The benefits of guest blogging don’t just apply to your company, they can affect you as an individual and the person or company you are creating the post for.

Rather than only writing posts for your own site, guest blogging allows you to branch out to complementary companies and influencers in your industry.

By getting involved with writing posts for other sites you can boost the website traffic on your company’s site, and have the chance of getting new mailing list subscribers and bringing in new customers.

But it’s not just the instantly visible metrics that are affected by guest blogging. Less obvious benefits include building credibility in your industry, expanding your personal network and getting feedback from outside your regular audience.

Guest blogging can be your doorway to getting viewed as an authoritative voice and expert in your field. The more in-depth, well-researched posts you publish on authoritative blogs, the more chances you will get to communicate and interact with people. Over time, you can become an authority in the eyes of your target audience.

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A single guest post is unlikely to forge a relationship, but regular posts on influential sites that include engagement with the audience in the comments section or on social media are likely to prove successful.

Once you’ve submitted a guest post it’s important to follow up with the site owner to find out how the post is doing on their site. This will show you are actually interested in their community and not just using the post for link building.

Of course, there are SEO benefits from guest posting too, and earning links that point back to your site is a great thing, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all.

If you’re unsure of the most influential blogs in your (or your clients’) industry you can do a few quick Google searches until you find a suitable site.

Examples include:

“Keyword” + “Guest Blog”

“Keyword” + “Become a Contributor”

“Keyword” + “Guest Author Wanted”

“Keyword” + “Submit an Article”

Experiment with variations until you are able to create a list of sites in your industry. Once you have a list of suitable blogs, check they are actually credible by looking at the numbers and engagement levels. The Moz Open Site Explorer tool can help you analyse the authority of a blog.

Once you’ve found sites you want to write on – research previous content to get a feel for the style of the site. Read conversations the audience are having in the comments section or on the site’s social media channels and decide what you are going to write about. Use your research to write it in a style that will resonate with the site’s audience. Make sure you are providing something useful that is not self-promotional.

For more tips on writing guest blogs, take a look at this article from PR Daily.

On the subject of guest posts, ResponseSource founder Daryl Willcox recently wrote a guest blog on Stephen Waddington’s wadds.co.uk about GDPR compliance for the PR industry.

On a final note, we’re always looking for new guest contributors on the ResponseSource blog. If you’d like to get involved send us an email on marketing@responsesource.com. Thanks, Kelly.