The Influence of Guest Blogging and Guest Posting

The general consensus is that guest blogging is an excellent idea for you as a business owner. If you use guest bloggers (on occasion), it says several different things about you. All of those things are positive and people will pay attention. However, guest posting is something else entirely.

The benefits of using guest bloggers and guest posting

Although contrary to popular opinion, there are people who don’t see the merits of guest blogging. However, if you use guest bloggers to enrich your content, it shows that you are open-minded and that your goal is not only to “sell” your own content but that your primary interest is to provide value to your readers. Mixing the content up (as long as you don’t use guest bloggers’ content more often than you post your own original content) is an excellent idea and people will want to read it and to continue visiting you because they will continue to be hungry for more and more content. Having two opposing ideas here (the benefits of guest blogging and the uselessness of guest blogging) is bound to be confusing. Hopefully, the ensuing discussion will clarify the concepts.

Clearing up the confusion

There are two aspects that are worth discussing here.

• Comments, links, spam, and useless content
• Guest blogging and content marketing approaches 

Content marketing is very popular right now and has been for quite a while. When you are formulating your content marketing strategy, it is very important to incorporate guest blogging into that strategy. Of course, that doesn’t say that other aspects of your content marketing strategy are not important also. With all of the information available online, there is a greater chance of spam as well and, of course, search engine optimization (SEO) is still as important as ever. All of these must be included in your content marketing strategy.

What makes a good guest blogger?

There are many different things that make a person an effective guest blogger. Of course, first and foremost, the person must write top-quality content that is free of grammatical errors and the content must presented in a way that is compelling, exciting, valuable, and thought-provoking. Hopefully, the guest blogger will have written for other reputable people and places and has become a subject matter expert in his or her field. Other important aspects of the content are that they should tell a story and touch the reader on an emotional level. Without those elements, nobody will be willing to read the content at all. If your guest blogger can accomplish all of those things, he or she has earned the privilege of putting in a backlink to his or her website.

What makes a “bad” blogger?

The blogger who can be considered a “bad” blogger is the person whose content is not focused and is not relevant. It also contains an excessive amount of backlinks and is more fluff than substance. In short, it doesn’t really have any merit.

What makes an “ugly” blogger?

The “ugly” blogger is the blogger whose only objective is to have the opportunity to use backlinks and basically generate spam. The guest blogging approach, in this case, is purely selfish and opportunistic. That guest blogger is not in it for an altruistic reason, they are in it for themselves. There is no synergy between the guest blogger and you whatsoever. You and your business are merely a vehicle.

Conclusion

It is essential that you understand the value of guest bloggers and the virtues of posting those blogs. However, it is equally important for you to recognize which guest bloggers are not good for your business and why. If you are not able to do that, it may hurt your business more than help it and that would be the worst thing to do. One of the current goals is to improve the website quality of businesses and guest blogging can help to accomplish this. Of course, make sure that the content is always fresh, unique, and intellectually stimulating.