Guest blogging: bring in the guest!

Guest blogging is a technique of Content marketing as well as SEO referencing which consists of having a blog post or article written on a third-party website or blog to promote your personal brand and/or your company.

Sites and blogs that host guest blogging articles thus expose brands to a relevant target. The method is effective, insofar as it increases visibility. But beware… Google is never far away and mistakes can be costly.

What is the interest of guest blogging for third-party sites?

Guest blogging is a form of mutual arrangement that benefits both parties. On the one hand, publishers want to publish quality content and deliver it to their audience to build loyalty. On the other hand, authors benefit from a platform which, depending on the case, can become a real tremplin to promote their brand.

Truly informative blog posts and quality content achieve both of these goals. On the one hand, they demonstrate the author's expertise on a particular subject. On the other hand, they confer qualitative and (usually) free content to the publisher.

Guest blogging does not involve notions of self-promotion. Blog posts and posts are published primarily to educate the public and provide relevant information on a given topic, making guest blogging a very effective inbound marketing strategy.

Reduce the risks of guest blogging and avoid being penalized by Google

Besides the obvious brand and inbound marketing strategy benefits, guest blogging is a method of getting inbound links. Indeed, by publishing an article on the blog of a third-party website, the author can benefit from the impact of PageRank on his own domain.

Like all techniques consisting in optimizing natural referencing, this technique has been subject to abuse. It has also been the subject of a fierce fight, actively led by the former head of Google Webspam, Matt Cutts. The latter specifically targeted this technique, claiming that it was a cause for sanction from Google and that it was no longer effective.

Don't worry: this does not mean that guest blogging can no longer be done without the risk of being penalized. The technique is still used, it works and has considerable advantages.

It is still necessary that the technique is implemented correctly.

Guest blogging best practices

The recipe for guest blogging is based on several elements:

A well-targeted audience

It is important that the site on which you publish one or more articles attracts the audience that interests you. Seek to understand their audience, dig to know their buyer persona. How does it look like yours?

Unique, high-quality content

The goal of writing a guest blog post is to get readers to learn more about you and what you offer. The best way to grab their attention is to write a unique article. Your crispiest articles must therefore be reserved… for third-party sites! Find catchy topics and titles and appeal to the audience of the third-party site where you publish your content. Bet on a different angle, an original approach...

Create a single backlink

An author bio or a link to your website are easy ways to build backlinks. Be careful: only one link per article is enough. Emphasize that links to your website must be accompanied by the attribute nofollow. Simply put, you reap the benefits of the promotion and guarantee interaction without penalty from Google.