Given that I’ve been blogging for 6 years, and for most of that time, at the pace of 3 posts a week, I have amassed a few guest posts on this site.
As the only writer for my blog, and as someone who prides herself in publishing only original content, it’s nice to have the occasional guest post. It means one less post for me to write that week, and that is a blessing. In addition, for people who are just starting out as bloggers, guest-posting on a more well-known site is a great way to get your name and a link to your new blog out there. Guest blogging on a sit that’s bigger than yours can be a win-win: the blogger gets (quality) content, and the guest poster gets seen in a bigger venue.
However, I very seldom say yes to guest posts. I get, on a daily basis, about 3-4 requests from people offering to write guest posts for my blog. 99% of them are spam. I can tell at a glance that they have never read my blog, and they don’t have a clue what it’s all about: they simply harvested my URL from the web, or they purchased a list with my name on it.
So, what’s the big deal about guest posting? Well, first of all, Google’s Algorithm ranks your site on a few specific factors: one is how often the site is updated. The more often your site updates, the better it is. Fallow, boring sites that never change don’t rank as high. Links are another thing that Google uses to rank your site. If someone links to your site from their site, that’s a good thing: according to Google, it must mean that your site has useful and valuable information worth sharing, right?
Yes. But people trying to game the system are putting out hundreds of requests per day, asking to write guest post on blogs to create much-needed link juice for their sites, even paying to have guest posts placed on blogs. But Google’s Algorithm, has gotten wise to this practice.
I’m not saying that I’m going to refuse guest posts from here on in–and I have been pretty picky about who I allow to write on my blog in the past–but I am going to be even more careful about who I allow to post here. I think that the day of having a random stranger email me with a guest post and me reading it and deciding to publish it (if I liked it) are over. From here on in, I’m only going to publish guest posts from trusted sources (namely, people I actually know).
Simply put, if you are creating excellent quality content, and you are putting it out regularly, and not trying to game the system, you should have nothing to fear from Google’s Algorithm.
Embedded from IDF Marketing
More reading:
What Is Google Hummingbird And What Does It Mean For The Future of SEO?
Are Your Outbound Links Hurting Your SEO?
The Decay and Fall of Guest Blogging for SEO