If you run a successful blog you will no doubt be wondering whether or not to start opening it up to guest bloggers. It’s a brave move but one that will generate far more traffic to your site. Guest blogging is one of the top recommended strategies to push you up the search engine rankings, and by affiliating yourself with other top quality writers you’ll enjoy an increase in traffic for years to come.
But there are other benefits too. By including guest bloggers on your site, you are building relationships with other experts in your field. This in turn serves to raise people’s awareness of your blog and therefore helps you build a reputation for being an industry expert. You will be generating backlinks across many domains and your site will be seen as infinitely more credible by the search engines.
So how do you incorporate guest bloggers onto your site? It’s as well to do your research before you begin, and have a look at how other blogs do it too – you’ll get loads of ideas online.
Choose Wisely
It should go without saying that it is essential that you choose writers who can write! Low quality guest blogs with bad spelling, grammar and punctuation will look like spam to the search engines. You also need to choose bloggers that know what they are talking about. It helps if they come at the subject from a slightly different angle – if they are just saying the same things as you the posts will lose their power. Take the time to search the web for bloggers that can provide you with engaging and informative blogs that you know your readers will enjoy.
Ask Bloggers to Link Their Site to Yours
Make the most of your relationship with your guest bloggers and ask them to include a link to your website on theirs. Perhaps you could also offer to do a guest post for their website in return. Most will be happy to do this for you. Associating yourself with other highly regarded bloggers will help to raise your reputation and it will increase your blogging network.
Vary The Styles
Try and get a few guest bloggers on board and make sure that there is a good variety of articles. It helps if some are humorous, some are informative and some are opinion-based.
Keep It Relevant
Whichever guest bloggers you choose, make sure the content that they are supplying is totally relevant to your area of expertise. This will help you come across as an industry expert that has affiliations with other experts in similar areas. If the article has little or no relevance to your blog subject then this will only make both readers and search engines suspicious.
Including guest blogs on your blog is almost always a great idea. If you do it, do it well and remember to keep guest blogs high quality and relevant. You won’t go far wrong and you’ll really enjoy the extra traffic to your blog – it’s well worth the effort!