{Guest Post} Troy Janisch

It may seem counter productive to write content for someone else’s website when the success of your blog depends on your ability to drive traffic to it. Nevertheless, guest blogging is a great way improve your blog’s traffic and community.

The more I get to know Marcy Massura, the publisher of this blog, more I like her.  It’s not because we have a lot in common. It is because she’s uncommonly interesting. When we disagreed recently on the value of guest blogging, she put her ‘blog where her belief is’ — by offering me this forum to convince you (her readers) that guest blogging isn’t a waste of time.  With that goal in mind, here are five great reasons to contribute blog posts to someone else’s site:

Guest blogging builds awareness. One of the best ways to improve the awareness of your blog is to become an occasional guest blogger for a blog that has a large following.  This is one of the reasons that I write a unique blog post for  SmartBrief on Social Media every six to eight weeks. The blog reaches more than 89,000 marketers looking to stay ahead of social networking trends in a fast-changing environment. Hitting the SmartBrief audience on a regular basis allows me to attract new readers for my Social Meteor blog.

Guest blogging builds confidence for new bloggers. The first 3-6 months as a blogger is often discouraging. You check your blog’s website traffic continually. You wonder how much of the traffic IS YOU CHECKING YOUR WEBSITE TRAFFIC. You wonder if its worth the effort.  In this all-too-common scenario, guest blogging can boost both your reach and your resolve.  In January of 20o2, I got my first guest blogger opportunity on Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog, A List Apart.  I wrote an article entitled ‘What the Hell is XML?‘ that’s popularity powered me through the first six months.

That’s why it’s good karma for experienced bloggers to open their blog to promising and provocative new bloggers.

Guest blogging builds community. Sharing blog space with another blogger is great way to build stronger relationships and stronger community.  I’m writing on Marcy’s blog. She’s writing on mine. We’re permanently connecting our sites through backlinks that contribute to our blogs’ popularity, search engine optimization and shared community. That’s why when Marcy guest blogs for my site, it earns her a spot in the Social Meteor blogroll where she’s listed among other bloggers in my self-defined community.

Guest blogging builds reputation. When someone share their blogspace with you, they’re providing an unspoken endorsement of each of your contributions. That is why one of the quickest, most credible, way to be identified as an ‘industry expert’ is to become an ‘ guest blogger’ for an prominent industry blog. When third-party websites publishes a favorable bio it’s more believable — even though we know that most bios are written by the guest blogger.

Guest blogging frees you from your niche. Most successful blogs attract a specific audience interested in a specific topic.  Readers of my Social Meteor blog, for example, expect to find articles related to social media.  However, I have a wide range of interests outside of social media that may be worth blogging about.  If I want to write a blog post about interests outside of social media, the best venue for doing so is probably another website.  Instead of launching my own NASA fan blog, I can contribute to an existing NASA blog. It puts my NASA blog post in front of a large, interested audience without confusing fans of my social media blog.

Although websites like My Guest Blog make it easy to find guest blogging opportunities, the best opportunities exist with the blogs you already enjoy and the bloggers you already admire.  It’s important to take pride in your blog post and the external website where it appears. As a guest blogger, it’s your duty to promote your blog post on other sites.  You should share links to your guest post on the external blog using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and your own blog, as appropriate.  If you want to republish the post on your own site, it’s ok to do so — as long as you should exclude the article from your website’s RSS feed. This prevents it from competing with the originating website.

Want to learn more about guest blogging? Be my guest: read Marcy Massura’s guest post at Social Meteor.com.

Hey Association members, I bet you are scratching your head and thinking ‘But Marcy HATES guest bloggers! Yup and I wrote all about that on Troy’s site today. Cuz there is huge IRONY in that.