If you haven’t guessed it by now, I am referring to Guest Blogging. Even though it’s almost as old as blogging itself, it is one of the most misunderstood Internet marketing tactics, albeit popular.

Are you wondering – what is guest blogging? It basically refers to placing your content (blogs) outside of your own blog or website at no cost (of course, there are guest blogging sites that charge something, as well). Simply put, you are writing for someone else’s blog, but including your own author information to build exposure and awareness for your brand or yourself.

Now, there’s one frequently asked question – is guest blogging only good for the “big guys”? Let me tell you that this cannot be farther away from the truth! Guest blogging or posting is not only for the well-established businesses, celebrities or authors. It is for everyone who’s looking to promote something in the web space and hope to connect with their target audience.

Moreover, did you know that for guest blogging you do not necessarily need to have your own website? Even a fan/business page on Facebook would do! Interesting, right?

But, wait… there are more benefits of guest blogging that you need to know before getting started.

Guest blogging can help you in building or expanding your network

Guest blogging helps you in connecting with a whole new audience, and therefore, builds or expands your network. The blogs or publications that you are going to write for would want to promote their website and drive traffic to their website with the help of your content. So, you can stay rest assured that they are going to massively promote you.

In fact, guest blogging goes beyond just building networks. It will allow you to build relationships with people reading your blog.

You can look forward to gaining new traffic to your business website or fan page on social media sites

Well, this one you can already guess. Each and every time that you guest blog, you are going to receive a little link love to your site or fan page. If you become a regular contributor, you will obviously be benefiting a lot. If your new readers like what they read, they are going to want to read more.

It will help increase your website’s domain authority

This advantage is strictly enjoyed by bloggers, niche site builders and those interested in creating a website online. If you want any kind of success in the competitive web space, you need to worry about how you will rank in Google searches. And for that, it’s important to check your domain authority (DA). DA is basically a measure that tells you whether your website has a chance to rank high in search engine results or not. It needs to be updated monthly and your target must always be to keep your domain authority higher than your competitors.

One of the most effective ways to grow your domain authority is to build links to your site. Why are links important for your website? Because according to Google, the links are basically like votes. So, if you have a number of quality links to your website, it will appear to the search engine giants that your content is reliable and authoritative.

How can you grow links to your website? Guest blogging! All you have to do is find sites that are relevant to your niche industry and make use of guest posting. Also, do make sure that links are not marked as ‘nofollow’ because then it is not going to be of any use to you. Your aim is to acquire ‘dofollow’ links because then the referred page of your site is going to be able to share the domain authority of the referring site as well.

For instance, if the domain authority of your site is 45 and the website from which you are getting the backlink has a DA of 50, it means that the linked page’s DA is going to jump to 50.

So, if you regularly contribute in websites that enjoy a high domain authority, you will be able to increase the DA of your site and also increase referral traffic.

Guest blogging will help to brand you as an expert

The more you blog on various websites, the more you become credible in the eyes of your readers. The audience is going to believe that you are an expert in your chosen topic of writing.

So, whether you are a fashionista, budding singer, struggling author or a small or medium-sized company looking to grow your business online, think guest blogging. Given are some popular websites that accept guest blogging:

Do you think you will integrate this technique into your latest marketing mix? Please feel free to share your thoughts on guest blogging in the comments below.