[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”1554″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]New bloggers are often preoccupied with creating content for their own blog. This is a good strategy to focus on initially, but I’m going to suggest something that’s going to seem counterintuitive – just hear me out.

Once you’re on a roll with posts for your own blog, you need to start creating content for someone else’s blog. In the blogging world, this is known as guest posting and is a necessary long-term strategy for promoting yourself and your blog.

Ideally, you’re creating a blog post each week. The purpose of this is to always have fresh content to share with readers through your newsletter and social channels. Constantly updating content is also a positive signal to Google that your website is active and high-quality.

Your challenge moving forward is to, at minimum, create three posts for your blog each month and use the fourth post to guest blog for someone else’s audience.

Let’s talk specifically about how guest posting benefits your blog.

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Create powerful partnerships with other bloggers”][vc_column_text]If you’ve successfully negotiated a guest blogging opportunity (more on how to do that in a future article), you’ve created an ally in your journey to better blogging. Assuming that person has connections to your niche or related interests, they may have connections to other relevant bloggers and brands they can connect you with. Just make sure that you put as much effort or more into the guest post you create for them so they want to help you network!

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Create links back to your own blog”][vc_column_text]There are two benefits of creating links back to your own blog that occur when guest posting for another blog.

The first is that interested readers are a great audience for your own content. Guest posting is an effective way to build your audience in a quality way.

The second is that links back to your own website and content creates positive SEO benefits for your website. The power of backlinks are largely related to the pagerank and domain authority of the website you’re posting on. Try to keep this in mind when pitching different blogs you’d like to guest post for.

Unfortunately, some author bios (where most put their own blog’s link) contain a “no follow” link attribute, which basically means that search engines won’t count it as an authority-building backlink. Ask if this is the case before committing to a guest posting opportunity. Even if it is, you may be able to still create an authority-building backlink by linking to a specific blog post or resource on your website within the body of the blog article.

[/vc_column_text][vc_text_separator title=”Create expertise in a topic”][vc_column_text]When people start to see published articles with your author bio on high-authority blogs across the world wide web, they start to create an association between the topic and you. Whether or not it’s true, you start becoming perceived as an expert. This is useful in building credibility with your own blog audience, as well as potential clients if you’re trying to monetize by using your expertise to coach or consult with clients (to give one example).

Also, If you’re trying to monetize in the freelance writing space, guest posting benefits your blog by creating published samples you can share to show writing competence and social proof for the work you do.

There are so many ways in which guest posting benefits your blog. We certainly haven’t covered them all here, and would love to hear your own opinions on the topic in the comments below!

And if you need help figuring out the WordPress blogging software, make sure to check out our courses on related topics![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]