You are here: Home / Archives for guest posting

Link Building in the Post-Penguin World – Guest Posting

August 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Following one of the most wide sweeping Google algorithm updates, many webmasters and search engine optimization pros are wondering how they can build links that provide value yet do not result in a Google penalty.

If you’ve been involved in building links to your site, you know that it’s an arduous task to begin with. But as Google takes a sharper look at sites’ linking patterns, this all-important task is becoming much harder.

In the past, article marketing, directories, affiliate sites, sponsor or footer links and forum signatures provided great links to your site that really helped beef up your position in the search engines. In our post-Penguin world though, these link building methods have either been completely discredited (…and result in a penalty) or provide so little value, they’re not worth pursuing.

So what’s an SEO or link-builder to do?

While there are still many legitimate link building practices out there to consider, guest posting has shown to be one of the best. First of all, it’s completely free (…meaning there shouldn’t be any financial cost. Time on the other hand is a different story). Secondly, Google gives rich reward to sites who publish content on other blogs, etc.

Guest posting can be defined as a process of creating a blog post specifically for another blog owner. For each post you create that’s published on another site, you receive a “byline” that describes who you are along with a nice link back to your site.

For the best results, you should target blogs that are closely related to your own blog. Publishing content on an unrelated site won’t be to your best advantage.

Guest posting on blogs provides 3 major, noticeable benefits, including:

LINKS – Not only do you receive a valuable backlink from a closely related site, it’s also possible to generate links from other bloggers in the form of talkbacks or post rebuttals

TRAFFIC – If you start guest posting, you may start noticing more traffic to your own blog. Readers of the host blog may want to learn more about who you are and what other information you offer. It’s certainly possible for this additional traffic to lead to new subscribers and followers

PUBLICITY – With guest post content, your name may become associated with the niche content you’re producing. In turn, this can lead to increased recognition from other bloggers and perhaps lead to more guest posting opportunities.

You’ve got my attention with the additional traffic…but what I can do to ensure I get the additional traffic, links and mentions?

As with anything, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do guest posting.

The first thing you need to do is to be sure you write to the host blog’s audience. Don’t skimp on your effort here…be sure the posts you deliver to the host blog are the absolute best work you can do.

Next, can any self-promotion. Only provide content that’s original and informative. Don’t use guest posting as an opportunity to directly promote your site. The byline and the quality of your posts will do the talking.

Finally, take some time to look at other posts in the host blog. See which ones got the most likes, shares and comments and try to emulate those posts.

I see the opportunity but don’t know how to get started

Just like any other link-building activity, guest posting takes time. It requires networking and careful analysis of the host site to ensure they’re legitimate. There’s nothing worse than being penalized because you’re linked up with a site engaging in what Google considers “black-hat” SEO practices.

One way you can get started quickly is to post content on MyBlogGuest.com, which is a site that brings blog owners and guest posters together.  Not only can you develop content for another site to use, you can sometimes find great content for your own site. And not only can you find great content and/or get good backlinks to your site, you can also connect with other bloggers out there for future guest posting opportunities.

Absent a service like MyBlogGuest, guest posting can still be done, albeit with some additional effort.

The embedded video below from SEOMoz provides some great insight into how to go about finding good guest blogging opportunities. This “high-end” approach has been shown to work time and again without yielding damaging penalties from Google, Bing, etc.

Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting provides some great tips to get you started, including:

1.    Brainstorm with your team and build a list of target sites. Check those sites directly for any policies on guest posting, if any. To see if the site has specific information on guest posting, go to Google and type “site:targetsite.com ‘guest post’” in the search bar

2.    Go to Google and/or Twitter and do searches for terms common in your industry. Include “guest post” in your search to find sites who accept content from other writers. While this method can help you find target sites, you’ll likely spend some time sifting through a lot of “noise”

3.    Once you’ve located some target sites, evaluate the author(s) and overall quality of the site by looking at such criteria as readership and social activity

4.    Be sure you understand the types of links allowed. If the site allows outbound links in the body of the article, that’s fine. But if they allow you to stuff anchor-text link to your site in the body, you’ll want to look elsewhere for guest posting opportunities

MyBlogGuest.com though can provide some great opportunities for you to get started.

Regardless of your approach, be sure you have realistic opportunities. Guest posting is just one of many methods of building inbound links to your site. In the end, there are no shortcuts. But with consistent effort, good networking and above all, quality content, guest posting can provide a sustainable way to build a consistent flow of inbound links to your site.

Have you done much guest posting?

If so, did you find site(s) on your own or did you use a service like MyBlogGuest?

Do you feel material you put on your site from another writer or content you posted on another blog benefitted your site?

Let us know your experiences and insights with guest posting below in our new Facebook comment plugin today!

Related Posts

Understanding and Overcoming Google’s Penguin Update

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to another Site

6 Tools to Throw your Link Building into Overdrive

8 Ways you can safely sell Links on your Website

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Understanding and Overcoming Google’s Penguin Update

May 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In the 3rd the week of April, Google released a major update the search giant dubbed “Penguin.” The algorithmic update was in fact announced ahead of time…we expected it to be pretty significant.

Now that over a month has passed since it was released, we’ve been able to get a better idea of the types of sites Google penalized and what affected webmasters can do to deal with the problem.

After scouring trusted sources and evaluating how sites we work with fared, we’re able to report some of the technical aspects of why sites were penalized and what can be done to reclaim lost rankings. Google reported that only 3% of sites were affected but after browsing through the message boards, we found that a lot more sites were likely affected – many of whom have been forced to lay off staff and scale back their enterprises.

(When Google’s last big update came out in 2010 (…dubbed “Panda”), the search engine also claimed it only affected 3% of sites when in fact many more were reporting rankings issue)

According to this video broadcast from SEOMoz (below), many sites caught up in the update may have had some undesirable linking practices, although there are other reasons too.

One principal issue is the type of links (…or footprints) going to your site.

Now you may be thinking paid vs. solicited links but that is most definitely NOT the issue.

The issue with links revolves around their relevancy to your content. If more than half of your links are similar to the content on your site, you may have been affected by the Penguin update.

The other big factor in play involves content.

For the last several years, Google has been arduously filtering out content that doesn’t meet its standards for quality. Sites across the ‘Net includes thousands of mediocre articles, blog posts and so on. Google claims this is to produce the best, most relevant results for its users.

Be that as it may – one thing is absolutely clear, you have to build content that provides true value and doesn’t just give search engines more stuff to sort out.

This of course isn’t the first time we’ve brought this up and it won’t certainly be the last.

Our friends at the Content Marketing Institute provides some good suggestions in developing content that both provides value to the reader and good, crawlable content for Google

From a content perspective, CMI suggests you:

  • Only use keywords when relevant. Don’t insert a keyword just for the sake of having a keyword
  • Make your content more social. Share it on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest among other things
  • Create a useful resource people will want to refer to
  • Create content for other websites and blogs
  • Participate in online forums by adding valuable insights into the discussion
  • Regularly publish a newsletter
  • Maximize your conversion rate

Considering these points will help your site regain lost ground.

So there’s a quick summary of the Penguin update and what you can do to rebuild the damage done – both from an SEO and content perspective. Check out some related posts and the video below for more information.

If you think you haven’t had any of the issues mentioned, you can of course petition Google to manually review your site…but be careful. If you indeed have an issue, you may be penalized more.

And absolutely keep this mind – if you get an email from an SEO claiming they can fix any Penguin issues in a hurry, delete that email and pay it no mind.

Dealing with these issues will certainly take time.

Only work with a search engine optimization firm that truly understands this and who will not end up costing you more in the end.

Have you been affected by Penguin? If so, how are dealing with the impacts? Leave us a comment here on our blog or over on our Facebook today!

 

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Penguin Update Targets Link Schemes and Low-Quality Content

3 Steps You Should Take Before Linking to Another Site

Answer these 23 Questions to Understand What Google Looks For

Google Panda Update Causes Some Sites to Lose Traffic, Revenues

Latent Semantic Indexing and Keywords – A New Way to Look at Copy

11 Steps to Increasing Keyword Saturation while Maintaining Valuable Content

Content Marketing over Traditional Advertising – Making the Case

 

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Forum Watch, SEO Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Get More Content on your Blog through Guest Posting

February 7, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Guest posts on your blog offer many advantages. As you know (…and probably have heard a gigillion times) content, content, content.

Being successful at blogging requires a steady stream of fresh, engaging content. The more the better but usually once a week is the absolute minimum. Two years ago for instance, we were posting 3 posts a week on SEOe.

But building that content takes time – time to research, time to write, time to edit and time to manage comments and so on. With only so many hours in the day, it may seem daunting and maybe even impossible to write enough posts readers find engaging and informative.

If I had a nickel for every blog that gets started and putters out, I could retire to a life of leisure tomorrow.

Unfortunately though, many blog owners and small businesses find it very challenging to maintain a flow of consistent copy.

MyBlogGuest.com is a service where you can connect with other bloggers and find great guest material

Guest posting has several benefits for both blog owners and blog writers.

One benefit for you – the blog owner – is that you can maintain steady flow of content much easier. For example, if you’re too busy to write something from scratch yourself, find an article on MyBlogGuest.com to use.

Two ways blog owners can get material for their blog

One is to find articles authors have already posted on the site. There’s a wide range of topics available.

The other is to find authors in your niche and contact them directly.

Of course, guest posts benefit the blog owner by widening the audience. If you have a guest posting something on your blog, their readers are naturally going to be interested. And don’t forget the opportunities for networking and getting a fresh new perspective from others in your field.

For writers, guest blogging helps build their brand, reach new audiences and build links to their site(s).

To get more benefit from MyBlogGuest.com, you should write two or three posts/articles and put them on the site for distribution. Someone will eventually pick them up and use them on their blog. Of course, they have to be members to do this and must follow strict guidelines for crediting the author and linking to their site.

Ann Smarty, creator of MyBlogGuest.com, has a tremendously powerful tool here. I look forward to using it and helping others use tools like this to help them build their blogs. Expect to see more guest posts (…perhaps one a month) here on SEOe going forward.

And if you find any other services like these, let us know by leaving a comment.

My Blog Guest

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , ,