Digital marketing strategies have come and gone. Content marketing, in particular, has evolved greatly since its early days, especially with the growth of social content, videos, email and other newer types. In the face of all of these content marketing strategies, it’s easy to forget about the basics: blogs and guest blogs.
The question is, does anyone still blog? Are bloggers still up for the job? It may surprise you, but even in 2022, there are still many opportunities for guest blogging. In fact, guest blogging is still a vital inbound marketing strategy. In other words, it’s not an artifact or fossil from the early days of the internet.
But how long has it been since you’ve included guest blogging in your content marketing stack—or shuffled it out? Whether it’s been a while since you’ve published a guest blog or never tried them, here’s your chance to learn about this time-tested inbound content marketing strategy.
Before we talk about the lost art of guest blogging, we need to take a step back and understand how it relates to inbound marketing. You may have heard of this term tossed around when discussing digital marketing strategies.
So, what is inbound marketing? Simply, inbound marketing involves capturing leads as they come in from campaigns. These potential customers express their interest by filling out a contact form, downloading a resource, signing up for your newsletter, and other similar ways to get to know your brand before making a shopping decision.
Essentially, inbound marketing is the opposite of direct customer outreach strategies, such as cold calling. Rather than going to customers, you draw them in through effective content marketing, so they go to you.
Guest blogging is a type of content marketing strategy, often used for inbound marketing. A guest blog is an article that provides valuable information that caters to your customers’ needs and interests, written by a third party.
Anyone outside your company can technically write a guest blog, but the content is most effective when an industry expert or other trusted voice is the one penning these expert-driven insights. Typically, guest bloggers review your products or services, discuss best practices you’ve implemented, or talk about the latest trends in your industry.
Guest blogging functions as a social proof or trust indicator. Customers expect you to sell them on the competitive edge of your brand. After all, it’s your job to advertise your brand. But when someone else—someone who isn’t working with you and knows the industry inside and out—writes a blog that provides a thorough and honest review, cites you in an industry case study, or any other subject that demonstrates your expertise, customers are inclined to trust them.
As a cornerstone of inbound marketing, one of the most tangible and crucial effects of guest blogging is improved off-page SEO. When you work in partnership with people outside your brand to produce guest blogs as part of your content marketing strategy, you gain backlinks.
Backlinks are the backbone of off-page SEO. Aside from on-page SEO strategies like keyword targeting, off-page SEO boosts your site’s authority and rankings. One of the ways that backlinks are created is when sites that publish guest blogs for your brand link back to your site. The more sites you have that are reputable and trustworthy in your industry linking back to your brand, the higher your site authority is. This signals to Google that your site provides relevant information to users, which boosts your rankings on search.
In terms of brand awareness and customer engagement, guest blogging allows you to tap into a new network outside of the target audiences that you’ve been trying to engage. By adding guest blogs to your content marketing stack, you’re able to reach new audiences on more spaces across the web, including customers you may not have engaged yet or wouldn’t directly come to your site.
A content marketing strategy that includes guest blogs allows you to cultivate customer interest and nurture relationships on various platforms. With value-added blog content, you can also engage customers who may not be actively looking to buy, but can be persuaded or will be enticed to take action. As a result, you have multiple conversion pathways outside of your website and social brand accounts.
As we talked about earlier, guest blogging has a number of applications, all of which positively impact inbound marketing. From increased brand awareness, to nurturing trust and even encouraging repeat purchases, a guest blogging-focused content marketing strategy can bring more leads and drive conversions, all without the obvious (and sometimes a tad too loud!) sales pitch.
Here’s how:
And there you have it—that’s everything you need to know about guest blogging and be convinced. Today, guest blogging remains one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies we’ve recommended and implemented for our Toronto-based clients here at Consultus Digital.
At Consultus, we’re all about good, well-crafted, and value-adding content. Most importantly, we believe in the power of the trust factor and looking toward the most influential voices in your industry. This is where guest blogging comes in, and where we can help.
As one of Toronto’s go-to content marketing agencies, we provide a complete guest blogging strategy. From selecting sites and guest bloggers that can help you reach key audiences, to crafting powerful content that helps generate and nurture leads, our complete content marketing solutions will bring results that matter most.
Want to explore more content marketing and inbound marketing solutions? Get in touch with our experts in Toronto to start with guest blogging.
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