Guest blogging is one of the greatest opportunities you have to build your personal brand, boost your domain authority and get more traffic to your website.
The power of guest blogging cannot be understated. It's important to develop and maintain a blog on your own website, but if you're already adhering to best practices internally, it's time to take your expertise -- and your personality -- further out.
Guest blogging is great for you and even greater for your business, as long as you can be consistent and authoritative. Over time, you'll see the benefits, which include these four powerhouses:
1.More personal brand recognition. First and foremost, the more often you post, the more people will recognize you as an authority. Bring social media into the equation, and you'll be set up with an awesome personal-brand-building engine.
2.Backlinks and greater authority for your site. Hopefully, your guest blogging platform of choice will allow you to include some links back to your site, peppered throughout your post (only when relevant of course). If not, even brand mentions are being considered in Google's algorithms, meaning a non-linked company mention is almost as valuable as a full link.
3.Increased web traffic to your site. If people like what you have to write, they'll be interested in learning and reading more. Help direct them with links or a personal bio, and they'll immediately check out your website to discover more about who you are and what you do.
4.Opportunities for relationship building through comments. Blog comments are ripe with great discussion, especially when you write strong opinion pieces. Take advantage of the opportunity to engage with your audience directly and build your reputation.
Some people have recently argued that guest blogging is on the decline, due to a number of changes in Google's algorithms from the Panda and Penguin updates. But despite the power decrease, guest blogging is still quite useful in building domain authority. And even without the SEO benefits, guest blogging is an incredibly powerful tool all-around.
Jose Vasquez is a serial entrepreneur and tech enthusiast dedicated to helping startup technology companies get the direction and momentum they need to succeed. As the founder of Build. Brand. Blast., Jose has established a collective resource for tech entrepreneurs to consult when brainstorming, creating, launching, or expanding a new business. Jose is also the founder and CEO of Quez Media Marketing, a marketing firm that combines technology and creativity to help new and growing companies get the results they need.
Jose graduated from Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses program. Goldman Sachs is a partner of the What Is Working: Small Businesses section.
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