How and Why to Write a Guest Blog

Guest Blogging is a valuable digital marketing strategy helping you to connect with a new audience. It means writing an article published on someone else’s website. A guest blog on another website helps to bring more traffic to your own website. The article is usually a once-off, stand-alone post in the form of a story or an instructional guide. Sometimes, however, guest bloggers might write a series of articles for a website, particularly when writing instructional posts.

Why you should write a guest blog

There are a lot of benefits to writing a guest blog. Firstly, it is a great way to establish your authority on a particular subject. Writing a guest blog links your name with the topic you are writing on, thus increasing your exposure and confirming your status as an expert in that field.

Backlinks

Secondly, and this is what makes it such a great marketing tool, it is an excellent way to procure backlinks. Why is this important? This is important because search engines LOVE backlinks. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about getting your website to the top of the page (e.g., Google page) whenever someone is searching for the type of product or service that you offer. Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. They tell the search engine that your website is a good one to visit. A backlink is like getting a testimonial because if another website (especially a trustworthy website) tells their audience to check out YOUR website, then your website must be worth a visit. This results in a higher number of relevant visitors to your site.

What you should write as a guest blog

Think about what topic you would like to be associated with. This can be connected to something you’d like to promote. Is there a product or service you provide that you’d like more people to understand and to associate you with? You should write about that!

Remember that a guest blog is not the same as promotional writing. We are surrounded by sales pitches every day and so your guest blog must rise above that genre. The best blogs either tell an inspirational back story or else give the reader some really useful information in the form of top tips.

Or perhaps you find that clients are always asking you the same question. Is there a topic that you can help people understand better? These are great areas to start with. The main thing is to ensure that you write about something that allows you to share your knowledge and that is relevant to other items on your website.

How to write a guest blog

Articles don’t have to be lengthy, but they should be relevant, well-written and contain accurate information. For SEO purposes, you may also like to think about which phrases and keywords you’d like search engines to associate your website with.

It begins with a headline

Start your article with an attention-grabbing headline. The headline should pique interest but also clearly state what the guest blog is about. Some of the best articles answer a question that might be posed by a potential client – so why not turn the question into your headline? The words, “What is…”, “How To…” or “What to remember when…” are an excellent place to start.

Next is the opening paragraph, which should be engaging and encourage the reader to read on. Sum up the readers’ question and state what you intend to answer. Think of the opening paragraph as a summary to tell the reader what they will learn should they choose to read on. When it comes to SEO, the opening paragraph is an important place for keywords, so be sure to use as many keywords and phrases in this paragraph as you can.

The main body of your guest blog

The main body of your blog is where you answer the question at hand. Organise your words into different paragraphs. A good way to do this is to limit each paragraph to address a single point. When that point has been addressed it is time to create a new paragraph for your next point. For SEO purposes, you should use sub-headings throughout and those headings should incorporate your keywords where relevant.

Re-read your article and when you are sure that you have answered the question at hand, you are ready to write your conclusion.

Concluding your guest blog

The conclusion is where you wrap up all your points so that the reader knows they have been answered. A simple way to do this is to refer back to your opening paragraph, stating you have answered the question posed there. You might also state an interesting statistic as it’s especially nice to leave your reader with some factual food for thought. A fact or statistic has the added benefit of highlighting why the reader should care about what they’ve read.

A Call to Action

Finally, it is time to ask something of your reader, so consider finishing your post with a call to action. Look on the call to action as issuing a challenge to do something on foot of the new information you have imparted. The call to action should also include links to your website. For SEO purposes, do ensure that the anchor text in the link is relevant to the destination webpage.

Publish your guest blog

To show yourself in the best light, your guest blog must be well-written and easy to understand. Don’t forget to use photographs to add interest and illustrate your points. Finally, ask someone whose competence you trust to read over your article before you submit it for publication.

Once published, your final task is to share what you have written. It is good etiquette, and also great sense, to share the link to your guest blog across all your social media platforms. This will generate mutually beneficial traffic for both you and the website that published your article, like introducing your friends to their friends. After all, you’ve put effort into writing your article and sharing is how you reap the rewards.

We invite you to write here

So now that you know how to write a guest blog, I hope you will write one soon. Ballymun4business is always delighted to showcase our members’ guest blogs which we will host here on our website and share across our social channels. Guest blogs help us to connect our members with people and organisations who want their expertise. Besides that, we’re very proud of our members and we love the opportunity to boast a little about the amazing wealth of knowledge in our network.