Tag: Blogs

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Is Guest Blogging Dead? Part One

The way most SEO’s have been using guest blogging to build links has really been disavowed by Google and appears to be considered low quality content. Here’s how guest blogging particularly impacts websites that use this type of blog content and those that send out guest blog content to others to post.

Today we’ll talk about using guest blog posts on your own blog and Wednesday we’ll talk about situations where you are sending content out to others to post to their blog.

Posting Guest Blog Posts to Your Own Blog

If you have been soliciting guest blog posts to build free content and to try to create value for your blog, here are a few tips to consider before you continue using this type of content.

1. Verify using Copyscape Premium that the content you have been using as a guest blog post is actually unique to your blog. If when you run the post through the plagiarism checker and you see two, five, forty sites that have this same blog post, I would stop using content from this source.

2. Take a look at the keywords used in the post and in the bio block footer. Would Google consider them to be a good match with your website focus? Let’s say for example you are an attorney and got a guest blog post but the footer content and keywords talk about nutritional supplements. I would not use that content any more. You want the keywords and bio block information to be legal category keywords.

3. Take a look at the anchor text used in the blog post – that’s the keywords that are underlined and carry the hyperlink. Open the blog post in Word and see what site are you linking to in the post? Is is a quality site? Is it one you would like your own customers to visit? Is the site in your own industry?

Remember typically others that create and push out guest blog content are not interested in building their own author brand, they are trying to bleed off your search engine capital through a link back to their own website or to their own clients’ website.

Be careful and selective of what you use and how. Google will be evaluating who you link to and who links to you as part of the new organic placement ranking.

You’ll want to check out Matt Cutts full video on the topic of guest blogging in this webmaster video from the Google Web Spam department for more information.

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Google’s Matt Cutts on Guest Blogging and Link Building Clarification

Google’s spam engineer Matt Cutts takes time in this video to clarify further how Google feels about guest blogging and answers if you use guest blog posts will your website be penalized for placement. This is an excellent video and well worth the minute or two to watch.

Here is the synopsis of the video in a nutshell.

1. If you allow just anyone without review to post to your blog or you accept blog posts that have been posted widely on the Web already, your own site’s reputation can be impugned by this tactic and placement may drop based on Google’s new filters.

2. If you are allowing articles that have been spun (meaning multiple versions created automatically with software changing the word order in an effort to provide seemingly “unique” content for each site you send to) to be used on your website or blog, you will most likely have your site penalized in Google for these activities.

3. Matt says point blank that if you are doing many guest blog posts or allowing many guest blog posts that may be of questionable syndication on your own website, that this is a “pretty good indicator of bad quality”. “If your website links to or receives links from sites like this, this can lower your own site’s reputation.” “Yes, Google is willing to take action against sites that are doing low quality or spammy guest blogging.”

My recommendation to you is that if you accept guest blog pieces, they should be written uniquely for your website. I would recommend you use a service like Copyscape Premium to test if a piece sent to you is unique. I would not post articles that appear in many locations on your own website. Better yet get your own blog writer. I invite you to review our blog writing service program.

If you do guest blog posts for others sites, I would be very selective of the sites you choose to write for and consider limiting your content to only one or two really high quality sites. Make the inbound links to your website be meaningful and not hurtful to your overall placement strategy.

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Business Blogging Tips from a Writing Pro

My firm has been providing blog writing services since 2005. That’s seven years of professional blogging experience. I have recently read and article called “21 Business Blogging Tips from the Pros” and I think the article is a good one and encourage you to read it for more information.

Here’s a quick synopsis of the articles important points as well as many of my own recommendations.

  1. Treat your blog posts as products.
  2. Differentiate your blog from others with new approaches to your content.
  3. Take your own images and create your own videos.
  4. Give all the information, don’t offer part of the picture and sell the rest.
  5. Target your content to your audience.
  6. Focus on your reader first, not search engines.
  7. Be yourself. Let your personality show through your writing.
  8. Answer consumer questions.
  9. Show your full blog post on your blog home page. People will typically not click to read the rest of the post.
  10. Consider limiting what is on your feed to prevent scraper sites from stealing your content.
  11. Explain topics in an easy to understand manner.
  12. Use bullet points and sub headers versus large blocks of content.
  13. Keep your blog posts around 250 to 350 words long.

Do you have other suggestions? Just add them in the comments section below. By the way, if you are looking for a professional blog writing service, I invite you to find out more about the services we offer to help keep the content on your blog unique and up to date.

 

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Guest Blogging for Links

What does Google (Matt Cutts) think about guest blogging and the links that are generated from doing it? This excellent video answers the question.

This is the bottom line. If you did not sweat in creating the guest blog post Google will typically not give you link juice for it. That’s the hard cold fact. Write a light weight blog post of about 250 words, post it on a variety of sites, and maybe even use article spinning software in an effort to create unique content for each site and you really will not be getting link benefits.

Create a well written, informative, insightful blog post for a site that supports your industry and yes Google does like this approach. It’s all about the time you take and the insight you provide. Do not do guest blogging just for links with minimal effort on your part Matt and Google pretty much say in this video that it is wasted effort.