Aspiring writers often ask: How do we gain visibility, build credibility and a portfolio that attracts paying clients? In this blog post, Martha Daitey answers these questions.

As a writer, you may have certain authors you look up to. It may be for their style, their substance, their choice of words, or you aspire to be where they are.

Imagine if one such person decided to be a guest at your book launch? What if they invited you to their book launch?

Think of the benefits such an encounter could offer: the networking, thought sharing, fun, friendship, and all the good things that could result from the encounter.

Can you imagine it?

That’s what guest posting makes possible.

What is a guest post or guest posting?

Guest posting simply means writing and publishing an article on someone else’s blog or website. The publisher’s payback is to have your byline published along with the story, as well as other links to your website, Linkedin profile or other social media.

Over the years, guest posting has come to be accepted as a digital marketing strategy for the writer, and those they write for e.g. clients and companies.

As such the benefits of guest posting can be analyzed from two angles: 1)  How beneficial is it to the writer, and 2) How beneficial is it to the publisher. This article will focus on the former.

Every writer’s activity is usually aimed at one or all of the following goals.

1. To be an authority in an industry
2. To drive traffic to their website
3. To gain experience and exposure
4. To introduce their brand to new audience
5. To monetize their content

Guest posting can help you meet these targets. Read on to find out how. 

Guest post to build your professional network and audience

Offering to write for another site allows you to meet new people.

With time and consistency, deeper relations can be formed, leading to the creation of a network of great writers. This works even if you are a beginner.

Guest posting can draw you into a clan of like-minded but highly experienced persons you could learn from.

Besides, offering to write or being invited to guest post begins with a conversation, which is the basis of every great relationship. So the more you guest post, the more conversations you have, the more relationships you build and the wider you network becomes. Of course, you would have to have written so many articles by this time.

Did you want writing experience and exposure? There you have it.

Guest post to become an authority in your industry

For someone who wants to become an authority in an industry, chances are you already have writers you would like to roll with, and sites you would like to write for.

Guest posting on such sites offers that opportunity to be heard and seen with the gurus in your niche.

This works through the use of byline links and contextual links, both of which have been found to work great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

While byline links will send a site’s audience to your website, bio and social media pages, contextual links offers you the chance to share your unique opinion on your industry’s happenings.

Contextual links or backlinks are placed within the body of a write up and can be linked to the relating subjects on your website. By so doing your new audience are introduced to your other works.

Overtime, they will come to appreciate you as an authority in the industry. After all, they found you through a trusted source. That’s an endorsement.

Guest post to drive more traffic to your site

The key to achieving this is to find some writers or sites with large following. Sites with large audiences are highly likely to be those that extensively market their content. They may also be long standing leaders in an industry and may have a large social media audience.

You stand to be seen by their audience when you guest post.

Getting to guest post for a known site is usually a sidekick of good network and experience.

Simply put, you may have to start small on this to gather clout.

Don’t be afraid to ask to for the opportunity to submit a guest post but make sure you are prepared when you are given the chance.

Check out your dream websites: What is their style? Who writes for them? Do they accept guest posts? Are they active in your industry? Can you find their editor on Linkedin? Do you think you can create relevant content for them?

A popular site might give you audience just because you have mutual friends. And such an offer, might help you monetize your own content and website.

Guest post to monetize your skill

Let me start by singing if we no get money weytin we gain.

The point of all these: networking, gaining experience, building exposure and driving traffic is to simply get to the point where your hard work and writing will payoff .. literally.

I mean money is not the most important thing (rolling my eyes) but it is very important and it won’t hurt to have more than enough of it.

If done well, all the listed activities above can culminate into monetizing your content.

For instance, being among a network of writers could mean having first hand information about new job offerings. It could also mean getting referrals or recommendations for side gigs.

Becoming an authority in your niche means you’ve earned the trust of industry leaders and followers. You are a sort of influencer, and brands in your industry will want to work with you. You wouldn’t do that for free, will you?

Finally driving traffic to your site means you can monetize through advertisements and or any other such revenue stream that require scale and eyeballs.

Putting all these together give you several ways to monetize your content, not forgetting you can then include affiliate marketing, inbound marketing and display advertisements.

In effect, guest posting as a writer can do wonders for your brand.

I actually found a definition which says

“Guest posting is the practice of contributing a post to another person’s blog in order to build relationships, exposure, authority, and links.”

You get to meet you targets as a writer, and technically rank high on search engines over time when you guest post.

Go ahead. Guest post and do it well. It is an indispensable activity in your growth as a professional writer.

 

Feature image via Pexels.