In a nutshell, guest posting can provide:
- A better reputation (positive exposure to a larger audience)
- Increased traffic to your website, leading to more sales and subscribers)
- More back-links (increasing the power of your domain)
But there are many other benefits besides these main three. Knowing what these are when you upload a post to another company or individual's blog can give you a huge advantage. If you write your post with these factors in mind, you'll make full use of the opportunities that guest posting provides...
1. Offer Your Expert Services
On your own blog you may just be a knowledgeable person blogging about the same thing that many others blog about every day, but when you guest post you can create your own 'Expert' role. Ask if the blog owner can introduce you as their resident expert in [whatever niche you're blogging on]. Their readers who are interested, but not knowledgeable will then go to you for advice, and are more likely to subscribe to your own blog.
Here's a great post on guest blogging that goes further into this advantage. Guest post regularly and you'll establish your own niche, as well as give your reputation a well deserved boost. As we all know, consumers will opt to buy whichever service is the most reputable. So, if a blog they like chooses you to guest post, you're in for increased sales and instant trust from brand new customers.
2. Unlock New Niches
Don't think that once you've established your name within a niche, you have to limit yourself to it. Of course it's good to be an expert in your area, but blogging needn't be done by experts, and you'll show your versatility within the industry by broadening your horizons.
Not only will it make your online personality and your guest posts more interesting, but blogging in different niches will also widen your potential customer base. What's more, you might attract potential business partners/clients from that other niche, or at the very least swap useful contacts with them. Guest blogging in a different niche, and applying it to your own is often very interesting to readers, who might alert you to new products and ideas.
3. Beat Writer's Block
If you're blogging perhaps once, twice, three times a week in just one or two niches then sometimes inspiration runs dry. Guest blogging gives you the opportunity to come from an entirely new angle, inspired by that blog's previous posts, and without the risk of plagiarism. Then you can upload a short post on your own blog, with a link to the new one and kill 10 birds with one stone!
Guest blogging is by no means (as many people mistakenly think) a waste of time. Take care to research the blog's audience, the area of their niche that they like to blog about most, and which topics get the most attention from readers. Try to reply to any comments added to your post, whether positive or critical (and don't be defensive either, remember that you are a guest and bringing something new to the table!). You should also always suggest to the blog owner that you come back at a later date, if the post is a success. Good luck!
Do you guest blog? We'd love to to hear from you about why you guest blog, and any other benefits you've found from it.