Industry analysts have made wild claims lately about guest blogging being out of control. Some have even said that this method of gaining exposure both in and out of the search engines is dying due to Google’s watchful eye.
People have exploited guest blogging. It’s true. Many spammers have found ways to use guest blogging as a way to improve rankings without any real effort. In an online marketing world where the slightest mistake might incite a Google penalty, it’s important to play it safe. Check out these five ways to make sure your guest blogging campaign remains legit.
1. Don’t Pay for a Guest Post
With the rise of guest blogging came the rise of blog owners trying to exploit writers and businesses looking to gain exposure. Blog owners quickly realized that charging to post a guest blog article wouldn't deter everyone, and now it’s become a fairly common practice.
Blog owners want you to spend time creating high quality content, and then they want you to pay them to post it. Seems opposite of how it should be, right? There are still plenty of sites left that are accepting guest posts and won’t charge you a dime for it. These are the sites that you want to post on.
Paying for a guest post shows that you’re only interested in posting to get the link. And directly paying for links is against Google's quality guidelines. Plus, it means you’re contributing to blogs that don’t really care about the quality of the content they’re publishing. If a blog owner responds to your pitch with a request for money, opt to search elsewhere.
2. Only Publish on Sites With Limited Guest Posts
Ever visit a site that looks great, look through the blog, and see that 100% of posts are from guest authors? This should be a red flag. Initially it might seem like this is a great potential site to guest post on due to the number of guest posts, but in the eyes of Google this looks spammy. I have firsthand knowledge of some sites that only published guest posts getting love letters from Google with warnings about unnatural outbound links on the site.
And if you think about it, this means the author isn't publishing any of his or her own original content, and instead solely relying on guest posts to keep the blog going. This is not always a bad thing as sites like Business2Community have pretty much all guest content yet are authoritative. But in 99% of the cases sites that are primarily made up of guest posts are spammy.
Instead, look for sites that don’t have many guest posts published recently. Many blog owners will schedule guest posts only once a week, or perhaps even only once a month. Sites like these are a much better target for a legit guest blogging campaign, as blogs with fewer guest posts means each guest post published will be better received. Not only that but the long held rule that the more work you have to put into getting a link the better it probably is applies here. Getting a guest post on a site that is selective is more work, but the exposure you gain on these sites is worth it.
3. Publish On Sites With Lots of Social Engagement
Another common mistake that makes a guest blogging campaign look illegitimate is if all of the posts you publish don’t get any sort of social engagement. The whole point of a guest blogging campaign is to publish articles on sites that actually get read and shared, so if you’re publishing on sites that don’t get either of those you’re not going to get great results.
Avoid this:
And instead opt for this:
If a site doesn't have any sort of social sharing tools, you should consider avoiding it completely. At the very least, the site should be represented by a Facebook, Twitter, and more. The site obviously doesn't need to have the sharing metrics that the New York Times does, but at the very least everything that’s getting posted should get some social shares. After all you should be guest blogging for the exposure and not just the link and getting your content shared socially will achieve more exposure.
4. Don’t Do It Just for the Link
Guest blogging campaigns go south when the only reason the campaign is initiated is because the client wants links. Yes, guest blogging is great for link building, but it’s great for other reasons too. Looking at guest blogging through a PR lens rather than an SEO lens will let you see the bigger picture of how your guest blogging campaign can truly become effective.
The bigger picture means actually providing valuable information to readers, and not just generating copy and a link to your website. Spending time to craft valuable content will mean you get shares, and can become a valuable resource on specific topics. This can have benefits that go far beyond just better search engine rankings.
5. Focus on Quality, Not Quantity
Last but not least, don’t overdo it. Obviously the more guest posts you get on different sites the more benefits you’ll have, but there comes a point where you can actually do too much and therefore come off as spammy. Limit yourself, and rather than do 50 posts a month, do 25 higher quality posts.
Guest posting is no longer about quantity, it’s now about quality. The results you’ll get from fewer, higher quality posts are much better than the results (and possibly Google penalties) you’ll get from a massive amount of low quality posts. Don’t overdo it on the guest blogging, and divert your resources to focus on quality.
Image credit:
bloggingcage.com (pencil bloggers)
annzoseo.com (linking)
