Thanks for joining me for Part 2 of my series and hopefully you had a chance to go over Part 1. I have been discussing guest blogging tips and what I’ve learned in the past from experience. I believe guest blogging is one of the best ways to build engagement and should be something practiced by every blogger. However, this is truly an “ART†form and you should follow some very basic steps to ensure it’s done correctly. By following these simple elements, you’ll dramatically increase the chances of your content getting accepted by authority bloggers. From the top of my head, guest blogging is great for:
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Brand awareness
- Building value and loyalty
The steps I have been discussing are directly from my Ultimate Guest Blogging guide and have been proven to work throughout the years. Let’s jump into Part 2 of my awesome series.
It’s About the Value
It’s doesn’t matter if you’re writing for your blog or someone else’s because you have to provide value. This is the foundation of businesses and I’m a true believer that with value, you can achieve everything. It’s value that stands out compared to your competitors so find ways to beat them when it comes to writing content. For example, in Part 1, I discussed things like:
- Research
- Trends
- Networking
All of these above help guide your content writing in the right direction and this important at the end of the day. With focus, you can create something special, increasing the chance of being published on authority blogs. With value, you’ll also increase how many people click-through to your links within your content, increasing the flow of traffic. Keep in mind, influential bloggers have been in the business long enough to know when value is being provided. So,
Always make sure when you sit down to write, you have a clear cut plan on what you are trying to achieve and how you’ll achieve it.
Tracking to Optimize
You’re probably wondering why this is important, but guest blogging requires enormous tracking, too. You’re going to post on a handful of blogs and want to know which ones are paying off in terms of brand awareness. For example, I’ve published on blogs without any traffic being directed to my blog. This means my brand did NOT experience any popularity, but I had put so much effort writing content that could have been used somewhere else. It’s important to know how to optimize content marketing through guest blogging so start tracking your results. This is very easy because you simply have to keep an eye on a few very important factors. This can be done using Google Analytics or even Bitly.com.
First, you can track how much referral traffic is coming from the guest blog through Google Analytics. Click on acquisition then referral traffic. You can even disguise your links with Bitly.com and visit their backend to check out CTR. Your objective should be to find the best blogs to post content and build your brand. Once you figure this out, you can continue to work with them and keep publishing content for optimal returns.
Final Thoughts
Just like anything else, guest blogging is about finding a common ground so you can optimize your ROI. However, you have to make sure you test when you can and utilize the tools available to you. In the beginning, this transition will be hard but after you have a solid handful of blogs, then you can proceed to keep writing content for them. Implement each method and you’ll be surprised with the results you achieve.