The Best Platforms to Build Your Personal Brand
By: Casey Botticello
Tags: Social Media, Technology, Writing, Business, Entrepreneurship

9. Guest Posts on Related Blogs

While there are many ways to promote your content, there is one strategy that stands out as a consistent way to generate new organic traffic — writing a guest post on someone else’s blog.

Initially, some bloggers are hesitant to pursue this strategy, wondering:

Why would I give someone else content for their blog? Shouldn’t I be building out my own back catalogue of content?

However, as you will see from the reasons described below, there are many benefits to guest posting on blogs other than your own.

Create Backlinks

Most blogs that accept guest posts allow their contributors to leave at least one link to their own site. After all, most of them don’t offer any financial compensation for your hard work. A brief newsletter mention, blog post, or keyword-optimized link is fairly standard.

Still, even a single backlink from an authoritative blog will greatly benefit your own blog’s SEO. Backlinks make your content more discoverable to search engines like Google. This is especially true if you are guest posting on another site within the same niche as your own site.

Build Your Social Media Following

Guest blogging increases the amount of social media shares your content will receive. This is a great way to boost your follower count and accelerate your lead generation efforts.

By contributing to an authoritative blog, you are essentially receiving an endorsement from the author of the guest blog. This means that their readers are far more likely to explore your content.

In most guest blogging arrangements, you get to customize your contributor profile. Here you can include direct links to your social media accounts, making it easy for new readers to become followers.

Improves Your Authority in the Industry

Guest blogging helps you establish authority in your industry.

Imagine that you search for the phrase “What is X?” or “How can I improve at X” in Google.

Which of the two search engine results sounds more authoritative:

A single website that appears to answer your questions (but it contains no endorsements, only self-proclaimed endorsements) and is one of many sites all making similar claims. A website that contains an answer to your question, which is also referenced across other top links, all referring to your specific website, which other bloggers tout as an expert.

Obviously the second scenario is preferable.

Yes, your own blog post may reach the number one result in either search, but readers are likely to skim a few other top results. If all of the top sites are referring to you, and several even include a guest post from you, your own content will be much more easily accepted as authoritative.

In the first search scenario, even if your content ranks highly, there will be other articles written by other authors, all making similar claims. This diminishes your perceived authority within a niche, to most readers browsing.

Expand Your Blogger Network

Every now and then, you’ll guest post for someone and the new connection you made turns out to be a home run.

This new blogging contact can be someone who allows you to be an affiliate for their new product. They may follow you on social media and comment on all your posts. They may share your blog posts on their Twitter feed when they see it.

It is difficult to make these types of valuable connections. One of the best ways to do this is by taking the time to write a guest post for someone’s site.

For example, I recently met Chris Craft after he posted a comment in response to one of my articles. After some friendly chatting over email, I offered to do a guest post for his site InspireFirst.

Read The Guest Post

Expand Your Portfolio of Work

Portfolios highlighting your best work are important for both individuals and companies. Consumers want to see for themselves the impact a brand has, especially when it’s accessible online. One of the benefits of guest blogging is enhancing that portfolio.

The more valuable the information you share in your guests posts, the more this demonstrates expertise and experience within your industry. It can also function as a lead generation tool, since readers may also be interested in a service you describe or demonstrate in your guest post.

In the previously mentioned guest post I did on InspireFirst, I created a custom infographic. I have already received a few emails from writers looking to collaborate, solely because they want me to create them their own evergreen infographic.