Successful Blogging

The Role of Guest Posts in Successful Blogging

The Role of Guest Posts in Successful Blogging

People start blogs as a way to share their expertise on an important topic with a community of like-minded followers.

Many bloggers are surprised how much time it takes to successfully write posts, promote them on social media, and interact with a community of followers.

To spur growth and expand the conversation, the next logical step many bloggers take is to present high-quality content from other experts in the field as guest posts.

It’s About Adding Perspective, Not Saving Time

Although adding guest posts sounds like a timesaver, asking another expert to author a post simply shifts your investment of time. Most bloggers spend about the same amount of time recruiting guest posters, sifting through submissions, and making edits as they once did authoring content.

If you’re wondering why it would be worth the effort, consider that it’s about adding a new perspective, expanding your audience, and offering a better experience for your followers.

Consider It a Marketing Expense

It requires a significant commitment of time and energy to accept and publish guest posts. Depending on your time, passion, and work skills, you need to determine whether the value of expanding ideas and drawing new audiences is worth the investment. It’s possible you could lose the strict control you’ve held over standards, goals, or brand identity.

High-quality guest posts are usually a result of a good networking relationship. Reach out to a few active, engaged followers on your site or seek out industry influencers and ask them to contribute. This will allow you to start slowly and with people who are familiar with your brand and style.

Promote your guest post program as a sale. When you ask someone to write for you, explain how your site’s mission, audience, and SEO potential will benefit the author. Pay the guest poster, whether you offer a backlink, cash, or a thank you gift.

Set Editorial Standards With a Style Guide

Set strict editorial standards before you seek your first guest post submission. Establish a style guide that explains word count, image requirements, sentence length, keywords, and whether the post should be informative or convincing.

Keep the content quality high by rejecting essays that don’t meet your standards, or inform authors up front that you have editorial authority. Most authors will vehemently object to having a heavily edited article published with their byline.

Benefits of Accepting Guest Posts

Once you’ve built an audience of engaged followers who appreciate your perspective and style, you can offer them a new experience. A respected author can offer value and help your audience learn more and engage with another perspective, which can lead to new insights or opinions. In addition, your blog will benefit from increased traffic, fresh content, and a chance to spread your brand.

Be a Guest Author for Other Publications

Consider participating as a guest blogger for another website to experience the process before you build a program. Authoring content for another site will allow you to experience firsthand what it’s like to write under the constraints of a style guide and will open your eyes to the submission process.

Once published, your guest posts on other sites will help you gain status as an expert in your field, and open up your ideas to a new audience.

The more in-depth, well-researched posts you publish on authoritative blogs, the more chances that audience will follow you back to your site. This helps distribute your name and expertise to a new audience and raises your authority as a topic expert, as well as resulting in increased traffic and conversion.

Working with other bloggers will open up business opportunities and provide valuable professional connections with industry influencers.

Pursue Guest Posts to Expand

After you’ve built a robust blog with a unique style and informative discussions, it might be time to allow input from guest authors as a way to add a new perspective to your content. Hosting guest posts is a powerful way to expand your audience, build traffic through backlinks, and offer your community valuable insight from another expert.

It’s critical to create and implement high editorial standards to ensure that guest posts fit the temperament and style to which your readers have become accustomed. Your standards shouldn’t be so imposing that others are forced to mimic your writing, but just strong enough to encourage writers to appeal to the community you’ve painstakingly built.

It’s up to you to ensure that guest posts add beneficial content and don’t dilute your brand. The goal is to broaden your audience and add another perspective, not alienate your base.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thanks for this post – it came just at the right time for me as I work with authors on the first guest post I am soliciting for my site.

    I was aware of a lot of this information from my own chance to guest post for other sites, but was glad to think of it for my acceptance of other authors for mine.

    Cheers!

  2. I love guest posting Sue. I am up to 600 guest posts about on Blogging Tips alone. Business builder as I drive eBook sales through the platform and also grow my blog traffic. Simple way to help folks and leverage your presence. Excellent points here my friend.

    • Wow! I knew you had a lot but not that many! I have 400+ and have been doing it longer than you. I need to get my butt in gear 🙂

      Thanks for stopping by, Ryan.
      Sue

  3. Thanks for a wonderful article on guest posting. I have started writing guest posts for other publications and have found that a hidden benefit is that I have MORE confidence in my own writing. I look forward to using more of your awesome tips Sue! Thanks!

    • You are hitting it out of the park, Anna! Keep it going. It's a marathon, not a sprint, and pretty soon, you'll have two regular guest posting gigs.

      Thanks for your comment.
      Sue

  4. Hello Sue,

    All valuable tips here. I am also accepting guest post on my blog and also doing guest posting on other blogs too. Fortunately, I am able to guest post on some high authority blog and its really help me to build my authority online. Thanks again for sharing these helpful tips here.

    Regards,

    Vishwajeet

  5. Hi Sue,

    Role of guest blogging is to add value to the blog of the publisher and build a mutually beneficial relationship. It works as I say, "Blogging is all about growing together." When one writes a guest post on another blog the focus should always be to offer something extra.

    When you offer something extra in your post, people start looking for who has written the content and eventually start visiting your blog.

    Glad you have shared excellent points.

  6. Great post indeed, Sue!

    Guest posting is one to the safest and most reliable ways to get quality backlinks. Although some bloggers erroneously consider it a complete waste of time and resources. It, however, has multiple effects on your blog growth. The principle of guest posting is simple, "you give out to get something in return." I'm considering making guest posting one of my primary activities as a blogger for now.

    Thanks.

  7. Nice one, Sue.

    I used to be so into guest posting but for months now, I have dropped it. Maybe in the subsequent year I will go back to it again. But honestly speaking, it was helpful in getting my name out there.

    Thanks for your insight.

    Emenike

  8. Dear Sue,

    I have been blogging for 4 years but I rarely guest post, maybe twice in my whole life. I guess I should be doing it more frequently. Might you suggest some ideas for health and longevity blogs I could participate in? That's my niche. Thanks a lot.

  9. Hi Sue

    It's really interesting to hear about how difficult it can be to manage guest bloggers. Not something I'd fully thought about.

    If you don't mind me asking, how do you go about getting accepted as a guest blogger? I've just launched my own blog. I'd love to know how you've managed to write 400+ guest posts!

    Many thanks

    Alison

  10. Blown away that you and Ryan and have done 400-600 guest posts!

    Thats HUGE!

    Big believer in it also, as it makes perfect sense right?

    You go out and find people who have your audience, and get in front of them (Not to mention the other benefits)

    Great post Sue

    Daniel

  11. Hi Sue,

    I just found your blog via pinterest and I love your content.

    I understand how important guest blogging is for relationship building and building backlinks. Thanks for all the valuable tips.

  12. Thank u for sharing a good blog and writing about the guest post.

    I have also my website and gonna try this for sure.

    Keep the good work up

  13. Guest post is more effective backlinks to help to rank a site. Anyone can use guest post and rank their site immediately. Its help to increase DA.

  14. Great post about the role of the guest posting in the blogging, this is very helpful for the people who are affiliate with the SEO field, thanks for sharing this amazing information with us, I really appreciate this article…

  15. I like that you wrote this post with the perspective of a Guest Post Receiver. I've seen people blogging about'How To Do Guest Post?' but, to be honest, I've seen first post regarding accepting Guest Posts. Thanks!

  16. Hello Sue, Thanks for this post, Guest blogging is my personal favorite way of gaining exposure as well. I wish I could keep up the pace that you can but I’m doing ok. Awesome post and I appreciate your work

  18. Hi,

    Thanks for sharing this blog. Before someday I didn’t understand importance of guest posting but thanks to you for sharing this blog. This is very useful for me.

  20. Guest posting is definitely a great technique to drive traffic to the website. However, the disadvantage of this technique is many marketing professionals don’t approve your request of publishing the content.

    • You need to see if anyone else has every guest posted for them – do some "James Bond spying", as I call it, to see if they take guest posts.

      Thanks for your comment, Stephen!
      Sue

  21. Sue, interesting read especially I love this line “It’s About Adding Perspective, Not Saving Time”. It came at the right time. I have been thinking about writing more guest posts. Thanks for this great article

  23. I like your content. You gave me a better pathway to guest post at the right time. Guest post is the better backlink to develop the domain authority. It’s not that easy to maintain a guest bloggers. Thank you for your valuable tips.

  26. Thank you for sharing this informative post with us. I was not so much aware about the guest post,but now I get all the information about guest posting i think it will make great change in my blog and also i will get more traffic in my blog. please keep sharing mam.

  28. Great information about guest blogging. You must have worked hard to gather all this knowledge. No doubt that guest blogging is growing day by day in the field of internet marketing. Competition is going tough so one has to work really hard.

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