Guest Posting is when you post your content on another website in a collaboration. Many brands are always asking the burning question of “How to increase brand awareness” and guest posting can be the answer! Content marketing is already recognized as a tool for brand awareness, and guest posting combines the power of content marketing with SEO to create a supercharged digital marketing strategy. Overall, guest posting is an extremely effective marketing tool for building brand awareness and it also has many other benefits.
Let’s use a real-life analogy to illustrate how guest posting can have a positive impact on brand awareness:
You are a new pop singer with amazing talent but you aren’t well known yet! How do you gain popularity and fans? One way to do so is by singing as a guest at an already famous singer’s concert. If you open for a famous artist and impress the crowd with your vocal abilities and unique style, you are in a great position to convert their fans into yours! After leaving a positive impression, you can let them know about your album and about your social media channels and gain new support!
In this example, singing as a guest gives you two valuable benefits: It connects your name to the famous singer the crowd already loves and trusts. It also gives people the chance to experience your special talent and how your music can impact their lives. Guest posting is no different.
When you write an authoritative, high-quality post on a well-known website with thousands of followers, people will notice you. They’ll even start coming to your own blog. But it doesn’t end there. When people discover your blog and see that you’re doing something they’ve never seen before? They will link to you.
There are two essential things you need to get right for a successful guest post in order to maximize success and positive benefits:
Number 1: Choosing the right website
Number 2: Creating the right content
How to Choose The Right Website:
Do Your Research & Be Selective About Where Post!
Quality over quantity! Posting on authoritative sites that are relevant to your brand is much more important than the number of posts. If you post on nonauthoritative sites that are irrelevant for your brand you could it could make your brand look unreliable and hurt rather than help gain credibility.
Choose a Site in a Similar Niche
If you are in the SEO niche, it won’t do you any good to guest post on a cooking blog. It is possible that readers may like your content but there is a low chance that they would click on it in the first place because it does not align with their interests, and if they do read it there is an even smaller chance of converting those readers to your website! This is because they are not likely to be your target market and they don’t require your services. Thus, it is much more effective to guest post about SEO on a leading digital marketing blog to maximize brand awareness with a relevant target audience!
Review the Site’s Performance
Once you have narrowed your search down to a few sites within your niche, check to see how well each one is doing online. This can be easily done with the information provided in Accessily’s Guest Post Market Place. Focus on domain authority and overall visitors! Other things to consider include the number of social followers the website has and whether the website is considered an industry leader!
How to Create the Right Content
Focus on Audience Needs and Desires
When people read the content they often have a very specific purpose, they need something. Perhaps they need information they can take action on, a service that’ll make things easier for them, or a product that will spice up their lives! Consider their desires, problems, and pain points when planning content and try to incorporate solutions and benefits.
Grab Attention with Your Headline
Headlines are the first point of contact with a reader and they determine whether the reader decides to proceed with a piece of content! Make sure your headline is interesting and clear so that readers are enticed to continue reading.
Create Content with Substance
When you Guest Post you are exposing your brand to a new audience and your content is what leaves an impression on them! Take this opportunity to show your authority and expertise! Readers don’t want to read a puff piece that doesn’t share any new information. They want to read something valuable and unique.
Provide Content That’s Well-Presented and Easy to Read
Online readers are often in a hurry and don’t want to wade through endless blocks of text. They want the content to be clear, understandable, and to the point! Here are some tips to help you with user-friendly presentation and easily readable:
Top Tips for User-Friendly Presentation:
- Use Short Paragraphs Long blocks of text are unattractive and don’t emphasize important points. Divide your content into shorter paragraphs with subheadings. If you can organize your content into a numbered list it is even better for holding reader attention!
- Choose The Right Font Use a reasonably large font size and simple font style so that the text is easy to read! Avoid using overly embellished script fonts.
- Proofread Meticulously Strive to have zero typos and grammar mistakes in your content. The lower the quality of your writing the less trustworthy your content will seem. Poorly edited content can leave a very bad impression, so make sure to catch all of the details.
- Use Striking Images. Images bring your content to life! Make sure to use high-quality and relevant images. These images allow you to better illustrate points in an enjoyable way, and make your content more memorable!
Lead Your Readers to an Outcome
When you guest post, you will be given the opportunity to add a link back to your website! This link is very important for referral traffic because it is the portal from their website to yours for new users.
Make sure to use this opportunity wisely! It may make sense to link to your homepage, but consider your options and the outcome you want. If your focus is eCommerce, it may be best to link directly to your online store. If your focus is getting more readers to your blog, link them. If your focus is getting to communicate with the customer more, maybe you should link to a landing page that prompts them to sign up for your newsletter. After you decide what is best, link to the appropriate page of your website.
Take-Aways:
Guest Posting is a powerhouse for generating brand awareness by leveraging the authority of another trusted website and by exposing your brand to that website’s engaged user base.
If you choose the right website and provide great content this will maximize success and provide even stronger results! The increased brand awareness will also translate into increased traffic from your target audience (which should also increase leads and conversion). It also enhances your reputation by allowing you to better establish your authority and expertise!