Many SEO specialists say that guest posting is a thing of the past. Many guest posting platforms have low domain authority or sneakily implement nofollow linking rules. But the truth is different. Guest posting for brand awareness and SEO is still alive – if you do it right.
The issue is that the easiest opportunities are those which will generate low quality backlinks to your website. You have to be discriminating and willing to do your due diligence to find high quality blogs and platforms. Also, once you find them, you will learn that you need to follow strict guidelines and deliver high quality content. Moreover, in some cases, you have to pay to get your article published on top guest blogging sites.
Is Guest Posting for Brand Awareness Worthwhile in These Conditions?
We can almost hear you fretting. So many requirements – and I have to pay, too. Then why do we still talk about guest blogging? The fact is, if you want to grow your brand image, this remains one of the most efficient and cost effective strategies.
Consider this: how much would it cost to reach a completely new audience from the people who follow you on social media and visit your site? And even before we consider this – how do you identify this new audience?
High quality guest blogging sites are the answer to your brand awareness efforts for several reasons:
1. They Operate in Your Niche
The first rule about guest blogging about brand awareness is to find platforms dealing with topics within your industry and niche. You wouldn’t write about car maintenance on a blog for new mums, or about potty training on a blog about DIY car maintenance.
2. They Are Popular among Your Target Audience
A lot of people who need your products and services know about these content aggregators and visit them frequently. They know that they will discover useful advice, interesting insight and valuable ideas which will help them solve their problems.
3. Thought Leaders Post on the Sites and Read Them, Too
Posting on high quality guest blogging platforms can help you with more than brand awareness. Since many industry leaders are active on these sites, your company may find new investors, partners, vendors and suppliers.
4. You Can Showcase Your Own Expertise
When you are writing for another platform, you will automatically strive to come out with your best ideas and best writing style. It is just like when you were taking exams in college. This extra effort will produce high quality content which indicates your professionalism, know-how and experience in your niche.
Follow These Effective Tips on Guest Blogging for Brand Awareness
Now that we have explained why guest blogging is important, let us show you how to do it effectively:
1. Focus Your Efforts on Specialised Platforms in Your Niche
General purpose guest blogging platforms (so-called article directories) are not worth your time and effort. They have been heavily downgraded by Google in terms of domain authority, because anyone can post anything there. There is no quality or fact checking, so they are a source of spammy links.
What you need to do is look for guest posting sites dealing specifically with topics within your field of activity and area of expertise. This is where people who really want to learn something useful come to read new articles. This is where industry leaders share their input. This is where your brand has the chance to gain new clients.
2. Focus on Sites in Your Region
Geography is just as important as topic relevance when it comes to guest blogging for brand awareness. You don’t need your brand to become popular among consumers in a city or country outside your service area.
You can easily find out if the website writes for the audience in your area by following it for a while. Many contributors will try to improve both their brand awareness and local SEO by adding localisation terms in the articles. In this respect, you should do the same – but only after asking the platform owner if it is okay to do so. This could be a privilege granted to frequent contributors.
3. Create Evergreen Content
Guest posting sites are not interested in debates on current events which will become irrelevant in a short time. Their purpose is to offer readers evergreen topics and maintain their readership loyal.
In some cases, you will find this requirement among the guidelines for posting on the guest blogging website. Even if you can’t find it, it is much better to focus on a topic that remains relevant in time and showcases your expertise.
4. Pay Attention to the Author Bio Section
Most guest blogging sites have an Author Bio section which appears just below your article. In most cases, you won’t be allowed to add a link to your website in the body of the article, but you can add it to the Author Bio section.
Apart from this, make sure to skilfully add one or two keywords to the bio, but in a way that makes complete sense within the context. Remember that the site owner will review your bio before they approve it. And they are skilled at identifying people who use guest posting for brand awareness only and in an aggressive self-promotional manner.
5. Craft Your Content with SEO in Mind
Just because you do not write for your own website does not mean that you have to forget the basic optimisation rules. Your main keyword must appear in the title and throughout the content, but without exceeding a 1% density.
At the same time, remember to follow other readability rules which also help SEO, such as:
- Creating a catchy title
- Breaking your text into short paragraphs with subtitles
- Adding lists and bullet points to create white space.
Also, remember that the guest blogging site will likely ask you to provide a meta description for your article. Don’t forget to keep it within 160 characters and add your main keyword in it.
6. Engage with Other Writers and their Posts
Guest posting for brand awareness goes beyond posting itself. Many successful company owners and thought leaders are also very active in the comments section for other articles.
What can you say in these comments? Here are a few ideas:
- Thank the author for their insight
- Contribute an idea of your own to those they shared in the articles
- Confirm their idea with a real life example in your business activity.
7. Share Your Posts on Your Company’s Social Media Accounts
Sharing your guest posts on social media will help you on those very busy days when you don’t have time to create fresh content. It will also make you popular with the site owner, who most likely tracks this type of activity. In time, you may earn some perks, such as one extra backlink or getting your articles included in the featured section on the main page of the guest blogging platform.
8. Save Your Posts
Make sure that you save a copy of your guest posts in your computer or a cloud storage facility. Blog posting platforms are not forever. Some may close down. Others may choose to change their editorial strategy and delete your posts.
Thus, you can adapt and update your articles and use them again for guest posting for brand awareness, without risking a penalty for duplicate content.
Conclusion
Guest posting is not a pointless effort if you collaborate with reputable websites. You will find that they have strict rules for formatting and content quality – so you really have to focus on giving your best in each article.
But you will also find that guest posting for brand awareness works very well and it costs you nothing – or a very affordable publishing fee.