Mastering the realm of digital marketing is a priority for all modern businesses, and one of the most important assignments you’ll face revolves around building a strategy that incorporates the most effective tactics.
Accepting guest posts by adding a “write for us” page is undoubtedly one of the best features to consider.
The guest post strategy quite simply involves allowing other people to contribute content for your website’s blog or news features in return for exposure, experience, and publicity. They provide the work, and you publish it to your audience. Simple.
There are plenty of benefits for the contributor, which is why you should look to secure guest writing spots on other business sites too. However, you can reap just as many rewards as the publisher of the content.
Here are 10 reasons why you should utilize the “write for us” as soon as you can.
1. Acquire Expert Knowledge Your Audience Will Love
Your company’s blog or news feed isn’t merely a tool that should be used because other businesses do it. These features can genuinely add value to a customer’s relationship with the brand, providing the insight and value that will actively encourage them to trust you. This can influence conversion rates in a positive manner, and the expertise of a third-party can certainly aid the cause.
Guest bloggers and contributors can provide insights into topics and industries that are related to your business but don’t fail under your remit of expertise. For example, a used car dealership could accept posts from a local mechanic on identifying and fixing vehicle faults. If it provides extra value to the reader without alienating them from your core business principles, the results can only be positive.
The diversification of content will be a huge hit with your readers, not least because the content will be far richer than if you tried to bluff your way to producing the content yourself. Besides, it means that the content you produce can focus on the subjects you’re well versed in too.
2. Keep The Website Fresh Without Losing Focus On Your Business
Consumer expectations have evolved, particularly in regards to online interactions. The days of surviving with a static website are long gone. Attention spans are down to eight seconds (1), and ensuring that your site looks fresh through new content is the only way to keep returning visitors interested. Sadly, if they abandon the session because the site feels stale, they may never return.
Allowing guest posts can increase the rate of new content uploads tenfold, especially when you accept content from multiple guest contributors. Furthermore, this can be one of the easiest and most effective ways to diversify the type of content.
After all, guest contributors will want their content to stand out and may use infographics, videos, or audio to do it – especially if they focus on these media types on their own platforms.
It should also be noted that simply reading the contributions as an editor will enhance your own work. Whether it’s learning relevant points or simply thinking about ways to improve your writing style, the benefits can be huge.
3. Build Winning Business Relations
The primary advantages of using the guest blogging tactics relate to the relationship between your business and its customers. However, you should not forget that this is additionally a phenomenal opportunity to strike mutually beneficial partnerships with other businesses, suppliers, press relations teams, and more. Better still, the agreements can extend far beyond the idea of mutual guest posting.
A particularly good way to reach out to the other businesses you respect is to actively reach out and ask them for a contribution. The ego boost that people gain from your message will often lead to an acceptance of the proposal, especially if you are prepared to do something in return. Once you have your foot in the door, you can start to lay the seeds to gain the long-term partnership you desire.
Depending on the individual or brand you connect with, it could be possible to offer skills trades, gain a discount on their goods, or ask for their support in a host of other ways. Getting the professional relationship off to a positive start in this way will work wonders.
4. Gain A Professional Look
Appearances count for everything in business, particularly online. After all, if you fail to grab the user’s attention in those first few seconds, they will take their custom elsewhere. And once they’ve abandoned the session, the chances of getting them to come back are very slim. While the guest posts aren’t the most critical element, they certainly have a positive impact on the overall look.
With so many other assignments to consider, you probably won’t find the time to update your blog with new writing yourself. Even if you do, it’ll distract you from your main role.
When the blog hasn’t been updated in weeks, it can set an unprofessional tone. When taking on editing duties from contributed posts, the process only takes a few minutes, enabling you to maintain control with far greater ease.
Moreover, users will see that you have a larger number of writers on the team, which always looks good. Even when it’s clear that the contributions are from outsiders, it shows that your business appeals to them. In turn, this can inspire increased trust from the consumers.
5. Increase Your Exposure
The blog or news features part of the website serves several purposes, but increased exposure is one of the most significant. Taking in guest posts will do this in several ways. First and foremost, the person that has contributed the content is likely to share it via social media and their other channels. In turn, this can bring some of their followers directly to your site. And they’ll be from the same demographic.
Furthermore, their fans may share the content to spread your business site to an even larger audience. Meanwhile, anyone linking to this type of content will be generating inbound marketing links to your site. It takes around seven (2) interactions with a brand for consumers to become ready to complete a conversion. Reading the blogs can be one of the seven interactions, and can ease them to conversions.
The “write for us” strategy is the perfect way to increase the exposure without taking on huge expenses or commitments. Thanks to the concept of sharing on social media and the contributor’s website, reaching audiences that aren’t previously aware of the brand becomes far easier.
6. Bolster Your SEO
While social media and clicks from third-party sites will all aid your visitor figures, the bulk of your traffic will come from search engines. In fact, search engines are shown to provide 3x (3) the traffic that social media generates.
Given that links are one of the top metrics used by Google to rank pages, guest posts can significantly boost traffic levels as well as trust from clients.
In addition to the impact that links directly to the guest posts, the submissions themselves can contain outbound links, which also aids the search engine optimization of your site.
Google likes to see websites that are an active part of the community and those links going to other authoritative sites will work wonders – particularly when they are supported by the frequent new content on your site. Creating a schedule or publishing content will work well.
Perhaps most importantly, blog posts are the best way to focus on targeting new keywords and using other on-site SEO techniques. From utilizing localized terms to diversifying into related key phrases, this can bring big results. Crucially, it’ll let you target the increasingly crucial voice searches.
7. Generate An Extra Source Of Income
Blogs and news features are a great way to monetize your website through Google Ads, sponsored content, and PR. Increasing the frequency and quality of content through guest blogs can supplement the earnings very nicely.
In fact, even the “write for us” page itself may have a positive impact on the situation. After all, more web hits mean more impressions and more clicks.
Aside from the passive income made through the additional content pages, you can generate more success through posting the content onto social media streams. Alternatively, putting content behind a payment gateway can create an extra source of income.
When planning to take this route, though, it’s important to seek permission from contributors as their benefits may be reduced by removing their credentials fro the public pages.
Guest posts can also include affiliate links to products on Amazon or other third-party sites. Splitting the revenue gained through these endeavors with the guest poster can be an ideal way to encourage greater motivation and more frequent submissions.
8. Show That Your Business Can Be Contacted
Establishing trust is a major issue for most online businesses. If you cannot encourage customers to place their trust in your brand, the hopes of securing conversions will quickly evaporate.
Adding a “write for us” page will show that you are happy to be contacted and will respond to messages. It also provides another point of contact from the details included on your “about us” page.
When you use the page in the right way, it can also include your NAP data, which can help with search engine indexing. The page asking for submissions doesn’t need to be overly complicated, but should explain some of the benefits that can be gained for contributors.
After all, not all submissions need to come from other businesses. Sometimes, the best content comes from the people that love your brand.
The guest blogging strategy is another way to connect with your clients and help them feel closely connected to your brand. As well as recruiting new clients on your behalf, they will develop stronger feelings or the company. This will often translate to increased transactions too.
9. Your Competitors Are Doing It
Guest blogging has become big business for contributors, with some businesses reporting a 340% increase in search traffic (4) and thousands of others using it as a way to grow their name.
However, this is only made possible due to the sheer volume of websites actively accepting guest submissions. Naturally, then, if your business fails to do the same, it can fall behind the competition.
Apart from all of the incentives mentioned above, you should embrace the fact that you can clearly state the fact that a post is from a contributor. This allows you to reap all the rewards of having guest posts, but is unlikely to upset readers if a guest blogger makes a point that doesn’t match the opinions of the customer or your brand’s identity. This is itself makes guest blogs a great option.
The reality of the situation is that the majority of your visitors will expect to see content produced by multiple authors. Guest blogging is usually the best way to provide it. While you do not need to copy everything that your competitors do, this is one area where it pays to follow the crowd.
10. It’s Free
Last but not least, this marketing strategy is absolutely free (although some businesses will pay a small token fee to their contributors), which means you have nothing to lose.
Even if you only see a small improvement as a result of those endeavors, it’s a worthwhile addition to the cause. Besides, you never know when the content will go viral and take your marketing to the next level.
There’s nothing better than free publicity and exposure. Better still, this should free up more funds for alternative marketing strategies including the paid digital marketing endeavors as well as offline strategies.
The fact your content can be actively used to complement those other activities is hugely significant also. In this sense, then, the concept of incorporating guest posts onto your blog or website can be one of the greatest weapons in your arsenal.
So what are you waiting for? Start taking guest submissions today!
