- As any savvy inbound marketer will tell you,
blogging plays an important role
in strengthening your website's search engine optimization.
But did you know that guest blogging
can also provide similar SEO benefits?
(upbeat music)
Hey guys, it's Olivia here from Neighbourhood
where we help brands find sell, and keep their people.
As simple as its name,
guest blogging is a collaborative marketing practise
where a brand will write content
for the purpose of publishing it on another brand's blog.
Think of it like having a guest appearance
to your favourite talk show,
giving your authentic perspective on the topic at hand.
One of the key benefits of guest blogging
is it positions you as a thought leader.
By openly sharing your knowledge and expertise
on a different brand's platform within your industry,
others will progressively see you
as an expert in your field.
Another benefit is that it expands your audience.
For the most part, established brands with informative,
relevant blogs, most likely have a dedicated audience.
Therefore, when you share your ideas and knowledge
with this particular network,
you inherently further your reach
and bring about brand awareness.
The third benefit is that guest blogging
increases referral traffic to your website.
As well as gaining awareness,
having a direct line to an existing audience
means that a whole lot of people
will be coming through your website.
Additionally, if you start to grow a name for yourself
within an industry, other people will hear about you,
and see what you have to offer,
which means more website traffic.
And lastly, and maybe the most important benefit
of guest blogging is that it positively influences
your website's domain authority.
The concept of backlinks is when an outside website
makes links to your site, which indicates to search engines
that that piece of content is vouched by others.
The more backlinks your site has,
the more credible your site appears,
which builds your website's domain authority
and positively influences its rank in search engines.
As a guest blogger,
you can actively create relevant backlinks to your site
and increase its domain authority.
If you enjoy this video,
be sure to subscribe and leave a like,
and if you're on YouTube, make sure you hit that bell
so you can stay up-to-date on all of our latest videos
delivered every week to your inbox.
Now that we've gone through how guest blogging
can benefit your brand,
here are some steps to get you started.
Step one is to create a list of businesses
who you can and want to write for.
These businesses must relate to your market niche,
not your direct competitors.
Look for ones that openly accept outside contributors
and have high domain authority.
Using Google search, you can discover businesses
who accept guest bloggers
by simply typing in your target market,
followed by the search term guest post.
To find out if they have high domain authority,
insert their URL into MOZ,
which is a website that calculates domain authority.
Best practise is to go for the websites
that have domain authority between 21 and 70.
Websites within this range
normally have a reasonably sized, committed audience
and enough authority
to justify you creating a blog for them.
But before you start hitting up all seventies in your list,
it's important to note that the higher the domain authority,
the more writing guidelines you'll receive,
and the more difficult it will be
to get a guest blogger position due to competition.
Step two is to get your blog posts ready to send away.
An efficient way to get creative
is to work with content you've already published.
Use it as a framework to build something new off it.
This is also a good opportunity to insert some backlinks
to your own website and get your own rates up.
And if you guest blog for other brands,
you can even backlink to these posts.
The third step is to get friendly
with the companies you want to write for.
Post about one of their articles
that you liked on your socials,
and tag the company and author
to really capture their attention.
You want to build the foundations of a hopefully fruitful
and wondrous relationship,
so try to engage with your target company
on multiple occasions during a good amount of time
for at least two weeks.
Step four is to apply.
Once contact has been made,
send a personalised email outlining who you are,
why you're reaching out,
and the details of your ideas as a guest blogger.
Step five, engage with your audience.
Get in touch with the people who've commented on your blog
via the host site or social media.
Because engagement is a two-way street,
take the time to respond to audiences comments,
even when they're not the most positive.
In the end, more comments
will strengthen Google's assessment of your relevancy.
And step six is to nurture your relationship
with the hosting company.
Make sure that when you get the green light,
don't waste the opportunity,
create a positive and meaningful experience
with your contacts, create connections,
be genuine, share information,
show an interest in what they do.
Doing so could lead
to many other guest blogging ventures in the future.
So if you found this video helpful,
feel free to share it with someone you know,
that needs a hand with blogging
or search engine optimization.
You could also subscribe to our blog
where you'll find a bunch more tools, tips, and templates
to help you find sell,
and keep your people, just like Neighbourhood does.
So that's it for me for now, happy marketing.
(upbeat music)