Does Guest Posting Still Work? All You Need to Know in 2024

Many top digital marketers have said that guest posting is no longer a good tool for digital marketing. Content is all over the internet. And, guest posting has been a marketing tool for a long time. So, many experts believe it is losing relevance. If you are looking to run a digital marketing campaign which includes guest posting, you may be wondering about the relevance of guest posting too. 

Well, The short answer to if guest posting is still relevant or not is a very big YES! It is as relevant as it was a decade ago. Guest posting offers numerous benefits that continue to keep it relevant. But make no mistakes. Guest posting on a spammy website with plagiarized or outdated content is more likely to harm your business than add any value.

What is guest posting?

Guest posting, a.k.a guest blogging, is publishing content on some other website. Guest posting essentially allows you to build links and drive organic internet traffic from a high-domain website to your own website.

A company could reach out to a guest blogger, or a blogger could reach out to a high-ranking website for guest blogging. Both parties are bound to benefit immensely from this trade if guest posting is done in an appropriate manner; otherwise, guest posting may just be a waste of time.

A few years ago, guest blogging wasn’t complicated, and you could care less about the quality of the content or the appropriateness of backlinks. But since the panda and penguin updates, guest posting has become a whole different ball game. The low quality of content and unrelated links diminished the user experience considerably. 

You could link a religious article to a paper on evolution, and it would still be considered a meaningful backlink! All of this has changed since those updates. 

So, guest posting is definitely not irrelevant, but if not done carefully and with a degree of specialisation, your content may not get an appropriate rank on the search engine result page or may even be removed altogether.

Is Guest Posting Still Relevant?

As mentioned above, a lot of people believe guest posting is not effective anymore, but if done in the right manner, guest posting can become the backbone of your digital marketing strategy. Guest posting provides numerous benefits which continue to keep it relevant, the chief among which are discussed below:

1. Enhances domain authority

When you are doing guest posting, ideally, with a high domain authority website, you are reaching a large audience who, if they like your content, are your potential customers. 

Moreover, you can showcase your expertise to your target audience by educating them about your niche. If your content is able to add value to these readers and satisfy their requirements, you are bound to benefit a lot.

The guest post act as an emblem of your firm. It is a free marketing tool. If people like your content, they reach out to you via your website, enhancing organic traffic on your website and, in turn, augmenting the domain authority of your website.

2. Network Expansion

Guest posting on your partner’s website is becoming the latest trend. You and your various partners are often running complimentary businesses, so guest posting for them is not merely a digital marketing need but also beneficial for augmenting your business networks.

Similarly, guest posting on competitors’ websites allows you to attract their clients. As guest posting benefits both parties, you are bound to have better relations with both your partners and competitors.

Additionally, having good relations with specialist bloggers and high-domain authority websites is extremely beneficial in the long run as you can engage with them on various other business requirements besides blogging needs.

3. Backlinks

Developing backlinks is the core of guest posting. If a high-ranking credible website consists of links to your website, it enhances the credibility of your own company. Backlinks enhance organic traffic to the website, which leads to an increase in customer base and revenue.

Generating backlinks is one of the primary purposes of guest posting. So it would not be far-fetched to say that backlinks are the bread and butter of guest posting. 

These links are nothing but a reference from a high-domain website that your website has a topical authority. These links carry a seal of approval from these high-domain websites, enhancing your business’s trustworthiness.

4. Brand awareness/ Visibility

Small businesses may be offering the best products and services at the best and most reasonable price. But the biggest problem with small businesses is that a potential customer has no idea that they exist.

It is exactly here that guest posting plays a significant role. You can tie up with popular brands that work in your industry and enhance the visibility of your own brand. Guest posting works as a perpetual marketing tool in the form of a blog, which can be accessed years after it was first written.

5. New markets and new customers

When you are guest posting, it may not always be on a website which has a similar business. The people who visit those websites may not be currently looking for the product or service that you offer. But sometimes, later, when they need the product that you offer, they will know where to get it from

Similarly, when a small business wants to expand, the first step could be to start guest posting on websites that offer the services in the domains where the small business seeks to expand.

Top Tips to Guest Post The Right Way

As mentioned before, guest posting is only beneficial if done right. But do not worry. We have got you covered. The following tips can make any person a pro in guest posting:

1. Engage with only relevant domains

It’s important that you choose sites that are relevant to your niche. The people who visit that site should be your potential customers. Being a high-domain website is indeed the primary criterion, but the host website should at least be a little complimentary to your business. This will allow the potential for organic links, which in turn will allow higher traffic to your website. 

2. Quality content

Content is king. No matter what you do, if your content lacks quality and is not optimised with keywords, all your hard work might go in vain. While writing a guest post, your focus should be on educating/informing a potential customer and not on marketing your products and services. The content should add value, and any delinquency such as plagiarism, factually incorrect, repetitive etc. content should be avoided.

3. Build only organic links

As mentioned above, you cannot link a blog on religion with a paper on evolution. Your links should take the audience to a relevant page that may further elaborate on the current blog topic or at least is related to the current blog topic in some form.

Sometimes the links added are relevant, but they are too many. Any blog which has more than 2-3 links becomes a little cumbersome. Thus, it is important that both the quality and quantity of links are taken care of.

4. Tracking your blogs

Guest posting provides ample opportunity for appraisal. You can easily identify what is not working for you and change the strategies. Google Analytics can be utilised for analysing the traffic on your website before and after the start of the guest posting service.

Moreover, you can track the opinion of various respondents to your blog topic in the comments section. You must continuously amend your ways based on various feedback you get about your blogs.

5. Taking third-party assistance

Now, guest posting is no rocket science, and any educated person with a very basic graduation degree should be able to do it. But, for small businesses, sometimes it is not possible to focus on things that are not part of their niche.

External assistance from a freelance content writer, SEO expert or guest posting agency every now and then can go a long way in achieving the goals of the firm. You must continuously evaluate if it is more prudent to hire external experts or if it is better to do it on your own.

Conclusion

If done properly, guest posting can drive the domain authority of your website exponentially. Drive up revenue manyfold and expand your business to newer horizons. As more and more people are spending more and more time on the internet, the relevance of guest posting is bound to remain intact, if not increase. Every business, small or big, can continue to benefit from it. Albeit, it is done properly.

If you think you can identify high-domain authority websites, develop top-notch content and build organic links all by yourself, kudos to you. But if you need any assistance in any of these, you can reach out to us at Expand My Business. Our experts will ensure that you can focus on your niche while they take care of any and all of your guest posting needs.

FAQs

Team EMB

Our team of expert writers is committed to bringing insights on topics ranging in the fields of technology, marketing, and business. With a wide-reaching range of services on our platform, we help businesses achieve digital transformation end-to-end.