What Is Guest Blogging and Why Is It Important for Your Business?

Since 90.3% of search engine users don’t click past the first page of Google, it’s critical that your page falls within these rankings. Search engine optimization (SEO) makes this happen by ensuring that your site is more appealing to both users and Google bots. There are many facets of a comprehensive SEO strategy, and guest posting is one of the most often overlooked.

However, taking advantage of guest post opportunities can boost your traffic within any niche. Read on to learn what guest blogging is and how it can impact your visibility.

The Basics of Backlinks

Before you can understand guest posting, it’s important that you know what backlinking is. A backlink is essentially a hyperlink to another website that a publisher includes within their content. This link attaches to an anchor text that the user can click and be redirected to the linked page.

As a publisher, you likely have already included backlinks in blog posts, about pages, and even video and image descriptions.

Backlinks create a link between the publisher site and the page that they link to. Assuming that both brands are reputable, this makes the websites more appealing to Google crawlers- the bots that index webpages across the search engine. Boosting domain authority and creating professional connections is but one of the ways that backlinks benefit businesses.

What Is Guest Posting?

Guest posting is an intentional SEO tactic to ensure that another publisher page links to your site in one of their backlinks. You pay a top-notch SEO provider to connect you with another website within your niche. You then give this publisher the link and anchor text that you want so that content creators can organically incorporate it into their work.

Basically, the publisher site is writing content for your website and posting it on their page. You are the focal point of their blog post; they simply showcase it to their site visitors. The idea is to direct inbound traffic to your website while appearing relevant and knowledgeable to their own visitors.

Note that direct competitors should never link to each other. This can greatly harm the publisher’s site by redirecting interested clients to another brand.

Instead, the publisher and guest blog link should be tangentially related. They should share a target audience. This makes both sites look relevant and authoritative to crawlers while also encouraging consumers to purchase both services together.

Guest posting is a two-way street. It benefits both the publisher and the person being linked to. Because of this, you may also want to become the publisher site for another blog’s content sometimes.

Building Professional Relationships

One immediate benefit of guest posting is carving out a name within your niche. It’s a branding opportunity that allows you to get more exposure to your target audience.

Your SEO provider will find popular websites or others that are extremely relevant to your business. This link shows Google that you’re a reputable site- a larger or more relevant page is willing to work with you, after all. Your business gets established as an authority that’s on par with the more widely-known publisher.

It also lets new visitors become exposed to your business and what you have to offer. When you rank higher in search engines and get clicks, you have the chance to make an impression on buyers. Assuming that your brand is engaging, memorable, and unique, this is an excellent opportunity to carve out your place within your industry.

Getting Inbound and Outbound Traffic

Inbound and outbound traffic are both appealing on a consumer level. They get you more visibility and ultimately more sales. However, they also are beneficial to SEO algorithms on the web.

At its core, an inbound backlink is a vote of confidence on the web. The publisher has given you a shout-out on their webpage and “voted” for your page as a high-quality and reliable source of information. This is pretty much a referral system in which the publisher recommends the linked page to Google crawlers.

When indexing the web, crawlers will see that your website has a lot of inbound links from other sources. It treats each of these links as further evidence that your page has a high value. Plus, the more that people visit your page, the more relevant Google crawlers will perceive it as being.

Outbound traffic is also beneficial for SEO since it contextualizes your page as part of a wider network. Indexing bots like to see websites working with other pages online since the web is one interlinked community. Sites that stand alone are not part of this community in the eyes of Google crawlers, so they get relegated to the lower pages of SERPs.

This, in combination with the professional connections you make as a guest blogger, makes you look more relevant and connected to Google bots.

Boosting Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) is one of the biggest factors in determining where in SERPs your webpage ends up. Basically, DA posits a scale where your website is ranked from 1-100. The higher your score, the better your ability to rank.

Brand-new websites always have a DA score of 1. As your business and online presence grow, you can move up the scale.

Having a good backlink portfolio is one of the best ways to do this since good external links make your site more credible. If you have quality outbound links to relevant locations, your DA will go up since you look more relevant to your target audience.

So, where does guest posting come in?

On the most basic level, being present in more locations online makes you seem more authoritative. Simply including external links in your posts (and having others link to your page) can boost DA.

However, guest post packages provide another layer of benefit: you only will be touched by quality links. SEO professionals know how to find backlinks/pub sites that already have a high DA. This connects you with these businesses and raises your DA in turn.

You can therefore avoid taking a DA hit by accidentally incorporating a poor quality backlink.

How Does Guest Posting Work?

So, how can you begin reaping the many benefits of guest blogging?

The process first requires some research. Specifically, you’ll need to find an anchor text and link combination that works for your business.

Determining Anchor Text

Anchor text can come in a few different forms. Some of them are calls to action. Others are simply the name of your brand.

Most of them incorporate a high-volume keyword in some way. For example, if your primary keyword is “tearooms near me,” a quality anchor text might be “quality English tearooms near me.” This keeps your page relevant and easy to index for Google crawlers.

SEOJet can help you to find the perfect anchor text to use in a guest blog post. They also can help you to determine which link to attach to that anchor text on the publisher site. You can therefore match top-ranked pages easily and be more successful in your market.

Match With a Publisher Site

Once you have a solid anchor text and link, you need to be paired with a publisher site. This could be a huge challenge, especially for smaller businesses looking to establish high initial domain authority. Guest post packages make this process easier since you don’t need to find a publisher for your post all by yourself.

Competitor Analysis

You also will need to conduct a competitor analysis to see what it will take to rank. SEOJet will look into all of your direct top 10 competitors and come up with a play-by-play to beat them out. This involves incorporating better keywords, swiping up their best backlinks, and generating higher-quality content.

Content Creation

The final step to creating a top-tier guest post is quality content generation. Professionals will put together well-written and engaging blog posts that consumers will love. This makes you look authoritative and ensures that people will actually follow the guest post link on the publisher’s site.

Over time, you also will have the opportunity to monitor backlinks and ensure that there are no broken links. This ensures that your content is consistently high-quality so that you can bring your A-game in the long term.

Up Your SEO Game Today

While creating a comprehensive SEO strategy can be a challenge, guest posting ensures that you will succeed as much as possible. It’s the ideal way to drive inbound traffic, look appealing to search engine crawlers, and make a name for yourself within your niche.

Now that you know the benefits of guest posting, it’s time to begin tackling this facet of your marketing campaign. Contact us with any remaining questions that you have on guest posts, anchor texts, and pricing.