When you research SEO, have you ever heard the phrase backlink building? Or maybe you’ve been told to improve your domain authority – or simply that writing a guest blog would help improve your SEO. Guest blogging is one of the best ways to improve your DA (domain authority), expand your audience, and improve your overall website SEO. But, what are the other benefits of guest blogging and how exactly does it do what we claim it does?

Today, we’re going to break down what guest blogging is, why you need to guest blog, how guest blogging affects your SEO, and pretty much anything else related to guest blogging or guest posting.

Before we dive in, I will say that guest blogging is NOT for everyone. While it’s one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO, it can be very time-consuming for SEO and blog DIY’ers. You have to write the article to the standards of the other website, find the websites and send an email stating interest to them, and typically share the article with your own audience after publishing.

What is Guest Blogging? How Does it Work?

Guest blogging – or guest posting – is when you write a blog post or article for another website. This blog post is typically written to their technical standards, which may include anything from word count to backlink restrictions, but focuses on your expertise and how it can help their audience. Some websites allow you to promote your products and/or services, but most ask that you do your best to not promote.

Why would you want to write a blog post that doesn’t promote your services or products? That’s where the other benefits of guest blogging come in. Guest blogging is more than a way to promote, it’s a way to build your reputation online.

In all honesty, it’s highly unlikely that someone is going to sign-up for your high-ticket offer via a guest post unless you’ve already been introduced to their audience. While you may be able to attract a few new subscribers using a lead magnet or very low-ticket offer.

How Does Guest Blogging Work?

In most cases, you research guest posting opportunities in your niche which can be done by searching phrases on Google like this one: “motherhood” + write for us.

You may be able to find guest blogging resources such as our list of guest posting opportunities on mom blogs – the perfect way to find guest blogging opportunities for businesses serving moms. There are a few other places online that have a different list but check before submitting a guest post request that their information is up to date and that it aligns with your target audience.

After you’ve found the website you want to guest post for, follow the instructions on how to write for them. Most websites that are open for guest posts will have a page that clearly state their requirements and how to submit.

Now, you can pitch to websites that are not obviously open to guest posts. Simply type up an email stating who you are and how you can help their audience along with the specific post ideas you have.

What Are The Benefits of Guest Blogging?

Maybe the whole reason you’re reading this post is to discover whether or not investing the time – or money – into guest blogging on other websites is worth it. You want to know if the benefits are worth the commitment and what benefits there are when it comes to guest posting. .

In my honest, SEO specialist opinion, guest blogging is 100% worth the commitment for new and established businesses. And, if you’re in a very dense niche, it’s 110% worth it.

Here are the top five benefits of guest blogging:

#1. Building Connections

One of the first guest blogs I committed to for my own website and business was for a boudoir photographer and coach Tracy Lynn. This guest post led to being one of the first guests on her podcast and breaking into working with boudoir photographers.

Guest blogging encourages you to build connections with those that serve the same audience, but are not offering competing services. You’ll have a new professional to refer clients to and them to you, along with the opportunity for collaboration in the future.

#2. Backlink Building

I mentioned this in the beginning, but guest blogging is one of the best ways to establish high-quality backlinks to your website. Quality backlinks improve your domain authority and help you build trust with Google, allowing you to rank for more difficult keywords (higher competition keywords) and create broader content.

Backlinks gained by guest posting are typically do-follow, which hold more value in comparison to no-follow backlinks.

#3. Increasing Your Domain Authority

Improving your DA or domain authority ties into backlink building, but goes a little bit further. When a page ranking for keywords that relate to the keywords you’re targeting on your website, your DA improves just a little bit. Additionally, when you have a backlink from a website with a higher DA than yours, your DA also improves.

When working on building up your domain authority, guest posting is one of the best ways to go. It works naturally and allows you to avoid buying backlinks to build up your DA (a huge no-no for you and Google).

#4. Developing Referral Traffic

The actual act of backlinking helps your SEO, but when users visit your guest blog post on another website and enjoy your content, it’s VERY likely that they’ll click through to your website. This referral traffic builds up your website’s reputation online, helps build your email list, and builds your overall brand awareness.

#5. Allows You to Compete with Big Businesses

Did you know that guest posting allows you to compete with bigger, more established businesses and websites? While most established websites focus on SEO to an extent, guest blogging and guest posting on other websites can give you a leg up in the competition.

Not only will you be able to boost your ranking for keywords specific keywords and target higher-competition keywords thanks to the reputation boost that a guest blog gives you, but you’ll be building up your brand recognition and authority.

How to Start Guest Blogging to Improve Your SEO

Your first step when you’re ready to start guest blogging is establishing the content you want to create. What are the keywords you need extra support for? What type of articles do you want to publish on other websites vs. your own? What are topics you don’t want to cover? Who is your ideal audience? All are questions you need to answer before you even start looking for websites to pitch to.

Once you know what you want to write and who you want to write for, it’s time to find the opportunities. Looking for websites that are openly accepting guest posts is a great place to start. You can also try reaching out to business owners you love on Instagram or even through online communities.

Next, you’ll do your outreach and pitch your topics. After you’ve pitched, you write! After writing, you’ll be able to send it off to the business/website and they’ll publish it for you – all that’s left is to share a little love and promote!

What if I Don’t Have Time to Guest Post or Guest Blog?

You can get around guest posting a little bit by finding contribution opportunities for quotes or statements, but ultimately guest posting is an essential aspect of your SEO and organic growth strategy (or at least should be). Making time or finding an alternative solution to making time should be one of your priorities.

If you’re not able to handle guest blogging for other websites yourself, we can do it for you with our DFY SEO services! Just get started with the SEO Audit to find out where your website currently stands with SEO and we’ll create – and enact – a customized outreach plan just for you!