Recently, Matt Cutts answered a question sent to him about the future effectiveness of guest blogging. That question is certainly not a new one, as a lot of SEO professionals use guest blogging as an effective link building tool, and have long wondered about how long it will remain effective. What is the most poignant part of this debate is that while there is a link building strategy behind guest blogging, it is also a very legitimate resource. What is important to remember is how to remain effective as a guest blogger to make sure that your efforts aren't made irrelevant. To do this, guest bloggers really need to follow the rules that have been around the entire time of guest blogging. You have to avoid spinning articles, writing low value and low word articles, and remember to put effort into your posts. If you do all these things, your guest posting efforts will not go to waste.
No Article Spinning
This, again, is nothing new. Spinning articles (slightly rewording an article to get it reaccepted) has never been an acceptable way of guest blogging and getting links. Not only are you hurting your link building campaign, but you are also hurting the sites that you post on. This not only will get your links unnoticed by Google, but you are also running the risk of of getting your links penalized. Furthermore, if you spin articles, places will not want you to post on their site. This will kill your guest posting quicker than anything else; not having a site to write for.
Avoid Low Word Count Articles
This is another tactic that will hurt your guest posting very quickly. Google sees really short articles as simply link bait, and does not give your link credits.The fact is there are article “farms” out there that spin out these articles to simply put links out there. If you want to differentiate yourself from these writers, then you have to make sure that your articles are substantial. There are certain topics that are?inherently short in nature, and in that case you have to make sure you exhaust the topic. Most blogs have word limits anyways, but even if they don't, or have low word limitations, make sure you go above and beyond the limits.
High Quality
This also seems like a no-brainer, but you have to make sure that you put full effort into your articles. This means that if it takes some time and rewrites, make sure you are putting out the best quality you can. With the newer Google updates, the crawlers have gotten better about picking up on content. Part of this is in an effort to make sure that your content is relevant to any links in the body. It is also a way to try and qualify what is in your article. This has made it even more important to make sure you churn out the best content you can, and to get all the benefits from your writing.
So in short, guest blogging is not dead, but it has become a lot tougher to pull off. In a way, this is a good thing for us quality guest writers. With all the other stuff out of the way, our content comes to shine, and credit is given where it is deserved. There will always be benefits for guest blogging if you put in your time and effort. With crackdowns like this though, it's good to know that what we see online has become more legitimate.
BIll Thomas is an SEO blogger and content creator for?Aspire Direct. He enjoys writing, and always emphasizes the importance of quality content.
