“Guest blogging is done”. So stated Matt Cutts in The Decay and Fall of Guest Blogging for SEO. Bad guest blogging IS most certainly dead. But properly done, we will all continue to guest blog.
Bad Guest Blogging
We all need to get very clear on why Matt Cutts claims “guest blogging is done”. Agencies are still doing what is clearly not wise to do. They are still getting their clients Penguined on purpose. Even after they’ve had it explained to them.
So as a business, blogger, or agency this is what you need to know:
- You can NOT just buy content and put links in the bio. Stop doing that.
- Do not buy content and put a sentence at the end that contains a link.
- Avoid putting content on sites that are not RELEVANT to what you do.
- Do not make the mistake of assuming the content you’ve published so far is the quality you must start producing.
- Stop writing content that your potential customers would not read!
Focusing on building links is doing guest blogging backwards.
Good Guest Blogging
Good guest blogging is content marketing. It is INBOUND marketing. The priority is on determining where your potential buyers are and what they want to know.
This is the process you should be using:
1) Decide on the Goal
[Hint: the goal is NOT LINKS!] The goal is increased sales or subscribers. Subscribers is the most realistic goal. To survive we must capture every visitor who lands on our site from any source and learn to send them what they want. Not a long email. Not something to read. Precisely what they want and will open.
2) Brainstorm Content Ideas
Stop writing content that has nothing to do with your business. No more posts about social media or marketing unless you are an integral example made part of that content.
What would your potential buyers want to read about or see? That is what you need to be writing and publishing where those potential buyers already are.
3) Words Alone Are NOT Enough
Stop just writing words. How would your potential buyers like to consume that content? Words alone aren’t enough. Your content must really pop using one or more of these in addition to words:
- Pinnable custom images
- Video
- Slideshares
- Infographics
- Case Studies
- White Papers
4) Choose the Right Sites
You’ve created the perfect content. You know it will speak to your potential customers and entice them back to your site. Now you need to get it published on just the right site = the one where your potential buyers already are.
Use Inkybee if you prefer to do your research and make connections one at a time.
Guest Blogging is NOT Dead
BAD guest blogging is dead. Real content marketing and inbound marketing using guest posting is alive and well and always will be because it is not about links.
In response to Matt Cutt’s post, Bill Hartzer wrote in Guest Blogging is NOT Dead:
“No, guest blogging is not dead. In fact, it’s alive and well, and it’s a great marketing tactic to open up your business and personal brand to opportunities and audiences that you normally would not have a chance to reach.”
Guest blogging is about visibility and attracting your potential customers back to your site and making them more aware of how you can assist them. Not continuing to do guest blogging would severely limit your businesses’ visibility, sales, and profits.
Related Posts:
- NEW: Sugar Rae Google Propaganda SEO and Why Marketers Need to Wake Up
- NEW: Web Pro News republishes Sugar Rae’s post: Google Propaganda SEO and Why Marketers Need to Wake Up
- NEW: Danny Sullivan’s comment re: Matt Cutt’s post
- NEW: 13 Experts Reveal The Truth About Guest Blogging
- Entrepreneur.com: Yes, Guest Blog Posting is Still a Viable SEO Tactic for Growing Your Business
- Copyblogger: Matt Cutts Declares Guest Blogging “Done” … Are We All Screwed?
- Marketing Land: Google Clarifies: Guest Blogging Is OK, But “Guest Blogging For SEO” Is Not
- Discussions on Threadwatch.org
- Discussion on News.ycombinator.com
- Moz: Why Guest Posting and Blogging is a Slippery Slope – Whiteboard Friday
Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday Video: (see link above for post):
Gail Gardner
Latest posts by Gail Gardner (see all)
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At the end of the day quality content is still quality content no matter if you write it or a guest
As i am new in guest blogging this post of your is a great help!
keep on sharing such informative post like these. thanks
Hi gail, I completely agree. Guest blogging is not dead – it has just been called out. Those who do it right will continue to benefit while those who just want links will fail. For me it is all about the outreach, making connections with other bloggers in your niche makes all the difference when it comes to getting guest content accepted.
Thanks for the useful information. I’am new to guest blogging and you have mentioned key ideas for the guest posting. I should keep on learning. Thanks. I have bookmarked the site for future updates. Will definitely keep on coming to this site for loads of information.
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we agree with you gail gardenr, beyound backlinks and search results, guest blogging is still a really great way to host and create quality content, and its also builds report with your community.
Hi Gail, I also do think that guest blogging is not dead. Guest posting builds relationships with other bloggers. This is an excellent strategy for extending your reach and boosting your reputation online.
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I am a guest blogger and I use to do guest blogging regularly. This points will be helpful to me. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Gail,Really an informative post about the guest blogging for bloggers. I too agree with you guest blogging is not dead.By the way thanks for the tips for a guest blogging.
I believe it’s not dead although guest blogging has gotten really spammy it all depends on what you publish on your blog
Very good article, Gail. You nailed it for sure – Guest blogging will continue to work for those who do it right. So, nothing to worry about, as far as I am concerned.
The irony of the matter is that even those who do it for SEO will continue doing it and continue getting results. They just change their techniques and make it less obvious and they will continue getting results. As long as Google continues to rank sites solely based on keyword-rich backlinks on quality PR pages, there will always be ways to game the system!
Thanks to Vernessa Taylor for sharing this on the Internet marketing social networking and bookmarking site, Kingged.com, by the way. I found it useful and have “kingged” it and I am sure others will too.
Kingsley would love you to read ..Guest Blogging is Dead; Long Live Guest Blogging; NOT Done!
I am agree that guest blogging is NOT dead.
If u publish your quality content (no promotional content) within right niche,
then this will be consider as good and quality content.
Guest blogging is certainly not dead however the way that is done by many guest bloggers will change. Many used (and continue) to link to product or service pages using keywords however that kind of links don’t offer any value to readers and they can be easily spotted as unnatural.
Kostas Chiotis would love you to read ..Using Guest Blogging To Become A Recognized Expert In Your Industry
Hello Kostas,
Actually, I believe that the proper use of anchor text as it was before Google tried to kill it off DOES provide value to readers. Making it clear where a link will take them before they even click it is very important. That is what keywords do – but given Google’s penchant for putting small businesses under intentionally, I recommend bloggers start adding mouse-over text to their links and images.
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That’s a great idea Gail however not everyone knows how to do it, anyway most bloggers just mention before the link what readers will see after clicking a link or it’s just obvious…
Kostas Chiotis would love you to read ..Supercharge Your Website’s Exposure and Brand Awareness through Guest Blogging
Guest blogging isn’t dead yet, But the writer must take necessary precautions before writing an attractive article. It should be informative or personal experience. Writer must remember that what he is showing must be easily understood by the visitor. To get maximum visitor always share the article with image and video.
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Hi Gail,
Nice to finally meet your blog.
Yes, I know that guest blogging is not dead and I intend to target big blogs to guest post from now on such as Problogger, copyblgger and the like.
Those 2 cents a dozen kind of bad posts were trash any way and now they’ve got what they deserved.
Hello Gail Gardner,
Well, guest blogging is the old techniques for the SEO and to get the traffic. But according to modern SEO techniques, Guest Blogging is back with better impacts on SEO with the organic traffic. Billions of online marketers are using this technique. Thanks for sharing this information.
Agree, but Guest blogging must have good talent writing skill. ie : problogger (darren rowse), enterpreneurs-journey (yaro starak), doshdosh (maki), etc..
Backlink building not must write as guest blogging. comment on blogpost is alternative backlink building. btw, overall nice tips 🙂
Woohoo ! awesom post man!! Guest blogging cant be dead and talking about Cutts, somebody said no PR update the year before (2013). So after that no ones gonna believe that GB is dead right!! but still as far bloggers try to choose your sites carefully and your quality standards should be way HIGH !!
hi dear very amazing post.I Am Daily Visitor Of Your Blog And Take Much Knowledge From Here For Me.I Can Understand Your Blogging Is So Professionally .But How I Can post value able Things In Blog my like you ???
Good takeaways on this post. I think the biggest point Cutts was trying to make is that guest blogging is viable if it’s honest and helpful, and not just to build links back to your own site. I’m sure that will still carry some weight, but the bigger benefit is the exposure to new audiences.
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Thnks for these tips your blog articles are very accurate
Yeah, people certainly started panicking and yelling “OMG! GUEST BLOGGING IS DEAD!”.
I have been crowing all week, saying “I told you so!” to everyone, from day one I implemented three rules when accepting guest posts and I refused to break them:
– Nofollow Links – I found that not making the links dofollow immediately pushed the low quality posters and spammy link-builders away.
– Read ALL Guest Posts Myself – You might be surprised by the amount of blogs who publish guest posts WITHOUT reading them, or they pass the job to someone else who doesn’t really pay too much attention.
– Only Relevant Links – I only accept guest posts that have links to sites or products that are related to the topics I cover on my blogs. I have had to decline quite a few well written blog posts over the years because the links are completely off-niche.
I’ve actually heard more people talking about guest blogging in the past few months than ever.
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Thanks for all the tips! Have enjoyed following your blog, best of luck!
hi Gail
your post given an hope for guest blogging
being a newbie i am afraid to write guest posts on other blog, my posts are regarding gadget tips so can you suggest me what type of guest posts can i write so far.
I haven’t tried guest blogging but I also haven’t seen too much of a call out. I kept reading how it is amazing for traffic, but perhaps it really is sort of dead.
I think Google will check guess blog carefully in the future because it is not natural building backlink so that the bloggers stop buid backlink by guess blog. At the same time, I stop building backlink by this method. All friend in Warrior Forum also terminate it before reviewing by Gooogle.
Hello Ngan,
Unless you’re already famous there is no such thing as “natural” backlink building. You have to be found before anyone can link to you organically.
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I was just reading Matt\’s article claiming guest blogging is indeed dead! Gail has resurrected GOOD guest blogging! Reading these post back to back gave an interesting, and educated perspective for both sides of the coin. Thanks!
Long live the king… king is a content…(good)content is the essence of blog…blog is the queen…queen is married with king… 🙂
Hi Gail,
You’re certainly right, Bad guest blogging is dead. If you’re creating useful content and publishing it on relevant blogs, then you’re only going to gain and won’t lose anything.
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Hi, No, Good quality blogging never dies, may be ineffective write ups end up.
You\’ve managed to write a great informational article. You have hit on many solid and bold points that make readers think. This is very thought-provoking content that made me reconsider some of my own views.
Guest blogging isn’t dead yet, But the writer must take necessary precautions before writing an attractive article. It should be informative or personal experience. Writer must remember that what he is showing must be easily understood by the visitor. To get maximum visitor always share the article with image and video.
So am I to understand correctly that guest blogging for individual niche blogs is dead, but doing so for larger blogs featuring multiple authors is alive and well? What is it that distinguishes guest blogging – presuming the content unique and original and the blog relevant to that of the guest author (and hence the link) – that is dead as a method of advancing SEO versus guest blogging that as such a tactic is still useful to some degree?
I apologize but I’m utterly confused by all this. I don’t understand what specifically makes the difference between what is acceptable and even encouraged and what is a waste of time. I don’t use any spam techniques and never have, if that helps in formulating an answer.
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Hi Gail, of course guest blogging isn’t dead. I’m not even sure why Matt took the time to write about it at this point. Actually I think he clarified his statement later to “guest blogging for SEO is dead”.
What really makes a lot more sense is that “SEO is dead”. By that I mean the old way of doing SEO by stuffing keywords and buying links and so forth.
What works is what people like you and I have been saying for years. Building relationships, doing collaborations, increasing your authority by developing high quality – valuable content. These are some of the things that stand the test of time and all the Google algorithms.
I like what you said about images too. You can’t just use stock images these days, you need to take the time to customize them with text overlays, frames or other graphic elements. Also, you can use your own photos if possible, as long as they are high-quality.
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you put me in trouble by saying that guest blogging is dead. but i do agree with you that bad guest post or guest posting on irrelevant blogs cannot help us to grow our blog or website.
nice and informative tips and thanks for sharing….
I agree that it’s not guest blogging per se that’s necessarily dead; it’s low quality guest blogging – specifically for links, and specifically with exact-match anchor text.
Many times over the last few years we’ve been shocked both by the low quality content that has been offered to our blog network *and* the low quality of sites *requesting* content from us.
Wherever possible we have avoided these situations like the plague. Every site that hosts some of our content has been analyzed for a closely-matched audience, for a high quality user experience, for active following, commenting and social sharing – in other words “real” sites that should stand the test of time rather than some junk blog offering no real value to the internet.
We, at least, plan to keep on guest blogging the way we’ve done things – offering high quality posts to high quality sites – looking for authority and click-through traffic more than SEO-friendly links.
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Hey Gail, Guest blogging is not dead in fact it the best way to get traffic and make your self as a person visible to all.. Right sites like Huffington Post and Forbes are the great sites for guest blogging. Thanks Gail 🙂