The term guest posting is used when an article written by someone else appears on a blog or website . In many cases it is a one-off or only sporadic cooperation.
Genesis of Guest Posting
Originally, guest postings were mainly used in the form of expert articles. Experts published guest articles on their subject on external sites, primarily to strengthen their own reputation and to draw attention to themselves. Over time, guest posting has also been used more and more to draw attention to websites. Guest articles turned into an important tool of search engine optimization .
Quality of guest postings
In a YouTube video, Matt Cutts, one of Google’s best-known employees, explains the company’s view on guest posting (Video: How can I guest blog without it appearing as if I paid for links? (Matt Cutts) ). As a result, the quality and naturalness of the text and the backlinks used are particularly important in determining whether guest articles are viewed as positive or negative. Guest postings of poor quality can be recognized by the fact that they do not fit the topic of the respective website. In addition, keyword anchor texts are viewed as a negative feature in a guest posting. Also text spinning and the same guest article published on multiple sites can make for inferior copies.
High-quality postings are characterized by the following features, among others :
- high topic relevance in relation to the blog topic
- natural keyword density in the text
- Passing on expert knowledge that usefully complements the website
- Information about the author and his motivation for the guest article
Benefits of guest posting
Guest postings offer a win-win situation for the site operator and the guest blogger , assuming the contribution is of high quality . Website operators receive new content. They often cover topics from related fields that the site owner doesn’t write about themselves. Thus, the contributions bring variety and added value to the website. In addition, the amount of traffic can increase and the advertising effect should not be underestimated. Guest bloggers, on the other hand, benefit from these advantages:
- Increasing the level of awareness ( authority ) through frequent naming on the web
- qualitative backlinks for link building
- more traffic
- new visitors with a longer stay
- Building new contacts in the blogosphere
- high reach with a deliberately selected target group
- Presentation of own skills in the text area
- Gaining subscribers to newsletters or email lists
risks
However, guest posting also involves some risks. For the site operator there is a risk of copyright infringement or damage caused by duplicate content if the guest blogger did not proceed with the necessary care when creating his text. Especially in the case of inferior articles with a large number of backlinks or conspicuous keyword anchor texts, there is a high probability that the Google algorithm will sooner or later take notice. In this case, both the site operator and the guest blogger face penalties if the search engine experts determine that guest articles have been placed on a large scale.
Importance of guest posting for SEO
Guest posting in the high quality area is one of the most important link building measures in the area of search engine optimization . However, as in most sectors of the industry, the following applies here: If guest articles are distributed to an extreme extent on various websites and regardless of the topic relevance, guest posting can also have negative effects. Anyone who uses high-quality guest articles to support a broad SEO strategy can definitely benefit from the method.