Guest blogging is not dead

I’d hate to be in Matt Cutts’ shoes. He’s often in an incredibly difficult position, serving as a mouthpiece for Google, passing on the company’s unpopular and even hated policies, and then bearing the brunt of the ensuing criticism from the digital marketing industry. I have tremendous respect for Matt, and am grateful for the information and updates he shares. I have no doubt we would complain a lot more if Google refused to share any information with us as to what they are thinking and doing. That said, I was dismayed by his recent blog post declaring the death of guest blogging as an SEO tactic, not because of the declaration itself, but because of how it was communicated. While Matt Cutts is a prominent figure on both the Google and the digital marketing landscapes, he’s not the final word on Google policy. While his frustration-fueled post may be an indication of things to come from the search engine, we—especially those not in the digital … [Read more...] about Why Matt Cutts Can’t Kill Guest Blogging

Back in April, I wrote an article on Search Engine Journal that explained how to optimize a website to rank for multiple locations. Having worked for a company with over 45 independently owned locations across the country, I figured multi-location SEO would be a solid topic to write about because it was something that I was familiar with and it seemed like a topic many business owners would find useful. But I never imagined this article would turn out to be such a great referral source. Not only did this one article generate a handful of clients, but it also helped me double my monthly revenue as a consultant. This is a prime example of how guest blogging can help generate leads. From an SEO standpoint, the primary objective of a guest post has typically been to get a link back to your site. For a while, this was an effective way to build up your backlink profile. The strategy itself was pretty straight-forward: Find an authoritative site within your industry and offer them an article … [Read more...] about How to Use Guest Blogging for Lead Generation

Official FTC recognition and adoption by The New York Times leaves no doubt in my mind: 2014 is native advertising’s break-out year. Concurrently, the Google Oracle stuck a fork in guest blogging and declared it dead. Coincidence? I won’t discuss Mr. Cutts’ delineation between guest spammers and legitimate contributors. (The subject is well covered here.) Instead, I’ll discuss why 2014 is the year native advertising could begin to replace guest blogging in the content marketing universe. Comparison of Native Advertising and Guest Blogging Before diving into the reasons, let’s compare native advertising and guest blogging as it pertains to legitimate content marketing. (Guest spamming will not be considered within this comparison.) Similarities: Both guest blogger and advertiser provide unique content to the publisher. Both guest blogger and advertiser receive full attribution from the publisher (i.e. author bio/sponsored brand). Typically, both the guest … [Read more...] about Why Native Advertising Could Replace Guest Blogging

As link building tactics get shot down by the Big G, online marketers are left wondering what’s left. Guest blogging has been devalued, alongside every other known scalable method to build links, including comments, forums, article marketing, and directories. These almost sound like dirty words in today’s marketing environment, but years ago, they were the way to rank. So what now? What can you do to get your site to rank? Everyone is now touting the benefit of Content Marketing as the only safe tactic left. But what happens when EVERYONE starts doing it? Mark Shaeffer from BusinessesGrow coined a term called Content Shock. There’s simply too much content being produced. So is content marketing a sustainable model for every businesses wanting to improve their presence in Google organic? Safe Link Building Strategies Let’s start by changing the paradigm. “Link building” is over, done, kaput. Any of the known methods used to build links are now on … [Read more...] about After Guest Blogging…What’s Left for “Safe” Link Building?