Inbound Marketing – Guest Blogging and Article Writing

Inbound marketing makes it easy for your website to be found and a decent tactic to achieve this is through correct link building is guest blogging and article writing one of many channels of Inbound Marketing

Guest Blogging and Article Writing

Since Panda and Penguin algorithm updates the search engine optimisation of on page factors are still very important but must be part of a wider content distribution and inbound marketing strategy – more off page optimisation is needed.

Search engines after Panda and Penguin are better at distinguishing tricks like keyword stuffing and punish you for them. Poor and poorly written content, imperfect site optimisation and improper linking are degradable offences in Google eyes. This has been true for a long time and the SEO business has reacted favourably and most reputable companies follow the on page recommendations well.

Off Page Factors Have Gained Prominence

Many webmasters having optimised their websites for on page factors turn their attention to off-page factors to gain relevant links – many choose guest blogging as a means to acquiring relevant links to their websites.

Link Building

There are as many ways to get links but in the aftermath of Panda and Penguin submitting guest articles or guest blogging is slowly becoming best practice. The trend is driven by a desire to follow the pack. Guest blog posts, all by themselves, do increase rankings.

Guest Blogging – writing blogs or articles for other sites

The strength in guest blogging to blogs or websites that have a decent following is that the posts are read immediately and it can be launched without delay avoiding the embarrassment of blog posts that no one comments on. However, the guest-blog-only strategy has two fatal weaknesses:

• There is an obviously fixed ratio of one linking domain per article placed,
• You reach rapidly diminishing returns.

 Furthermore, using the ideal blog to post is difficult to find. They are a scarce resource. You can post to lesser blogs but expect lesser returns.

Content Strategy

A pure content strategy can be frustrating simply because the results and rewards are slow to be recognised. The best strategy is to create great content and to distribute it using all the marketing channels available: that means using inbound marketing as depicted in this info graphic – courtesy of Hubspot:

  

With great content, your guest posts will be more effective. So will your email marketing campaigns, paid search traffic, and referral traffic. We can think of content as a multiplier that adds to almost any other marketing tactic.

The advantages of unique content happen with guest posting or article writing are:

• Bloggers will be more likely to accept posts and talk about/to you if your target site has its own credible content.  
• Users from the host blog will share and re-share your content if your site offers something they can be excited about. 
• People will want to link to you.

 Make Content a Pre-Requisite 

Where are we headed, and what should we do next?

You should not publish and wait. Building relevant links through blogging and guest blogging matters. You must engage in other channels to distribute your unique content. Use all the channels in the info graphic that’s appropriate to your business and raise your precious content out of obscurity.

SEO is growing, link building is essential and inbound marketing is thriving. The Search engine optimisation industry is moving towards sustainability growth and capable of providing solutions, recommendations and results that are going to have a far bigger impact than raising the rankings for a couple tracked keywords.

It seems highly unlikely that Google will penalize guest posts or articles writing or for that matter any form of distributing good relevant content. After all distributing good content does increase users experience.

About the Author

Minke Oving is an Online Reputation expert at SEO Synovation and guest blogger for a number of clients.

She is a regular contributor to this blog and can be contact at m.oving@kpnmail.nl