If you are a blogger unhappy with your website’s traffic, it is worth asking yourself the simple question: Is it worth spending more time guest posting?

If you have your head in order and know your stuff, then the answer is a clear yes.

Although there is some doubt about whether this inbound marketing strategy will last, guest posting remains one of the best ways of growing your audience and driving traffic to your website.

What is guest posting? How do you go about doing it and what are the benefits?

The Basics Of Guest Blogging

The basic definition of guest blogging means that you post on someone else’s blog as an invited guest.

Contributing content to someone else’s blog means you receive an external backlink to it and greater exposure.

Although it’s an easy concept that sounds good and has a win-win logic to it, why is guest posting such a great idea?

What Does Guest Posting Accomplish?

Let’s start by asking what guest blogging does from the point of view of the guest.

First, guest blogging is all about building relationships. It’s about building relationships with other bloggers, and possibly making new connections that will prove to be useful down the road.

Bloggers are influential and their chatter is a big part of the conversation on the internet.

You might indirectly increase your influence on social media by guest posting and getting acquainted with people.

Guest blogging is a great way to reach new people. You are effectively reaching out to the blog’s readers and pitching your ideas to them.

You can add value to your readers’ reading experience by making them visit your blog to see your other content. While guest blogging tends to be focused on the third point, the impact of click-throughs to your blog should not be overlooked.

Third, guest blogging is a big part of the SEO (search engine optimization) world. This is where it is most discussed. Guest blogging is an important way to drive traffic back to your blog.

You should insist on linking to your blog when you are posting on someone else’s website.

It might be embedded within the text or included in the author biography. It doesn’t matter how it is inserted, the goal of guest blogging is to generate these links.

It is important to be referenced on quality, reputable sites before search engines can rank your blog.

These backlinks can help you rise in search engine rankings over time. Guest blogging is therefore referred to as ‘good SEO’.

But What Does Guest Posting Do For The Host Site?

It’s all about creating new and interesting content. You need to make sure your guest posts are well-written, especially if it’s a small publication looking to publish on a more respected platform.

Guest blogs, from the point of view of the host, are basically free content. And who doesn’t like free content? The more popular a blog is, the more they can afford.

Guest blogging lower in the food chain has a community feel. Hosting other blogs, especially small- to medium bloggers is about sharing your knowledge and helping one another.

It makes sense to extend the same kindness to others if you are posting on other blogs. This is a win-win situation for both you and the other person.

How To Go About Guest Posting

Guest posting is great for SEO. It introduces you and your site to new audiences. How can you get started?

First, you must search for a blog to host you. This can be done in a number of ways. There are many sites that list guest posts on blogs. The links may not be reliable. You might not get the hosting you want.

Google is the best search engine to use. Simply type “top blog list in your industry” and you’ll be amazed at the results.

You can also try an advanced search by specifying phrases such as “write for us” and “blogging”. This will allow you to find blogs actively seeking guest contributors.

It’s easy to trawl and make a judgment about blogs that you find if you use the tried-and-true search engine method.

It is all about finding the right balance between quality and acceptance by the blog.

You just need to send a few emails. It’ll be like any other application process and you can expect to get rejected many times.

Look for guest bloggers on websites you frequent to find them. Look up the author to see if they have any other blogs.

Once you find a good site, you can pull the thread and go where it leads. You are essentially benefiting from the hard work of other guest bloggers.

Google allows you to search for author names and search terms “guest posts” on Google.

Something To Think About When You’re Guest Blogging

When guest blogging, the most important thing to remember is the nature and content of any links that you include in your text. anchor text is the name of hyperlinks in content. You should ensure that the link to a URL contains useful words.

What words are most useful? Google uses anchor text to determine a page’s relevancy. Make sure to include keywords in any anchor texts you link to.

Google will penalize spammy links if you do too much. The most important thing, as with all SEO strategies, is to do what you can organically.

You shouldn’t overdo it or be robotic with the links that you embed. Make sure the links you embed are relevant. Relevant links are more likely to include keywords.

But Isn’t Guest Blogging In Decline?

In the last few years, there has been much hype about guest blogging as an SEO strategy.

Guest blogging was an achievement when it first started. Backlinks were a sign of quality and search engines ranked them accordingly.

Fake bloggers started creating spam to gain backlinks as guest blogging became a well-known method of boosting SEO. Backlinks are therefore less important in ranking.

However, this doesn’t mean that guest blogging is on the decline. Matt Cutts, Google’s director of search engine optimization, warned against guest blogging for ranking purposes. He also said that guest blogging should not be misused.

This means that you need to be cautious about what you put on your website and where you place your content.

Google’s ranking algorithm is something that no SEO expert knows. Google’s algorithms are excellent at spotting quality and garbage, which is something that is well-known.

They are able to distinguish spam posts from mass-produced links and original content posted on reputable, successful platforms.

If you are a genuine blogger who is looking to create great content and increase SEO, then you have nothing to worry about.

A Few More Words Of Caution!

There are a few things to be aware of before you send your posts.

You will likely be asked to pay for a publication on a host website. You run the risk of being caught, and the question of economic viability.

Google explicitly prohibits you from paying for links. If they discover you, you may face a severe manual decrease in your search engine ranking.

Private networks and dropped domains are another thing to be aware of. These domains are simply expired domains that have a link profile. These domains are often bought up by people who add cheap content and then sell the links.