Digital Marketing Mastery: Insights, Strategies, and Tactics for Success

The Rise and Fall of Guest Posting

Posting Blogs
Guest Blogging

There can be many advantages and benefits from guest posting. The positive effects of guest blogging include things like earning generic links which are valuable and helping to establish authority in a particular field or niche. Contributing guest posts has had a pretty long and favorable run on many counts, but expert predictions indicate that it is highly likely that they may be next on Google’s list of areas to crack down on. Most of the changes made to Google’s algorithm have to do with cleaning up the web by penalizing spammy practices or those that are along those lines. It is very practical to assume that Google will soon present some way to help clean up guest posts. Just like some of the other areas that have been addressed recently, Google will attempt to get rid of many of the poor quality guest posters.

Is it worth the link?

Submitting guest posts has been part of SEO campaigns for many years and it is likely that they will remain after the changes are made. Think about how links used to be so valuable and it the more the better. Guest posting has somewhat been treated this same way across the marketing scene. However, just like links, more is not better if it’s not quality. But guest posting has been viewed much the same way. It’s an easy trap to fall into. You get the opportunity to share your knowledge, skills or expertise with an audience via another site’s blog and realize that you got a couple of links from the well read blog’s post. It’s easy to start thinking that if you can do more guest posts you can get more links. This in itself may be true and boosting traffic leads to more conversions, right?

Problem with Guest Posting

The trouble comes in when you are trying to gather more sites so you can provide more guest posts. Finding quality sites can be very difficult and it is equally as difficult to continue to provide ideas since they all want content that is totally unique. From there it is easy to start looking at some of the not-so-great blogs or sites just to get a few links. Before you know it, you are producing a lot of content, but it’s not high quality nor does it add value to blogs or readers. You may indeed be seeing a lot of links, but you have no idea about the quality, relevance or authority of the links. Then one day you get slapped by Penguin or perhaps the new algorithm designed to clean up guest posts. Now you find all these links are not necessarily the best links to have so you have to go through the long drawn out process of disavowing each and every one. This can take literally years to accomplish – if ever. All of the SEO work and effort you’ve put into your own site has just been wasted.

The Perfect Remedy to Guest Posts

In order to protect your own interest, the quality of your site and your SEO efforts, you can put your energy into areas that are much more effective than the guest post. Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to post your unique, high quality content on your own blog or website? Think about it a little bit – when you provide guest posts for other sites, they are getting all the attention – not you. They are getting all the links – not you. Why not get your own links and your own traffic by providing your high quality content for your own site?

Should you ever guest post?

There are still some valid ways to provide effective guest posts. For instance, when you want to reach an entirely new audience and you can connect with them through guest posting on another site – that’s great. Another reason to guest post is to help establish a relationship with other companies. Guest posts can be a great test to see if you and another company have any areas where you share the same audience or not. If you find you share an overlapping audience, you may pursue a joint venture such as making an investment or working on a project or product together. Guest posts should be strategic and purposeful for all parties involved, not simply thrown out there in an attempt to gain more links.

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