Guest blogging is one of link-building techniques in the SEO industry. Google has actually discouraged it. In 2014, the primary SEO spokesman from Google said that the practice needs to stop. Google believes that guest blogging will in time, become spammier. In fact, If you do guest blogging a lot, you may actually hang out with website owners who have questionable reputation in the industry. Google acknowledges that guest blogging has become a big link building scheme. Its aim isn’t really about providing quality content to reader, but to artificially create inbound links for guest blogging authors. Guest blogging content is often called as syndicated posts, partner posts, guest posts or contributor posts.

Cutts said that writing for other websites is acceptable if it’s aimed to educate the audience, inform users and establish awareness about specific topic. However, Google’s guidelines are violated when the intention is to mass produce backlinks to the authors’ websites. You shouldn’t confuse guest blogging with content marketing. In reality, content marketing is the act of attracting and retaining the audience using proper creation, publication and distribution of content. A good content marketing campaign aims to deliver entertaining, informative and useful content for the audience. It means that content should bring real values for people. The key is to ensure that the audience things positively about the content and authors should think beyond the creation of links.

It’s already very obvious that guest blogging content often have mediocre quality. Some of the articles are even spun using automatic content creation, often with high density of keyword stuffing. It’s an activity that Google strongly abhors. On the other hand, effective content marketing campaign focuses on delivering real value. We have seen how excellent and very engaging content gets so many views and genuine backlinks from real readers, who want to share it with others. Other than content, your products and services could also attract genuine backlinks. So, you also need to focus on delivering something of value with both. It means that your customers will leave a good review. Reciprocity is a powerful thing and it can help you to build genuine links.

Instead of doing guest blogging, you should focus on delivering values. If you want to deliver value, your content will need to be excellent and valuable to the audience. Engaging content will not have play on words, but only real information that people will find useful. In fact, when your content is valuable enough, you can see it as one of your products as well. In this case, backlinks will simply become the byproducts. Valuable content may teach people about a new skill. Your content will also help people to make better decision and complete a task more efficiently. As an example, if your website is selling cookware, you should consider adding some recipes that work well with your cookware. You may also post some videos as well, to visually show people how to cook tasty dishes with your cookware. This will bring real value to your audience.