Matt Cutts really turned the guest blogging community on its head a couple of months ago. Cutts said that many people were abusing guest blogging (basically coz it downright worked) and that it was effectively dead for SEO. Even though Cutts said that guest blogging can still be a great way to gain exposure, his words really made a lot of people much more cautious. Many bloggers have become much more hesitant about accepting guest posts after these recent statements. You need to convince bloggers that you are a legitimate guest blogger rather than a spammer trolling for links. You just godda build guest blogging relationships.
Stick A Fork In It! Matt Cutt’s Advice on Guest Blogging
Just to get to the good mood, check out this totally awesome move from Internet Marketing Inc. The guys make fun of Matt Cutt’s advice to stick a fork in guest blogging. That’s really epic! See for yourself.
Guest Blogging Tips to Stay Afloat
It is very important that you create a great outreach campaign. Here are some of the things that you need to do:
- Introduce yourself and your blog
- Show that you have read their blog before
- Share some ideas that are relevant to their blog
- Show links to content that you have written in the past
- Promise to share your guest post on social media and respond to any commnents
These tips should be common sense, but there are still far too many guest bloggers that don’t practice them. The truth is that many bloggers have become a lot more apprehensive about taking guest authors long before Matt Cutts made his recent statement. They found that many of the pitches they received were spammy and didn’t offer any real value to their site. This means that legitimate guest bloggers need to stand out. Ironically, showing a little courtesy is all that it takes.
These requirements should be the bare minimum that every blogger lives up to, but few people even set the standard that high. Act like a real person and you should get a lot more responses to your emails.
Video History on Guest Blogging
You can watch the following videos by Matt Cutts and see how his (and that means Google’s) opinion about guest blogging drastically changed.
Useful Links
The Ultimate Guide to Advanced Guest Blogging
Bottom Line
If you planned to use guest blogging as your main method for building links, it’s quite obvious that it’s not gonna work. In case you’ve been doing it for a while, cut it out. At least, be sure to create really high-quality content that attracts a lot of positive attention from the audience of the blog you guest posted on. It should be really obvious that you did it not because of (at least not primarily) obtaining that back link.
If you can’t use guest blogging as your primary link building method, what should you do instead? Any ideas?
I have shared my secrets about guest blogging in my new ebook. You can download a free chapter on finding great sites to guest post on my website here.
