What is Off-Page SEO?
Before we dive into today’s topic, it is important to understand what makes Off-Page SEO different from other optimization techniques. Off-Page SEO is basically trying to grow your website’s popularity and improve its site authority (Reed College of Media, 2021). The stronger your domain/page authority is, the more likely it is to have a high search engine ranking, and even higher visibility overall. So once you have made both technical and on-page adjustments to your website, you would then move off-page to promote your site and its content - just make sure that your content is relevant, valuable, and worth sharing (2021).
Guest Blogging
A popular off-page SEO strategy that I have found intriguing is guest blogging, where you’re basically writing content to be featured on someone else's website. With guest blogging, you’re able to promote your brand/website and raise awareness, while also sharing your expertise on topics relevant to your business. What’s great about this technique is that you have the opportunity to promote yourself and your site, without feeling too excessive or annoying, since technically the content you’re providing is likely educating those reading it. Guest blogging can be beneficial to both the author, as well as the site that published your content: Authors are able to have their work featured and promoted, and third-party sites have engaging content for their readers to view (“What is Guest Blogging?”, n.d.).
Benefits and Disadvantages
Build your Reputation and Trust
One of the pros of having your writing showcased on other blogs is being able to establish yourself as a trustworthy author that offers valuable information. Contributing high quality, informative content on another site is a great way to get your brand’s name out there, while still seeming both relevant and trustworthy. This strategy can make you and your business appear credible if it manages to be featured on a respectable site. The more popular or established the site that you’re featured on is, the more likely their readers will trust your content, and may go even further to continue onto your site.
CONS: Just like another site can make your own seem more credible, you must also be aware of those that do the opposite. Choose carefully which sites you wish to collaborate with, as having your work feature on a less reputable website can actually make your brand suffer (“The Pros and Cons of Guest Blogging”, 2018).
Find New Audience
With guest blogging, you have the opportunity to engage with an audience that you may not have been able to reach if it wasn’t for being on another site. Some of these new readers may be an untapped audience that you never thought of engaging, or maybe they were exactly who you were targeting, but your site just didn’t stand a chance against other domains. If your site isn’t very popular or is ranked poor in the SERP, then it’s not likely that viewers will stumble upon your content. However, if your writing is featured on a more trafficked website, then the higher your chances are of your work being noticed.
CONS: When choosing a site to work it, make sure that it is relevant and attracts an audience that would take interest in your writing. If you guest blog on a website that is completely irrelevant to your content and site, then you most likely won’t attract the audience that you were intending.
Link Building
Guest blogging is a great way to build links to your website/webpage(s), and links play a huge role in your site’s SEO. When your content is featured on other sites, you have the chance to build links directly to your own site or pages. With guest blogging, you’re practically adding a new source to drive visitors to your site. Often links within a guest blog can be a NoFollow link, meaning search engines do not track the link back for your site and its rankings; It’s okay though, because you can still include links to your site in your Author Bio or something similar (“Reed College of Media”, 2021).
CONS: Not only can choosing the wrong site to guest blog on can risk your reputation and audience, but it can also affect the quality of your links (“The Pros and Cons of Guest Blogging”, 2018). Low quality or “spammy” websites are less valued by search engines, and can weaken your SEO efforts overall. Luckily guest blogging is mainly intended to build your domain’s authority, rather than focusing on links.
Conclusion
Guest blogging is a great Off-Page SEO technique that can be valuable to you, your website, and the domain that you collaborated with. As long as you work with a credible business or website that you know can strengthen your website’s SEO, then you have the ability to improve your sites authority, build trust amongst consumers, and rank higher on SERP.
References
Reed College of Media. (2021). Week 6 Lesson: SEO - Off-Page Optimization. from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_159257_1&content_id=_8041718_1&framesetWrapped=true
The pros and cons of guest blogging for digital marketing. (2018, January 24). https://www.bigfootdigital.co.uk/the-pros-and-cons-of-guest-blogging-for-digital-marketing
What is guest blogging? (n.d.). https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-is-guest-blogging/
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