How to Use Guest Blogging to Improve Your SEO

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Despite what you may have heard regarding how guest blogging has fallen out of favor as a content marketing strategy and Google penalizing those who persist, blog posts, on the contrary, remain a very effective tool for increasing reach and improving SEO when executed properly. Some tips on making guest blogs work for you:

The Content Should Get Better Value with the Link

The bad name that guest blogging has earned for itself is largely due to the many posts that have been very obviously written for the exclusive purpose of getting linked. Even if strictly they can’t be labeled as spam, these posts are invariably vague, badly-constructed and written by people without any knowledge or experience of the subject.

You will almost always find links embedded in text stuffed with keywords that may not make any sense at all in the context they are inserted. Usually, no links to sites with authority will be found. From the point of user experience and SEO, it is far better to include links that are relevant in anchor text that is crisp and adds value to users as well as makes sense to search engines.

Link to High-Quality Content

Apart from the embedded links making no sense in the guest blog context, the content that is being linked to also needs to be of a very good quality so that it delivers value to the reader. Linking to low-quality posts can actually backfire and lead to penalties being awarded by Google that hurt both the reputation and the ranking of the site that hosts the guest post. According to experts at SandCrestSEO.com, a reputed SEO agency, guest posts should invariably be of quality comparable or even better than the content on your own website. Typically, guest blogs should feature content that engages, stimulates discussion, and initiates action.

Guest Posts Should Include Links to Other Sites besides Your Own

There is always a compulsion for guest bloggers to try and include as many links as possible that point to their own site, however, that is a dangerous game to play because the blog owner will soon wise up to your tactics and never make a repeat invite. It is perfectly okay to use a maximum of 2-3 backlinks on a post of more than 1000-1200 words, however, other links should always point to content that is recognized as being really authoritative in the industry. If you can include a few internal links, the blog host will be doubly thrilled.

Research reveals that blog posts tend to averagely have 1159 words with a total of 10 links; therefore an ideal distribution could be two links to your own site, two links to the host blog and the rest six to other sites with valuable content.

Conclusion

As is clearly evident, guest blogging continues to thrive and remains an effective strategy even from the perspective of search engine optimization. While low-quality blogs are completely ineffective, blog posts on sites with acknowledged authority in your industry remains an excellent way of increasing visibility, traffic, and rankings.

 

Author Bio: Candice Jones is in charge of digital media marketing at a leading footwear retailer. She has reported a substantial jump in page rankings after having engaged SandCrestSEO.com, a prominent SEO agency.