
9. Shorten the Sales Cycle
By posting content on popular blogs, you have a channel through which to immediately build your target audience's awareness of your brand. Therefore, you're shortening the sales cycle for your products and services. A high-quality guest posting strategy will put your brand right in front of the very people who are most likely to convert to be a customer.
Bonus Guest Post Benefit: Increase Brand Reputation & Trust
Building authority in your industry goes hand in hand with building trust. Guest posting on other related sites allows you to display your depth of knowledge in your field. Remember, your link-building strategy should allow you to showcase your knowledge in your industry. The best guest posts to offer are the ones that showcase your business’s expertise and authority.
How to Get Started
The SEO experts at Zero Gravity Marketing will help you set a good foundation for your plan and assist you with setting clear goals, expectations, and standards for guest posting. Our search engine marketing agency was created to help you succeed. Reach out to us today! Our local SEO solutions and digital marketing tactics are sure to impress you.
About the Author
Daniel Hamilton
