Guest posting remains a widespread practice amongst bloggers. At first, the concept can be confusing. You sit back and ask: why? Why do I have to write guest posts? Why don’t I just put it up on my blog? Well, this article gives ten beneficial reasons why people write guest posts.
1. To Impact an Audience
Like SEO and other marketing tactics that help you reach your target audience, blog writing is first done to impact an audience. Writers have one goal: to teach someone something and make life easier for a reader.
People write guest posts for this very reason. They want someone out there to share in their knowledge and be grateful to have read something so good.
I write a lot of guest posts. And each time I sit behind a screen to write, the first thing that comes to mind is: Someone is going to read this! It is a thing to joy to me that people read my work.
Related: 15 Ways to Make Your Guest Post Pitch Irresistible
2. Be Seen as an Expert
Another reason people write guest posts is that it influences how they are perceived. This is especially true if the guest post appears on a reputable site.
For example, if a doctor makes a guest post on a website like Harvard.edu, people will immediately believe that he knows exactly what he is doing, and they will be right. Big websites have a very stringent editorial team.
They go through each submission carefully and choose only the best.
3. To Get Better at Writing
It is true. People make guest posts because it gives them a shot at becoming better writers.
Since high-profile sites have a strict set of guidelines, writers who submit guest posts have to push themselves to certain limits to be accepted. The stretch is what makes them better writers.
Some blogs send rejection emails that include a note about the rejected writing. I find many of these notes pretty helpful. Once, an editor introduced me to the concept of oxford commas.
I had never before heard anything like it until I read that mail. If I remember correctly, it read: “Your use of Oxford commas is inconsistent.”
This made me do lots of research, improving my writing in the process.
Read: 15 Ways to Engage Your Audience With Content
4. People Do Guest Blogging for SEO
Writing guest posts is a great SEO technique, and for this reason, many people write guest posts. This works by way of including backlinks.
If you own a blog or a website, a URL on a high-authority blog that points to your site will boost the traffic on your site and affect your site’s ranking on google.
You’ll get more visits because most of the visitors who click on your guest post on reputable blogs might follow links that appear on this post.
And you’ll be ranked higher because if google can trust that big blog, then it believes it can trust you.
5. People Write Guest Posts to Increase Conversions
Guest posts also affect our conversion rates, especially when they are very well written. This is why I urge writers to give guest posts their best shot. Consider guest posting as some sort of advertisement—as you, selling yourself and your product.
If you can, via a guest post, convince readers that you know what you are doing, they sure will stop by your site and buy whatever you are selling.
It is therefore important that you pay attention to the appearance of your own site. Your site must not look like a scam website. It must have a working security system approved by all, or at least most browsers.
Read: 10 Best SEO Writing Tips for Creating Great Content
6. People Write Guest Posts to Build Relationships
One of the most common reasons why people write guest posts is that they want to build relationships. The first relationship is going to be with the editor of the web blog you submit to.
I like the writer-editor relationship so much because, as explained before, it is quite personal. The editor tells you exactly what to do and the changes to effect, and when you make these changes, you see the beauty of your work stand out.
You also create relationships with readers and commenters.
7. People Do Guest Blogging to Get Feedback
You will agree that nothing—at least to a writer who is interested in improving his art—is better than feedback.
When you get feedback from editors and readers alike, you get real clues about the strength and weaknesses of your write-up.
You are likely to get more feedback about your work when you write guest posts for the following reasons:
- There is a bigger audience: the bigger audience means more comments.
- There will also be professionals: many of the people who visit established blogs are usually professionals. They come around to learn a few things. And if your post catches their eyes, then you got this!
8. People Write Guest Posts for Opportunities
I have been stressing that guest posts have to be well-written. Here is one of the main reasons why. Guest posting can put you in the face of opportunities that will blow your mind.
You can always include your reputable publications in your resume and in your bio. When employers see that, they will surely be swept off their feet. They’d nod and acknowledge that for you to have made it to a blog that reputable, then it only means that you are great at what you do.
Sometimes, editors from other sites even come directly to writers to ask for posts. This is called a solicited submission.
Read: 10 Top Tips for Simplifying Your Message
9. Social Media Presence
Many people write guest posts to improve their social media presence. Your social media presence is going to grow when you turn to guest posting, and it is no wonder why.
More often than not, blogs that have a large number of visitors also have a strong social media presence. So as little as a mention on their social media pages is going to push you real far.
And this is also going to affect your site’s ranking.
You should know that backlinks from social media also contribute to SEO performance. Optimized social media pages are a great way to direct traffic to your website.
10. For the Thrill of an Acceptance
Yes, writers like myself write guest posts also for the thrill of acceptance. It feels great to be accepted by a big magazine, so we chance and keep chasing this feeling!
Looking to get started on guest blogging? Check out this study on SEOmoz and see some guest posting theories and the kind of guest post outreach many editors will likely accept for a guest post consideration.
