Guest blogging is quickly becoming one of the most important things you can do in online marketing. There’s been a big shift recently toward what some call “in-house” journalism. Traditional journalists are hanging up their pad of paper and pen to write for their organizations all over the web – not just on their own organizations’ blogs. That’s what we mean by guest blogging.
The very best guest blogs are written on sites that have a lot of qualified readership. A qualified reader is one who cares about the subject matter and is highly likely to take some action because of it. However, guest blogs aren’t usually the last step before someone makes a purchase on your site or fills out a lead form.
When looking at a traditional sales funnel, guest blog posts are positioned very early in the process. Readers consume content that leads them toward a sale at some future date. It’s the long con of sales, and should be treated as such. If the post is too much of and ad, or if it seems too agenda-driven, readers will discard the advice and move on.
The reason guest blogging works so well is that it acts as a credibility actor for your brand. The online publican that posts a guest blog from you appears to be endorsing you and your message. As such, readers will believe what you have to say. For this reason, some online publications have made the approval process to get published very difficult. And so it should be.
So how do you go about getting published as a guest blogger? That all depends on the site. Some sites use guest blogging as the only way they produce content. Those tend to be the easiest to use, although some do a great job with quality control. So don’t write garbage. Most sites want unique content, they usually don’t want to just syndicate content your wrote on your company blog.
If your considering guest blogging as part of your internet marketing strategy, do it carefully. But more importantly, do it.
