ByThis is a guest post by Tom Corson-Knowles of Online Internet Marketing Help.
Guest blogging is one of those online marketing strategies that really doesn’t get enough credit.
You see, writing a guest post just isn’t as glamorous as having 10,000 Facebook fans or 50,000 Twitter followers. Most bloggers and online marketers would rather brag about how many followers they have on Twitter instead of how much money they’re making in their business.
And hey, that’s all fine with me. I love my 10,000+ Facebook fans and 30,000+ Twitter followers – and they do help me grow my business, without a doubt! But I can honestly say that all those followers and fans and YouTube subscribers and Pinterest followers contribute to just a small fraction of my online revenue compared to guest blogging.
Here are the top 5 reasons why I love guest blogging:-
1. It’s Free
Guest blogging is one of those rare online marketing strategies that is 100% free and guaranteed to increase targeted traffic to your website. So if you’re not already guest blogging (or not guest blogging regularly), then you need to get serious about it!
I personally spent tens of thousands of dollars on SEO consultants, automated software and training courses – and none of it helped me increase my traffic nearly as much as guest blogging has! In fact, guest blogging and social media were the only two strategies, I used, to take my blog from 0 to over 100,000 page views a month, in just 9 months – so all that traffic was free!
How high do you think your profits would be if you weren’t spending all your money generating traffic?
2. Long Term Results
If you craft an incredible 600-word educational essay and post it on Facebook, it might get you traffic and interest for a few days at best. If you post that same article as a guest post, that link and content will provide traffic to your site directly (through clickthroughs) and indirectly (through increased search engine rankings) for years!
The problem with most online marketers is that they focus on the short-term. They focus on questions like:-
“How much money can I make this month?” and “How much traffic can I drum up today?”
Rather, they should be focusing on growing their business long-term. Guest blogging is a perfect strategy to do just that!
3. Multiple Traffic Sources
Each guest post you write opens you up to a multitude of traffic sources. We’ve already talked about direct clickthrough traffic and indirect traffic from search engines. But there are also other ways guest blogging can help you increase traffic and build your business.
When you post a guest article on someone else’s blog, you now have a relationship with that person. This opens up doors to other kinds of collaboration – joint ventures, social media promotions, you name it – the sky is the limit when it comes to collaboration. In the “offline” world, business people talk about “your net worth is determined by the size (and quality) of your network.” The same is true online!
Furthermore, when you have guest articles on other sites, you’re bound to be discovered by others in the industry. I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve gotten saying, “I read your guest post on so-and-so’s website – I’d love to interview you/collaborate/joint venture/promote your work.” Guest blogging can open you up to an entirely new network of people – and that’s good for business.
4. Cross Promotions
Generally, when someone posts a new article on their blog, they will promote it out to their social media followers. So each time you post a guest post on someone else’s site, they’re going to promote your article for you!
I also recommend that you promote each of your guest posts to your followers – this is called cross promotion. Everybody wins – the readers get great content, the blog gets more traffic, and you get a high quality backlink and more traffic as well.
5. Unlimited Potential
This is my favorite part of guest blogging – it’s unlimited!
You see, you can only post so many tweets and Facebook status updates a day until your followers get burned out. But you can never post too many guest posts – because each time you’re posting to a different site and a different group of readers!
There is truly unlimited potential when it comes to guest blogging. Whether you want to do ten, one hundred, or a thousand or more guest posts, you can – and your traffic will reflect the amount of effort and work you put into it.
Do you guest blog? How has this affected your blog or your business? I would love to hear your thoughts. Please leave your comments in the comments box below.
About Tom Corson-Knowles
Tom Corson-Knowles is the author of How To Make Money With Twitter and blogs regularly about social media and marketing your business online. You can connect with Tom on Twitter and Facebook.