Increasing Website Traffic

Tip 21: Be the Best Guest Blogger in the West

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Become a guest blogger.

This is a hot new SEO tip that really works! There are millions of blogs on the Internet. Many blog owners will allow you to 'guest post' an article on their blog. In return they will give you credit and add a link to your site.

Search for a blog that relates to your website. Or search for guest writer or guest blogger to identify blogs that are specifically requesting posts from other people. Send them a decent article and hopefully they'll publish it with your link.

A few tips:

Look for active blogs that are updated regularly. If the last update was February 2008, chances are you won't hear back from the owner.

Look for blogs with a Google PageRank. This will indicate that the blog is credible and has been around for a little while.

Be sure the blog is related to your site's topic. If you own a fishing site, guest posting on a housekeeping blog won't help you much in Google. And you'd look pretty silly too. In marketing-speak, this is called 'targeting'.

Be sure you write a quality article. Bloggers are usually pretty picky. They won't usually post any crappy article people throw at them.

Example:

Let's say I want to build links to my site that sells woodworking tools. I would look for a blogger who owns a woodworking blog. And I don't want jusy any woodworking blog. I want one that has accepted guest posts in the past. So, I go to Google and I search for:

+”woodworking blog” + “guest post”

or I might search for...

+”woodworking +blog + “guest blogger”

I'd include the plus symbols and quotation marks to be sure you're getting an exact match. I'd then read the blog to get a feel for the kind of content the blogger posts.

Once I'm familiar with the blog I would write to the author, complimenting him on his amazing writing skills, helpful advice, and high-quality blog. Sucking up a little never hurts when you're asking for a favor! In my email, I would also include an article that I wrote myself and I'd ask him if he'd be interested in including it.

Hopefully he'll say yes and post the article. His visitors will bring natural traffic to my site. And Google spiders will spot the link and improve my placement in the search rankings. Excellent!

Increasing Website Traffic - Writing Guest Blog Posts