What Are The Benefits of Guest Blogging?

Backlinks Established Through Guest Posts Benefit Both Parties

Historically, backlinking as a tactic for improving SEO had a spotty reputation and changed drastically due to years of updates to the Google search algorithm. Many marketing experts will say they are thankful that we’ve evolved from the days of keyword stuffing and link spamming in articles. But the reality is that improving SEO rankings is more complex than ever before–it takes strategies that encompass on-page, off-page, and technical tactics to successfully move up the search engine rankings pages (SERP). 

Content marketing strategies built around blogs and other informational and educational content became one of the more effective frameworks to hang your SEO strategy. As readers increased the volume of content they were consuming, businesses realized that the benefits of guest posting are significant for those who can effectively implement the practice into their marketing strategy.  

Guest Posts from Other Bloggers Help Brands Achieve Their Content Goals

There is no magic number to how often your blog should post content, but data points to blogs that post daily see 57% more results, with more conversions and better SERP results than those that only post several times a week. To achieve this, many editors incorporate at least one to 10 posts from guest bloggers per week to provide a variety of viewpoints and expertise to their readership while remaining focused on addressing readers’ pain points and providing industry-relevant information or educational material. 

Discovering opportunities for mutually beneficial backlinking can be as easy as searching for brands operating a blog known for a consistent publication schedule with readership in your market niche. And of course, that often publishes guest posts from widely known, authoritative contributors.  

Maintaining a Blog Invites Link Building Opportunities and Opens the Door to Guest Blogging

The guest post process should be a two-way street whenever possible, especially when you are trying to partner up with a blog that has a fairly strong reader base in a potential new audience as well as an existing relationship with your target audience. As other companies are publishing one to 10 guest blog posts a month, you should strive to publish up to five blogs as a guest writer on other sites per month to support your content marketing strategy. To make the case for providing guest blogs to others, you should maintain your blog filled with educational and informational content. 

As a result, you can create high-quality content that engages readers and helps them reach a wider audience. By maintaining your content schedule, you can provide potential partners with ample opportunities to contribute guest posts as well. Allowing them the same opportunity to post relevant material on your blog will help enhance both your SERP performance and theirs. 

According to data from Backlinko, posts that generate the most backlinks are on average around 780 words, with the top 10% of best-performing posts in terms of social shares and impact averaging around 1100 words. 

Guests Posts On Blogs and Social Media Build Brand Awareness

Ads remain a popular marketing tool, but data shows that consumers are increasingly less interested in being advertised to, with 78% stating that they would rather learn more about a brand by reading articles. This holds when we see that other studies show that brands that prioritized their budgets around content marketing in 2021, increasing marketing spend between 10%-70%, were some of the most successful to emerge intact as the economy began to recover in 2022. 

Video and blogs emerged as the top-performing content, and in combination with one another, were not only responsible for building a new business but also for helping to retain and build relationships with existing consumers. Blogs are so effective, that according to Backlinko, as many as 72% maintain one to attract and maintain consumer engagement with the brand. 

As mentioned above, educational content emerged from the pandemic as one of the most effective content types, and brands that utilize it received 52% more organic traffic than those that simply blog about their company. It’s equally important to leverage content created by expert influencers and other voices in your industry to gain visibility and drive referral traffic to your targeted content on your business’s web pages or blog where your conversion funnels can take over. 

Guest Posts Help Establish Your Brand and Your Backlink Partners As More Credible Thought Leaders In Your Industry

Having an established blog stocked with educational materials, as well as informational posts, became especially important throughout the pandemic when consumers became noticeably more interested in learning about the brands they consume and the involvement of local businesses in supporting not only their employees but also the surrounding community. 

Companies raise awareness and remain top-of-mind when focusing on educational and informational materials, leading individuals and businesses to search for more affordable and responsible vendors, service providers, and products to use in their day-to-day personal and business lives. By providing multiple points of view on your blog, and providing your perspective to others, you’re helping attract more than 62% of readers who perceive blogs with multiple authors to be more credible.

Backlinking Is An Affordable SEO Solution For Keeping Content Fresh

Compared to other marketing strategies, content marketing and associated tactics such as backlinking can be relatively affordable solutions for boosting your SEO and ensuring your site remains stocked with evergreen material. With Search Engine Journal listing the average cost to publish a guest post at $77.80, 53% of digital marketing experts consider guest posting as the most effective link-building strategy relative to paid services and other expensive software tools. 

Guest posts are a more cost-effective way to capitalize on current trends while providing value for both parties when it’s focused on industry best practices, standards, and other topics that will provide educational and informational value to readers in the long term. Budgets focused on posting and soliciting guest posts around core services and products can ensure that the return on investment for such content affects the bottom line on a greater scale than other types of content.  

The Presence of High-Quality Backlinks Is Important to Google

There are many software tools and websites on the Internet that help track just how effectively you’ve executed your SEO, with three strong leaders standing out in the pack: Semrush’s Authority Score, Moz’s Domain Authority tool, and ahrefs’ Backlink Checker. 

Regardless of which of these three camps you might fall into, the fact is that they all help you analyze the strength of your backlinking and determine how to improve it. Such tools are crucial given that backlinks and page authority are key factors in the over 200 metrics tracked by Google, with 41% of SEO experts saying that link building poses the most challenges in SEO management.