If you’ve followed my blog for the last few weeks, you’d be aware I’m on a grand mission to spread guest blogging love across the universe. Last week I spoke about how to use guest blogging to attract new readers to your blog. Today I’ll be discussing how guest posts can be used to enhance your organic search engine rankings.
Most bloggers recognise the importance of search engine rankings. Search engines deliver the highest quality/most qualified traffic on the web. And best of all… it’s free. Thus, establishing visibility within search engines for relevant keywords & phrases is a priority for most bloggers. Actually pulling rank however is another story altogether…
Without wanting to delve into search engine optimisation 101, let’s make one thing clear… inbound links matter. If you’re not aware of why, check out my bud Ken’s explanation on link theory. Every link you gain builds a little bit of authority for your site in the eyes of the search engines (unless it’s coming from a dodgy neighbourhood). So… if you want to establish search engine ranking & authority, you’d better start building some links!
While generally speaking… every link is beneficial (presuming of course it’s not from www.buy-viagra-porn-and-genital_enlargements.com), not all links are created equal. Google will attribute more value/weight to a link that comes from a site it already considers an authority, as opposed to a site with a PageRank of zero. Which is where guest blogging offers real SEO potential. Guest blogging presents two critical SEO benefits:
- The opportunity to generate a link from an industry related site with an established authority level
- The opportunity to control the anchor text attributed to that link
Let’s face it… getting links from authority sites isn’t easy. Here’s a few alternatives for achieving the same goal:
- Send hundreds of link request/link exchange emails to established bloggers and hope that one honours your request. Likely success factor = very low
- Write a linkbait piece, wait for it to get submitted to the social media circles and hope an authority site picks it up. Likely success factor = low (unless you’re Lyndon)
- Submit your site to a few ‘authority’ directories… and while you’re at it, have a think about how you’re going to bribe the DMOZ editors. Likely success factor = medium… but the authority level of directory links is highly questionable
And of course, we haven’t even considered the ability to control the anchor text via any of these alternative tactics! That’s another story altogether. Sheesh… I’ll take guest blogging any day of the week for my authoritative link building. You…???
Now… in the first post of my guest blogging series I promised to reveal the practical benefits I’ve seen as a result of my guest blogging madness. So, let’s take a look at the effect the guest blogging world tour has had on my rankings.
Case Study – The impact of guest blogging on Online Marketing Banter’s search rankings
My personal guest blogging schedule targeted a handful of respected industry blogs with established search engine authority:
- Huomah – PageRankof 4
- Social Desire – PageRank of 5
- TheVanBlog – PageRank unavailable due to a recent switch of domain, but TheVanBlog is well established, being in existence for over 2.5 years
- SEO Scoop – PageRank of 5
Within each guest post, I included a short author bio. The bio included a little bit about me, with a link through to my blog. Each bio link used identical anchor text – ‘Australian digital marketing’. Obviously, I’m trying to target search phrases that include the words ‘Australian+digital+marketing’. And thanks to my guest posts, I now have 4 inbound links from established industry sites using that anchor text. Awesome! And the results… well… my humble little blog is now ranked fifth in Google Australia for the search term ‘digital marketing Australia’. Schweet!
And the traffic effect…? Search engine driven traffic has almost tripled. In May, search engines contributed just 2.31 % of the traffic to my blog:
By June however, it has jumped to 6.52% with the term ‘digital marketing Australia’ occupying the number one keyword (driving 29% of all search traffic).
In time, I’m hoping I can increase the rankings and traffic further with a little on-page SEO and additional guest blogging spots (with the same anchor text naturally). I also tend to think the value of each inbound link will grow in time as the individual posts age and begin to attain their own PageRank. If you ever see me at number one, we’ll declare the SEO benefits of guest blogging a great success (hat tip to Borat).
Keep an eye out for the third post in the guest blogging series. It explores the networking benefits of guest blogging. I’m hoping to publish it next week, although I do have to write another guest post before then… 
Until then…
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Wow, this is good stuff, thanks so much for sharing
Hey James,
do not focus too much on PageRank. I think domain age and overall authority status count more. Then use the targeted anchor text you need. I’m not sure if “digital marketing” is the best keyphrase. What about online, internet or search marketing?
Besides that the biggest benefit of guests posting is reaching out to a new but targeted audience.
I like your writing style, you can guest post at SEO 2.0 if you like.
Tad
Great article. You’ve sold me on the concept of guest blogging. Now all I need to know is where I can buy my “I Support Guest Blogging” Online Marketing Banter t-shirt!
If you don’t have a t-shirt, I’d settle for a button.
Oh and I just checked WordTracker on “digital marketing” and Tad’s right, it’s not one of the better keywords. Search engine marketing seems to be the big winner so you might want to switch from digital to search engine marketing.
Nice to see that guest blogging is working. And interesting to see you actually measuring the return. I’m a big believer in guest posting and need to do more of it myself.
By the way the PR for my home page and blog’s home page was 5 before the domain move. I assume both will be either 4 or 5 after the next PR update. Thought I’d let you know just in case you’re using the numbers in measuring results.
@ EC – No problems. Glad you enjoyed it.
@ Tad – I recognise ‘digital marketing’ isn’t the most popular phrase, but that’s why I chose it. If I choose ‘online marketing’ and other keywords I’ll be competing against people like you. And then I’ve got no chance
I’ll be happy to guest post for SEO 2.0. Will be in touch soon.
@ Kit-Kat – My buddy Ken Jones has promised to produce some tshirts for me, so I’ll start to hassle him on your behalf. See the comment above for reasoning behind the choice of the keyword ‘digital marketing’. I will start to target other keywords now that I’ve managed to pull some rankings. Perhaps another post to follow to see how this tactic performs on more competitive keywords.
@ Steven – No real need to know your PR. I suspected it was healthy based on your history and content base. Now… time to put your words into action and get your own guest blogging world tour started.
Good job of research. Thanks for the informative post.
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