The return on investment of all great marketing strategies is growth; using your budget in the smartest way possible to maximise your lead conversion and sales potential to propel your business forward. You may think your marketing strategy is a winning one but if it doesn’t include guest blogging then your lead conversion, traffic and industry authority it’s a losing one.
Blogging is such an important marketing tool and you’d be foolish not to be using any tool available to give you a market advantage. The thing about blogging as a marketing strategy and pretty much anything in life is that you get back what you put in. If your content is stale and irregular then you won’t see the benefits.
Done properly, blogging drives traffic to your site and can improve your lead conversions with additional calls to action. We are huge champions for including blogging in your advertising budget because it complements and makes your advertising more impactful. It’s the ripples after a splash.
There are SEO benefits as your site gets indexed more and social media benefits as your content is shared and discussed.
I think it’s fair to say that blogging definitely doesn’t suck but why guest blog? Why invite others who aren’t closely connected to your business to write on your site? Why write for others when you could be posting that content on your own blog?
Why guest blog?
Here’s the rub. Ideas are sometimes hard to come by or sometimes content gets a little samey. We know that new content is good for SEO and driving traffic to your site but it won’t be as impactful if that content reads like a 5 day old bagel tastes. Guest posts on your site are great for keeping content fresh and the fresher your content the better.
There are additional benefits such as that blogger promoting their content on their social media pages and to their followers, introducing you to a new audience. It also shows your customers and visitors that your blog isn’t just about promoting your company – it’s about informative debate and education. It shows that you care about more than the bottom line and that’s attractive to consumers.
Guest blogs are also a great way to test out campaign ideas before investing a lot of money in them. You have to be careful about this though because the idea of blogging is to educate your audience so strip it back to ideas and see how they go down.
Don’t be selfish
Guest blogging is a two-way street so don’t be selfish and expect all the love but give none back. You need to be posting guest blogs on other sites as well as welcoming guest bloggers to yours.
This is going to benefit your company. Sure, you’ll get less direct traffic to your site but you create backlinks which helps with SEO. More importantly you establish yourself as an authority in your market or on a particular subject.
How to guest blog
When hosting guest blogs on your site, the content needs to align with your business so do your research and feature articles from people who have a respected background. LinkedIn is a great place to reach out to content writers and ask to feature some of their work on your site. Don’t ignore traditional bloggers though. Many of these people have built up a loyal following that trusts them to be independent and honest.
For your content you need to do something similar. You need to contact respected bloggers in your marketplace and ask them if you could feature an article with them.
Research your host site and see what ideas the readers there are most receptive to or topics that elicit the most comments. Include links back to other popular articles on that site too.
Make sure your author bio clearly states who you are and the company you represent. This will help build your authority.
Credibility is so important to consumers these days and more than ever trust has to be earned. Think about how much more trustworthy and credible your sales team come across if they could direct customers to an independent site that features an article they wrote? Or your support team contributing to a forum or self-help website with an article that answers questions your customers have?
Subject authority breeds credibility and trust. Credibility and trust will benefit your image which will positively affect sales.
That is the power of guest blogging.
