If you ask the top professionals in town what the best digital marketing technique is, most of them would yell a resounding “guest blogs!!”
Ok. Maybe they won’t yell, but you get the idea. Guest blogs are critical for getting your message out there without being intrusive about your brand. It’s like visiting a friend’s house and talking about your business, rather than mailing out cold brochures. It’s a digital form of a calling card, and it totally works.
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What is Guest Blogging?
Back in the day when everyone was starting a blog, people were looking for ways to stand out. Guest blogging was created by blog owners as a method to increase traffic to their site via piggy-backing off the audience of their guest. Consider it a mutually beneficial exchange. Everyone gets something out of it, including the reader.
Statistics show that 62.96% of people perceive blogs with multiple authors as more credible. That’s because guest blogging provides a variety of benefits for the reader, including:
- It creates authority and often inspires professionals to speak on a subject matter.
- It qualifies your traffic for a higher conversion rate.
- It creates relevant backlinks to your site for higher search engine ranking.
- It creates motivated leads and sales throughout your business.
The benefits continue. The main concept is that you are providing valuable thought leadership for an incredible price; free.
A Treasured Tool
There’s a multitude of inbound marketing strategies that you can employ, but nothing seals your branding quite like guest blogging. According to a survey by Hubspot, guest blogging not only helps to drive traffic, but increases revenue too. Just remember, content marketing happens over time and it often happens slowly. Be patient and things will pay off.
AmplifiEDucation
Guest blogging can be a treasured digital marketing tool, but it must be done right. It’s not a shortcut to grow your blog or business, but rather a subsidiary to your consistent marketing efforts. Creating high-value guest articles should come second to your inbound marketing strategies already in place. In other words, never put all your eggs in the one basket of guest blogging.
Call-to-Action
The key to a successful guest blog is to insert your branding in a slightly ambiguous way, while also compelling people to take action. I know. It sounds impossible but that is the key to being taken seriously. You can’t look too salesy, but you also can’t drop the ball on the opportunity. It’s a slippery slope, but when you figure it out, the payouts are quite profitable.
Lander
One way to create valuable insight is to ask a question and then present your call-to-action (CTA). Solving a pain point for someone at no cost is an act to be remembered. When you create free value for consumers, you develop a deep trust. Then, when they are in a similar predicament, your brand is at the forefront of their mind. It’s a way to infuse empathy into business and it truly works wonders.
Guest posting isn’t just about brand visibility or building links. It’s ultimately about helping consumers and guiding the way. A sales funnel is just that. The hardest part is leading people to the top of it. Getting everyone to drink is easy when they thirst for the knowledge you can provide.