So you’ve worked hard to create a successful business blog, well maintained with a consistent flow of content and promoted well enough to reach a wide base of industry movers and shakers. Why then, would you allow, even encourage, guest bloggers to benefit from your efforts by piggybacking your platform?
Why guest posts on business blogs?
As a dedicated blogger, a more useful stance is to examine how inviting guest bloggers can actually enrich your blog.
Crucially, allowing guest bloggers to post to your blog actually increases your network. Of course, it’s advisable to carefully review any blogger you’re thinking of inviting or accepting to post on your blog. The most beneficial posters will be experts in your sector or those with senior positions in companies or fields related to your blog, rather than full time bloggers. They will bring with them true expertise, and are also likely to have their own valuable following.
Grow your reach
What does this mean for you? Guest bloggers are highly likely to promote their guest posts within their own blogs, Twitter feed, LinkedIn account and so on, drawing their readers to your blog. Posting to another blog, especially if the guest is highly respected, acts as a seal of approval on said blog, laying down the welcome mat for new, high quality audience members.
If they are impressed with what they find there, the natural progression is that they will become at least semi-regular readers of your blog, if not devoted followers.
Guest posts enrich your content
You probably launched your corporate blog to develop and establish your own voice and deliver a specific set of owned messages. This is all absolutely valid, but the overriding purpose of any blog should be to provide useful, relevant and meaningful information to its readers.
All regular bloggers know only too well how challenging it can be to generate exciting, original content day in, day out. Guest bloggers allow you some breathing space and provide temporary solution to writer’s block. This not only frees up resources, allowing you to, say, spend more time tending to employee or client needs, it also ensures your blog maintains high standards.
Guest posts also offer your readers a fresh angle and set of opinions. If this feels too much like relinquishing control of your blog’s voice, remember that you can still offer your perspective via replies to comments generated by the guest post.
How to choose guest bloggers
Now that you’ve made the decision to add guest posts to your business blogging strategy, the next step is to develop a set of guidelines. These should clearly establish the benchmarks for what you will and will not accept.
As a rule, try to avoid posts that are overly short, or stuffed with back links to the author’s own blog or affiliate links. As the hosting platform, unfortunately your post will be “punished” by Google for carrying poor quality content.
With that in mind, remember that you don’t have to accept every guest blog post that you’re offered. Quality is far more crucial than quantity, so be discerning and avoid bloggers that use a scattergun approach offering poorly repurposed, link-stuffed posts far and wide. Ultimately, use your research and gut instincts when deciding whose content to publish.
You scratch my back….
The good news is that once you build a reputation for generosity in allowing other bloggers to write guest posts on your blog, you should then have more success when pitching to guest on other respected blogs – a surefire way to enhance your credentials as a thought leader in your field.
Over to you
Do you allow guest posts on your business blog? How have guest posts impacted on your blog’s visibility and performance?
