Guest blogging is the attempt to outreach bloggers for eliciting a hopeful opportunity of article publication. There are so many
benefits of guest blogging such as branding, exposure, readership, traffic and the controversial link building. But what exactly it is for? If we ask a few search engine optimizers, “What is the main intention of your guest blogging strategy?”. Probably most will answer for creating authoritative backlinks. Well, that is a good reason, but not an intelligent one.
If you have seriously got into the guest blogging profession mainly for link building, you should better alleviate it. SEO in the brand new 2014 & beyond is going to be harder than you would ever think. Therefore, guest blogging would be your main obstacle if you measure it as a quality link building tactic. Let’s explain why it would be.
Matt Cutts Statement: Guest Blogging For SEO Purposes is Dead
Matt Cutts wrote few guest blogging statements in the previous year. But none of them were helpful to understand if it is really effective or not. But in his
final statement in 2014, he clarified that guest blogging for such seo purposes are dead. He made his post starting with it:
Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.
He was inspired to share the truth by a spammy email on his inbox. It is because of the extensive use of guest blogging for link building. Everyone wants to do guest blogging, but as a reward they want dofollow links at first. It is really a violence which is considered as
paid links. Paid links had already been affected by
Google’s previous algorithm updates. Similar types of paid links also have higher chances to get negative values. So, finally Matt Cutts revealed his thought for spammy guest posts:
So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy.
Long live seo guest blogging..!!! I think it’s the end of guest blogging to gain links. There is no doubt that Google is going to take action against this type of attempts in upcoming updates. So, we should be sensible of these ineffectual efforts to keep up our’s website value.
Are You Guest Blogging For Links? Be Safe, Nofollow The Links
Some years ago Matt Cutts answered
another question, what is Google’s view of guest blogging links. Guest blogging links are similar to paid links. The bloggers want to have the advantages of guest posts. They consider adding some links to their own resources and generally from author bio. But it’s supposed to be violated Google’s guidelines. Because the links will be added expecting higher ranking in search engines.
When guest posting, most of the bloggers add links being hopeful of getting ranked to the linked page. These links behave like paid links as rank boosters. As a result, these are going to be treated just like the paid links. In solution to shake off paid links and guest blogging links relevance, Matt Cutts advised to nofollow these links. However, these won’t pass link juice, but promotional nofollow links from high authoritative sites will be much effective.
When Guest Blogging Would Be Appreciated Even With Followed Links
It is true that guest blogging for links are no longer effective, but not in all conditions. If you are a highly recommended writer who can write flawless contents, guest posting is exactly for you. Matt Cutts had written the appearance in order to make everyone sincere about guest blogging. This attempt is extending it’s limit with such spammy unnatural contents. Many people are turning this operation into a business providing guest blogging services. Some are also using spun articles which are unreadable. Mainly for them, he advised to stay out of it.
However, if you really realize that you would be guest blogging with such amazing contents, you are mostly welcomed. Matt Cutts also clarified all confusions about it:
It seems like most people are getting the spirit of what I was trying to say, but I’ll add a bit more context. I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future. And there are absolutely some fantastic, high-quality guest bloggers out there.
These few lines explains how potential it was before and how it will be treated in the future. So, there will be nothing to worry if you are working on quality.
A quality guest posts could obviously link to related resources and there is not required any nofollow attribute. Just make sure the links add value to the post. Please bear in mind, he recommends blogs like
Boing Boing where most of the bloggers are guests. Do you know why? Because there exists only high quality writings by appreciating writers.
Time to Guest Post for Branding and Exposure: How to Leverage It
We have entered into a brand new year where we have to focus on brand new strategies. Already Matt Cutts prediction has created sensational changes in our minds. Sometimes we ask each other
if SEO is really dead. I think old SEO strategies are dead. Now it’s time to focus on branding. Google loved sites focusing on branding and will be doing as well. You won’t believe, but do you know guest blogging is the superior way to make brand awareness!
Matt Cutts prediction indicates that alleviate guest blogging for links, focus on branding and exposure. Yes, that is now what we have to consider. But another question is how to optimize guest posts for especially branding. That is not so hard, we have to make these major changes in our habits:
Make Contents Outstanding
Contents are everything of a guest post. It has the highest priority that could prove all wrong. Google is exactly looking for
quality contents. As an example, if you have posted a tremendous content on a site without much authority, links from there would be still counted as authoritative. So the first and foremost recommendation is very high quality compelling contents. Although we should practice to guest post on popular blogs with such remarkable contents.
Make Links Naturally
Naturality which is the major term of SEO should be implemented as well. If you are looking for links to your own posts, make sure you don’t loss naturally on it. If your linked resource is also informative which is sure to add value, you can obviously make it happen. But over optimized keyword links would be the main obstructions what we have to prevent a must. Mix some internal and external links to make the post stable to search engines.
Guest Post From Separated Author Profile
In order to maintain the guest blogging quality, it is necessary to have a separated author profile. Because it is supposed to be more natural. If the guest post is published from the admin’s account, there would be risky for you. Because the post will be showing written by a person and the actual writer will be another person. So, that doesn’t make sense. So if you have a blog where you allow guest posting, ensure posts are published with the actual author name, and ensure you have Google authorship added on your blog. You can take advantage of
Jetpack plugin to integrate Google authorship.
Write Appealing Author BIO
Author bio is the place where you should add your personal contents. But that area doesn’t mean to have fulfilled with only links and promotions. Author bio is the place where you have to add a fruitful description of your own. As a reward, you can add a link to your website anchored with brand name or website name. Using keyword in it could be considered as over optimization.
Link To Your Social Profiles
A legal author would definitely link to his social profiles. Social profiles not only help for personal branding, but also verify an author’s existence. Same to visitors, the search engines could have a look at their social profiles to verify if the person is legal or not. So, that should be done in order to make crawlers believe on the authors. More over, as a reader I would like to see a blog post from a real-person rather than just another bot profile.
Verify Google Authorship Markup
Google authorship markup demonstrates if the author is on Google+ database or not. It is another way to build trust. Google really gives priority to the pages verified with Google authorship markups. So, if you could take advantage of this markup, the post will be looked more stable to the search engines. That is why we should do in order to get the value.
Conclusion of Guest Blogging in 2014:
Now in the SEO industry, there is a rumor that SEO is dead, guest blogging is dead. But I don’t agree with their opinions. Because SEO is not dead and it will never be. Google and other search engines have intention to filter out spam results to show most relevant one. And that’s why all these trends are going on. I will advise, before doing any SEO, just ask yourself what is looking more natural. Think what you would appreciate if you were Matt Cutts. I think you will get your answers. So, guest blogging is something like this. Maintain natural quality in guest blogging and there will be no obstacle at all.
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