The rules are pretty straightforward:
- Guest posting will not hurt your link-building efforts.
- Spammy, low-quality guest posting will hurt your link-building efforts.
It’s that simple.
Guest posting is not only a legitimate white-hat SEO technique but can also be a great way to gain referral traffic. The key here is to produce high-quality content and get it published on relevant platforms.
Google will downgrade your rankings if you’re constantly getting low-quality backlinks. These types of backlinks go hand-in-hand with low-quality blogs that receive and publish poorly written, irrelevant guest posts.
So, how can you use guest posts as a powerful technique to build natural links? First, you need to approach publications that are relevant to your industry and propose writing fresh, high-quality, and unique content for them. Nearly every site is more than happy to get guest posts that are well-written and engaging for their readers.
Next, create high-quality, original content that would be useful for the readers and make them want to learn more about you. Make sure your content is not keyword-stuffed and the anchor text for the backlink is not overly optimized.
As long as you keep your audience your #1 focus and are creating content that’s relevant for them, you’re primed for high rankings and increased referral traffic!