What Is Guest Blogging And Should I Be Doing It?

Guest Blogging is simply writing a post for another website, or accepting a post from another author on your website.

The benefit of writing for another website is that instead of your post reaching the same audience, yours, you reach a new audience, the website where your guest post appears.

The benefit of accepting Guest Posts on your own website is that you provide your audience with expertise further than your own.  You can provide a different perspective, a case study, or an interview, which all back up and support the message you are trying to get across.

If done well, Guest Blogging can bring you regular referral traffic, increase your brand presence, and improve your search engine traffic.

Who Should Be Focusing On Guest Blogging?

In my opinion, every business which represents itself online (which is pretty much everyone), should be Guest Blogging.   It should be a core marketing strategy just like your own blog is.

I think it is absolutely fantastic the amount of effort and attention that goes into the content being produced in some of the niches I follow.  It is actually pretty outstanding. The attention to detail, research, and quality of work that goes into so many blogs is amazing.

But, when it comes to promoting the content, that's when I see people coming into issues.  You can have the most outstanding beautiful blog in the world, but if no one reads it then you're not going to get very many clients!

Guest Blogging is a relatively simple way for you to get your message out to a totally new audience and have them find out about your blog and business. 

Which Stage Of Business Is Best For Guest Blogging

Whilst I say this I do recognise we only have so much time in the day.  So, there is some advice I can give in terms of the stage of the business, and whether Guest Blogging should be a focus.

Guest Blogging is a long-term strategy.  If you are a service-based business and your primary goal is to take on new clients quickly, then Guest Blogging might not be the primary tactic to focus on. First, you want to hit Facebook Groups, build your portfolio, and start building relationships.

I Call Guest Blogging A Second Tier Marketing Strategy

First Tier:
Answering Questions / Pitching In Facebook
Joining Online Networking Groups
Relationship Building (Referrals)
One To One Pitching For Service-Based Businesses


Second Tier:
Blogging
Posting On Social Media
Guest Blogging
Campaigns / Competitions / Content Launches
Conversion Optimisation
Email Marketing


What Guest Blogging Is Not

It’s not a quick fix.
Guest Blogging is content marketing and content marketing takes time.  It takes time not just to perfect the messaging, finding the story which most hooks your audience.  But it takes time to research, pitch, and place your post on the right websites.

This can be frustrating for a lot of business owners who expect fast results.  But fast results come from Tier 1 strategies.

Tier 2 strategies are long term traffic generation builders.  They are tactics which will build up over time and will lead to far better results in the long run.

You need to do more than Guest Post to rank number 1.
Guest Posting does add to your site's authority, assuming you are providing quality content and you are posting in the right places.

If your Guest Post gets shared heavily through social media, like this one did for one of our clients then you're going to get even more positive signals pointing to your site which will help your ranks.

But, you're going to need to do more than post a few Guest Posts in order to rank, and SEO traffic is not the primary metric you should be focusing on.


How Guest Blogging Can Help Grow Your Business

Guest Blogging is still one of the best strategies you can do for your website to build your traffic and grow your subscribers AND REVENUE.

​I really love this graph which shows the conversion rates of different channels.  Look at the difference in conversion between search engines & social media channels.

Why such a difference?

The reason is that someone who comes to your website from a search engine is in a completely different stage of the buying cycle.  If they come to your website through the keyword "free cold email templates" or "best fat-free icing recipes" or "free gratitude meditation" they are specifically looking for information on that topic.

If they are browsing through a social media feed and something captures their eye, then they are coming through in a browsing mode.  They are trying you on for size, and if they really like it, they might stick around.

So, customers coming through a search engine are much more targeted.  With Guest Blogging this depends on the website traffic of the blog you are publishing on.  If your Guest Blog ranks well in Google, customers read it and then click through to your site then it is still super targeted.

This click through can build your email and subscriber list very quickly, though it does take consistency and effort.

Gregory Ciotti, for example, grew his email subscribers to 36,733 Email Subscribers through Guest Blogging. 

And Here’s a Case Study of a business owner who published 41 Guest Posts over a period of 5 months and increased his traffic by 20%.


Should I Be Guest Blogging If I Don’t Like To Write?

I can’t imagine it, but I do know there are lots and lots of people who don’t like to write.  Kind of weird if ya ask me ;)  

I personally believe the most important thing in any business is to ENJOY what you are spending your time on. You didn’t start your own business to feel like you're some kind of content churning machine tied to your desk.

You need to pick your marketing tactics wisely.

For example, with Ginger Marketing you will not believe how many people have told me I should be getting on live video and doing webinars.  Well, that’s great for people that like doing live broadcasting and shooting and then editing videos.

I personally don’t like doing any of those things.

Perhaps when I have enough budget to invest in experts who can help me to set that up for my business I might do it, but right now I don't have the budget, and it just doesn't excite me.

So, if you don’t like writing, then there is really only two options.

1) Don’t focus on this tactic now
2) Invest in an expert who can do it for you

I am a huge believer in hiring in expertise over learning to do everything yourself. I don’t really understand what’s going on in the Marketing / Business world right now with the whole you need to be an expert at everything thing. It doesn't make sense!

Why not slowly build up your channels over time as you take on new clients, and then invest your revenue in more channels to grow even more.

Hiring an expert might cost you slightly more money than spending $79 on a course but think about how much money you will save in time.   Stick to your zone of genius and hire (or swap if you can) the rest.

If you'd like to start Guest Blogging download our Free Guest Blogging Tracker. 

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