The worldwide web is quickly becoming a crowded space. While it’s the best way to market your services, it’s hard to differentiate yourself and your company. In this highly competitive arena that is digital marketing, guest posts help you stand out from the crowd.
Here are the top 7 reasons that guest posts are important to your marketing strategy.
Establish Yourself (or Your Company) as an Expert
What makes one cola product outsell the others?
Buyers make purchases from people, companies, and brands they trust. In the cola example, the leading brand has a clear action plan, witty advertising, and consistent quality. Consumers know that they will receive the same taste and quality with every purchase. In other words, they trust the brand!
While you don’t have a major cola company budget, you can use guest posts to establish yourself as an expert in your field. This builds trust because buyers trust experts! Consistently writing guest posts is a low-cost (or free!) way to get your name in front of hundreds of blog readers and start to build that consumer trust.
Increase Your Traffic
Once you’ve started submitting guest posts, you’ll start to increase your traffic. In fact, you’ll probably see a spike in traffic every time you a guest post is published. The more followers the “host blog” has, the more traffic you will see.
This is because readers who enjoy your guest post topic, are apt to follow the backlink in your Author Bio to find more articles on the topic.
Gather Sales Leads
Now that you have guest post readers clicking over and landing on your site, it’s time to gather some serious sales leads. Put that increased traffic to work for you!
Give those new visitors a reason to opt-in. Offer a free printable, an infographic, or a monthly newsletter filled with tips and ideas. Your sign-up form can help you to differentiate casual readers to serious buyers who want what you are selling! Those who opt-in are your target customers.
Build Your Email Marketing
Some of those new leads you’ve generated may have made a purchase when they visited your website. However, today’s online consumer is very savvy and usually will research before making a purchase. Again, it comes back to building trust.
But how do you get them to trust you?
Add these new leads to your email marketing. They opted in, so they want to hear from you! In fact, if you don’t follow up with them, they will quickly forget you and you will lose a sale. Send a welcome email with enticing copy and perhaps an offer of a discount or free delivery on a first order. Give them a reason to do business with you. They want to, but they want you to convince them to do so!
Develop New Social Sharing Opportunities
Don’t you hate sitting at your computer screen trying to think up clever yet relevant social media posts? Your guest posts afford you a fantastic social sharing opportunity.
After your guest post is published, create a short post on your social media thanking your host for her hospitality and sharing the link to the article. Also, be sure to tag the host using the @ and any relevant hashtags.
The host will appreciate you driving the traffic, and you will create a social media buzz on your social pages.
Reach a Different Group of Readers
Your website or blog probably has several loyal followers who read, comment, and share quite often. I’m sure that you love these readers and value their contributions.
But wouldn’t it be even better if you could reach an entirely new group of readers? Guest posts give you the chance to reach an entirely different group of readers as your loyal followers! In many cases, you may even gain readers from around the world who share something in common with that core group of your regular readers…an interest in you and your product.
Increased SEO
Increased SEO is, perhaps, the main reason that many website owners invest time and money in writing guest posts.
Google loves popular websites which are shared by and linked to frequently. Google is even happier when your site is linked to by other similar sites, especially those with a high Domain Authority (DA). The more of these links that you build organically through guest blogs, the higher you will rank over time.
The result of this increase in SEO is that eventually it leads to higher placement in search engine results, meaning more eyeballs on your website. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling physical inventory, digital files, or even your ideas. Google doesn’t care what you’re selling, they measure the love you’re getting by these increased links and pageviews.
Wrap-up
If you haven’t been writing guest posts, it’s not too late to get started. Bloggers love to get the free content and you get an inexpensive marketing opportunity for your business. It’s a win-win situation. Moving forward, keep in mind that guest posts are important to your marketing strategy.
Author Bio: Deborah Tayloe is a professional freelance content writer. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. The Erie, PA native currently resides in North Carolina with her husband and an energetic toy fox terrier.