When it comes to establishing a strong online presence, creating and maintaining an attractive-looking website is simply not enough. You need to have enough website traffic to lead to conversions and sales, which means that you must understand SEO. Websites that appear high in search engine rankings tend to have greater website traffic. Therefore, businesses are working hard to improve their search engine rankings through any means available to them. One such way to improve SEO is through guest blogging.
What is Guest Blogging
Simply put, guest blogging is when a blogger writes a blog post for someone else’s site. While Google definitely looks for and penalizes instances of spam-like guest blogging that exist only in order to artificially boost SEO, there is a way to guest blog correctly and benefit enormously. The key point here is not to simply guest blog for the purpose of obtaining backlinks, but rather to speak directly to the audience about a relevant topic in the hopes that they will become your audience. In other words, you want to appeal to readers who will find your posts so interesting that they will then connect directly to your website in order. They will then want to learn more about what you have to offer. Of course, this means that you will want to guest post to blogs that have engaged readers and a decent traffic flow themselves. Otherwise, you will be wasting your time and effort.
Now that you understand what guest blogging is and how beneficial it can be, you need to understand how to do guest posting properly. Consider these points.
Understanding Your Audience
Guest bloggers must find out what readers on the site are most attracted to. If you understand what the audience most desires along with what they wish to resolve, you can create the exact type of content that will most thoroughly capture their attention and interest. In creating this content, what you are trying to do is help the reader to associate your business, your products, and your services with the fast, easy solutions they are looking for. Start with finding the most popular posts and determining what they are about. Then, review how readers reacted to and commented on these posts. You are specifically looking for desires that can’t easily be satisfied, goals that will take a long time to achieve, deep-seated fears and frustrations. Your post can then work to address any of these points.
The Story
Focus on telling a story. The fact is that consumers today don’t usually buy products or services from a specific company because they promote themselves as “the best.” They buy products or services from a specific company because they feel emotionally connected to that company. This occurs through the telling of a story that speaks to the consumer on an individual level.
Headline & Headers
Ensure your headline and headers are designed to attract attention. Well-written headlines and headers attract attention and accurately hint at the content that lies within the post. They can also help with SEO.
Proofreading
Take the time to proofread and edit. An otherwise well-written post can completely lose a reader’s attention when it contains careless errors. Whether you proofread and edit your own pieces or hire someone to do it for you, it’s an essential step to ensuring they are well-received.
It is very important that guest blogs demonstrate a true understanding of the audience. Posts that seek to address a problem that the readers don’t have or can’t relate to will fail to achieve the desired results. Readers are likely to dig more deeply and learn more if they identify with the posted material. This in turn will increase website traffic. For more information about guest blogging services and how to get started, contact Web Content Development today.
