What Is Guest Blogging?

Ever since the search engines came out people have been trying to figure out a way to play the system.  They have used just about every trick and tip out there to build links to their sites.  This is all done with one goal in mind.  Get more website traffic to their blog.  And the concept of doing a guest blog post for someone isn’t new.  But in recent months, since Panda and Penguin, it has come to the forefront.

In order to continue I thought I would define guest blogging to you.  Simply put, when you have another person write a blog post for your blog, that is a guest blog.  Pretty easy right.  In another context, when you write a post for someone elses site, your providing my site a guest blog post.

For example.  Many people don’t know this but I am member of a blogging community.  We read each others content.  Provide social bookmarking and social sharing solutions to each other.  And most importantly we comment on each others blogs.  Now this is a good arrangement because I don’t have to search for new sites to comment on all the time.

During some restructoring of the community I volunteered to help out.  And as a results I had the opportunity to do a guest blog post on the groups main site. (You can read it here, join the group too.  If you can’t figure out how him me up and I’ll get you signed up)

When writing the definition of guest blogging you have to cover the benefits of following this process as well.  First, lets say that your site really isn’t that popular right now.  So you need to get your name out there.  And through the power of networking you find that your new blogging buddy will let you post some content on his popular site.  Thus you will get some of his/her listeners reading your content.  Perhaps they come over to your site and see what your all about.

The second benefit is the backlink that you will receive to your website.  This will help increase your rankings.  As well as increase the authority Google awards your site over the long run.

Where Can You Find Guest Bloggers?

Guest Blog Sites About Blogging, Marketing, Social Media, Entrepreneurs.

1. Blog Success
2. Pro Blogger
3. Copy Blogger
4. Successful and Outstanding Bloggers (Liz Strauss)
5. Social Media Examiner
6. Business2Community (also Tech, Lifestyle, and News categories)
7. Geek Business
8. Men With Pens
9. Blog Engage
10. Basic Blog Tips
11. Hot Blog Tips
12. Affiliate Marketing Guides
13. Blogging 24
14. iBlog Zone
15. Famous Bloggers
16. One-Woman Marketing
17. Blog Godown
18. Quick Online Tips
19. Kiolani
20. Traffic Generation Cafe

Tech

1. Fried Beef’s Tech
2. Right Now In Tech
3. Regular Geek

General Topics

1. Technorati.com
2. About.com

Business

1. Small Business Trends

Real Estate

Resources for Guest Bloggers

1. BloggerLinkUp.com is a very active place to find guest blogging opportunities.
2. This is a large hub for guest bloggers to network and find new sites to guest post.  It is free to join.
3. Blog Engage is also a large hub for guest bloggers. (I love this one)

What Is Google’s View On Guest Blogging?

Now if you have never watched Matt Cutts talk about search engine optimization you know that he kind of talks around in circles.  He gives you just enough information to do the right thing without saying exactly what you need to do.  Which is a good thing because it keeps people honest, well to some extent anyway.

So in the interest of clarity let me cover a couple things that you should and should not do when it comes to writing guest blog posts for other people.

Number 1) Don’t under any circumstances try to give someone a spun article.  If you didn’t write it originally for their blog, don’t provide it.  Smart people who are posting guest posts on their site will check for duplicate content.  Its not worth the loss to your reputation.

Number 2) Don’t under any circumstances repost a post that you have given someone.  Don’t repost it in article directories, don’t repost it on your site.  Just don’t repost it.  Again, this goes back to duplicate content and reputation management.  People take this seriously folks.

Number 3) Do ensure that you promote your work on social networks.  Just because its not your site doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be giving it love.  Besides its really helping your out as well.

Number 4) Always offer to post something for someone who has allowed you to post.  It builds a great relationship and can result in some combined projects.

A Beginner’s Guide To Guest Blogging

Here is a great infographic on the subject with some more added tips.

Now get to work!!

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