Here is a simple explanation: let's say there is a fantastic class at a university that has a top-notch professor teaching it three times a week, and every lecture is jam-packed with curious students. One day, the professor decides to invite a guest speaker to come and teach as a way of presenting the students with new knowledge and perspective. This class represents a well-established blog or website, and the invited speaker, a guest poster.
The only difference being that the invited speaker is often already a well-established voice within the community of their expertise, but that is not always the case. Guest posting gives people a chance to share their work on a site that already has a consistent following and audience. If the guest post is successful, that person gains the capacity to propel their work further and hopefully become well-established themselves. Thus, it has and continues to be an essential and practical form of creation and sharing.
Why Is Guest Posting Important
Many sites and creators are willing to open their platform to those looking to guest post. What's important is that those guest posts are relevant to whatever area of interest the blog is devoted to, and the content of those posts are high-quality and engaging. A mediocre guest post will not only serve to be unhelpful to the guest poster, but it also might generate negative impressions among the audience of the blog. So, what it ultimately comes down to is the quality of work the guest creator is providing.
There has been a lot of doubt about whether or not guest posting is actually effective. There's more than enough data out there that confirms its effectiveness. Just by having a post and links on platforms like The Huffington Post or HubSpot will divert enough "traffic" or flow of consistent readers to a new site to help it start growing. Since links are the main ranking factor for search engines, SEO guest posting offers benefits for both parties. The host gets high-quality content on their blog and a higher rank in search engines, while the guest gets backlinks from another site, securing additional exposure as well as tapping into a whole new audience.
Tips for a Successful Guest Post
Now, just being able to guest post on well-known sites is not enough to bring attention to one's website. Here are some tips for anyone interested in advancing their business through guest posting.
- Always choose a site that is already sharing things that are closely related to whatever you are promoting or sharing. In doing so, you will ensure that you are engaging with the right audience, which will increase the likelihood of people finding interest in your work.
- Take advantage of anything that makes your work or products stand out from the millions of sites on the internet. If your business gets presented on a widely-visited site, it has to pop and make people want to know more about it.
- Always keep in mind when evaluating the quality of your post that you are not stuffing it with a few targeted "keywords." This will actually act as a deterrent to reaching your objective.
- Always, always incorporate links to your website and make them visible and easily accessed. In this day and age, people value convenience and efficiency, so make that available in your guest post.
Final Thoughts
Something to note is that if you find yourself guest posting for multiple sites for a while, and your business or website isn't really gaining any recognition, then it is time to stop, reassess, and make some changes to how you are going about things. Other than that, guest posting is a great opportunity and method of laying the foundation for any new endeavor.
