Guest blogging is the most effective way to build high quality and relevant links for a website. It has been proven effective and definitely helps many websites increase their organic and referral visitors.
But there are also other essential benefits that we can obtain from guest blogging, especially on those well-known blogs or websites and this is author trust or rank factor.
In SEO industry, Google always urge many SEOs to avoid spamming, unnatural and irrelevant linking, link manipulation etc. typically, tactics that violate search engine guidelines and purse content distribution and ethical link acquisition.
However, establishing author trust is quite difficult to establish especially if you will start from scratch, but this will surely help your website and your online presence gain a strong reputation from your target readers if done properly.
They key to success in establishing author trust through guest blogging is to focus within your niche and target those highly visited blogs/websites in your industry.
Slowly introduce your existence on their website by actively commenting on their recent posts.
Once you’ve got the attention of their community, contribute a highly informative content where new ideas and strategies that can be developed by your audience. Also, do not attempt to write something that was already posted on their blog to add up new information.
By building author-trust, you can benefit your website and your online presence in many ways and this includes the following points.
Earn clicks (CTR)
Linking relevant pages to add more detailed information to your content is one useful way to lead your guest post readers to your website.
This will help your website receive referral visitors and might as well become your regular readers.
Also, your guest post will surely appear in SERP in relevant search queries, so they key here is to ensure that the content you will produce is what people are sharing for.
This will help your post receive organic traffic which can eventually turn into referral traffic.
Earn Social Shares
Quality content deserves to be shared not only within your network but also to the world. If your readers find your guest post helpful and informative, they can also recommend it to their network community.
If your post becomes viral, you will definitely receive a hundred and even thousands of visitors from social media referrals.
Social signals are also one of the factors that Google is looking at when they are calculating content’s authority and they use these signals to determine how beneficial and useful a post is to its target readers.
Longer Reader-Author Engagement
Actively interacting with your readers is something that you should keep in practice.
Your readers will often drop their comment to share their opinion on your post and to keep your visitors returning to your post, respond to each of their comments and establish a conversation that should you and your readers will enjoy.
Also, one important thing remember is “you can’t earn author-trust if you don’t talk to your audience. So, the frequent you interact with your readers the stronger author-trust you will build.
Author-Trust
Author-trust factor is also the key to increase your CTR in SERP when people in your industry. Especially if you became popular through your informative content distribution on highly visited related websites within your industry.
This is also a safest way to acquire links for your website and at the same time, expand your own network to increase your connection.
However, being a trusted author means that you will only provide useful and informative content to your readers so you need to consistently produce a good one and never disappoint them with your content.
Evan says
May 6, 2013 at 9:49 amTrust is the gatekeeper in any relationship. But in those where an inherent guardedness exists, such as with sales or management, trust plays an even greater role. Trust blogging is something that most of the bloggers missed… unfortunately. But that you for the post! it maybe very useful for those who are planning to start something outstanding..
REKHILESH ADIYERI says
May 6, 2013 at 10:15 amReally guest blogging is one of the best opportunity for blogger, we could get targeted traffic and quality backlinks from related sites.You have made this post more informative.Thank you bro. 🙂
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 6, 2013 at 1:16 pmGlad you like the post! traffic and quality backlinks are only just the benefits that we can get out of guest blogging. What’s more important is building relationship and links will follow so as the traffic. Thanks for stopping by Rekhilesh 🙂
Dipra Sen says
May 6, 2013 at 11:03 amCan you compare the between the importance of social sharing and author trust to increase SERP? What about old html websites? Also author trust is only working with Google.
Wilfred Imbukwa says
May 6, 2013 at 11:45 amGuest Posting has now been proved to be the best way to get back links to your site. I also noted that you have briefly talked about bloggers commenting on other peoples articles so as to attract traffic to their blogs. What i can add is that before a blogger thinks of guest posting, he or she must know their niche very well. Great article.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 6, 2013 at 1:20 pmYes Wilfred, I noticed recently that some comments on most websites that I’ve seen are “drop and forget comments” which means only for backlink purposes for their corporate website and not really after relationship building. Thanks for taking the time to read my post. 😉
Aditya singh says
May 6, 2013 at 1:10 pmVery Informative article, everything explained in right way. Thank you for the Sharing
Babanature says
May 6, 2013 at 5:24 pmHello Joseph,
What a nice post about blogging author’s trust. I believe that trust can do wonders more than everything. it brings lasting relationship, but doing all this is not an easy task that’s why your tips you provide are very helpful and worth sharing. thanks
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 7, 2013 at 12:51 amI agree.. that trust plays an important role in building long lasting relationship through online engagement. I’m glad you like my post..
Rui Santos says
May 6, 2013 at 11:29 pmGreat article with good and valuable information. To gain trust as an author on a blog, the blogger needs to connect with is audience, when that happens then the author as is own trust.
Rahul says
May 7, 2013 at 4:21 amAuthor trust is one of the factors which decides how you rank for a keyword. One would have to go for guest blogging if he/she wants to be a serious blogger.
Jane says
May 7, 2013 at 7:16 amClick throughs and repeat readership are sure fire ways that prove author trust. No wonder it is easy for the established bloggers to stand out in a SERP just with their face. People are ready to click on a link from Darren Rowse or Jon Morrow for a reason!
Great post Joseph.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 7, 2013 at 7:25 amYes. These people know exactly how credible these authors are and because of the reputation they established through their hard-work, they get to attract more people to visit their website.
I always see you around in different blogs Jane, I’m glad I had a chance to exchange comment with you! Many thanks for stopping by. 😉
Theodore Nwangene says
May 7, 2013 at 9:57 amA very interesting post Joseph,
Guest posting is really one of the best way to build high quality backlink to a blog, drive targeted traffic and increase your authority in your niche.
But, this is really if you know how to do it and do it very well. Its not all about writing craps in the name of guest post, you have to provide and engaging post that will make readers to share and tweet your post in order to increase its view.
Thanks for sharing man.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 8, 2013 at 12:46 amYes Theodore, it’s about providing a resourceful and informative content to benefit the readers of a particular blog site. Writing for the sake of guest posting is not enough and may not even be seen by other people within your niche if your content is not able to stand alone and share its information to the world. Thanks for stopping by!
Valentine Belonwu says
May 7, 2013 at 10:01 amWell done Joseph,
A lot of articles has been written before on the subject of guest posting in fact, all over the internet. But they key is to always go after what works for you and your site.
No doubt, guest posting is very effective when it comes to getting traffic and backlinks but, most people don’t know how to go about it.
You have to first of research the blog owners readers so as to know the type of posts that resonates with them because, if you just write any kind of post, it will be a failure.
I’m sure a lot of people will learn from this post. Thanks for sharing.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 8, 2013 at 12:52 amYeah. Analyzing what are the topics being viewed or visited by the regular readers of a blog site is something that we should also look into as well. Thanks for sharing us your knowledge Valentine!
Jennifer Cunningham says
May 8, 2013 at 3:03 amGood article. I go back and forth in my mind with how much do I want to guest post. It requires balance to keep your site updated and publish content for guest post. Thanks for the ideas.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 8, 2013 at 11:38 pmYeah. I know it’s difficult to provide same quality of content that you are distributing to other websites as guest post and what you are putting on your website. However, all efforts that we spend writing to provide something better is much more important.:)
Nwosu Desmond says
May 8, 2013 at 7:28 pmGuest post is not just to gain backlinks and traffic anymore, in fact it is selfish for guest bloggers who only write to gain these two things.
You can actually build a wider reader-base with guest blogging and no matter how many times this topic has been written and talked about, the truth remains that Guest blogging is very important in author rank and Google is beginning to take that seriously.
Thanks for such awesome article.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 8, 2013 at 11:39 pmYou got it all right Nwosu! Thanks for contributing in the comment thread. =)
Emily says
May 9, 2013 at 1:43 pmGuest blogging has lots of benefits, but of course it mostly centers on the one doing the guest blog posts.
There are many who swear that it had done wonders for them and their blog, but there are only a few who really do guest blogging on a regular basis. I think the main reason is that it is quite hard maintaining a blog and writing blog posts (to submit as guest posts), especially when one owns more than 1 blog at a time.
I agree with what you said on your post here that you will get that valuable author trust once you get the hang of guest blogging. It takes effort and time and patience, but if you endure enough, I think guest blogging is the best thing that a blogger can do to the betterment of their blog/s.
Thanks for sharing, Joseph! 🙂
Joe Hart says
May 10, 2013 at 11:24 amGuest blogging is done best in moderation…Google is taking steps to prevent ranking manipulation of any kind…Linkbuilding itself is facing the biggest challenge in its run…So i guess we should reduce the footprint as much as possible to avoid a penalty…I currently do 3-5 guest posts a month…I know people who do 20-25.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
May 11, 2013 at 2:31 amI also read a post about guest blogging in SEOMoz. Guest blogging is still fine as long as not abused and done in a proper way. Matt cutts also had a video for this in his Q&A on youtube. Title: What goes Google think of blogging for links. 🙂
daniel says
May 10, 2013 at 3:03 pmvery good tips on blog guesting. thank you for sharing.
Ambika Choudhary Mahajan says
May 12, 2013 at 12:11 amTotally agree with you on that!
It is all a matter of winning over the other person’s confidence. I am a contributor on two leading blogs where I can log in any time, write an article and press the PUBLISH button even without having to ask the owner about the topic.
It certainly pays on the long run. 🙂
Petr Bednarik says
May 12, 2013 at 2:24 pmToday very important are social signals (facebook, twitter) and Google authorship. I recommend to test site famous bloggers where you can write guest posts.
Naven says
May 15, 2013 at 10:04 amI agree with you author trust is must important than blindly posting articles, its directly proportional to site ranking, once its UP, site ranking also UP.
Thanks.
Chris of Guest Post Sharks says
May 17, 2013 at 3:18 amQuality content builds trust…simple as that. If you can prove in every way that you are there for the “purpose of guest blogging only,” you have done your best job to make sure that you can “get away” with guest blogging as a source of link building. The goal is to provide -content that advances the topic further, not just re-informs the public on things they already know. Controversial posts are always great traffic and comment generators, and google likes activity!
Sarmista Aun says
June 1, 2013 at 12:13 pmThanks for this post Joseph. Guest blogging is an effective way to improve your ranking along with generating targeted traffic for your website. Along with delivering content try to engage your visitors by maintaining a interactive session with them.
Rick says
June 11, 2013 at 4:45 pmJoseph i think you cover some very valid points in this post.
And although I agree with them and consider guest posting to be a great way to get recognized on the web, I have found that there are only a few people that will take any notice of what you are saying cos the majority of internet marketers are lazy.
To write a unique post for one site is more than the majority are prepared to do.
My hats off to you for doing it though.
Well done buddy.
Rick.
Joseph Gojo Cruz says
June 12, 2013 at 9:15 amThanks for dropping by Rick and I’m glad that you liked my post. =)
Reginal says
August 5, 2013 at 3:31 pmHi Joseph,
Well done! Excellent post mate.
Personally, I feel being a blogger, you need to get out of your safe zone and talk with the rest. You know … build relationship with other bloggers etc. Guest blogging is a great way to so and you will stand a chance to build your authority as well.
Keep it up and thanks for sharing!
Reginald