Guest content – publishing work on other platforms to benefit your own website – can be very effective when it’s done right. If it’s done with no consideration, it’s typically seen as spam: the links have no value as far as SEO is concerned.
So, how should guest content work? Here are 5 tips to consider when planning out some external content for your site.
1. Quality, not Quantity
You might have heard this before, but it really is a case of choosing great content over lots of content. This is something we’ve seen increasingly in the most recent Google updates. While it doesn’t currently heavily penalise for spam content, it doesn’t reward vast amounts of links on near-worthless websites.
A key concept to remember here is the idea of influencers. You should stick to your niche area and focus on platforms that share a strong, relevant interest.
2. Play In To Social Media
People prefer their content in a variety of forms, so play to the one’s that interest your audience the most. Showcasing beauty products? Use visual stimulus, such as video tutorials and photographs, to show what the product does. A long description isn’t as appealing.
This content can be embedded on your own site, but also hosted through the likes of YouTube and shared through social media – all of which is sending traffic back your way. People can even share and embed on their own blogs and, et voila, you have guest content!
3. Brand Advocacy
If you sell a specific range of products or services, why not have brand advocates? Remember what we said about influencers? Why not get them onboard with your product. By choosing a select few candidates, you can supply them with free products and samples and let them create their own content.
Furthermore, invite them to various events within your industry, working alongside you. If they’re popular content creators with a strong following, you’re brand will be involved in their content and guest collaborations will be all the more easier, too.
4. Respond To Feedback
One of the biggest problems with guest content is that websites will spam it out and not listen to any of the feedback. After all, a link is a link, right?
In the long run, not at all. What if a third party webmaster simply takes down your content because their audience doesn’t like it? If you don’t listen to people’s comments or opinions, your content will continue to be unimpressive or impactful.
Feedback should be encouraged. Let people comment or talk back to you (social media is great for this – have a profile people can tweet to!). This is the same reason why authentic reviews are fantastic – third party sites like TrustPilot are a great way to build up links and you can further use this to showcase the positive effect of your service or site!
5. Have Influencers Publish Content On Your Site
Guest content works both ways but, naturally, not many websites want to load their own pages with other people’s work. Yet, if you choose the right influencers in your niche or industry, this can be a very powerful tool.
Having the work of well-known, respected and authoritative figure is certainly something you can benefit from. Furthermore, if they link to this (and it’s their own work, so they should!) you’re still getting the valuable links. Better yet, if they take to social media and further highlight the content, you’re getting traffic specifically from your target niche!