In my previous blog titled Go Home, Go as a Guest and Go Public: Article Marketing Post Panda-Part 1, we have discussed the first of the three aspects of formulating a new article marketing strategy. As seen there, the first step to reshape your article marketing efforts is to have a blog of your own to the effect of establishing yourself as an authority in the field; this also helps create brand awareness and elicit relevant and useful engagement from readers/users.
As promised in the previous blog, here are the other two steps in our post-Panda article marketing strategy – go as a guest and go public.
Be a guest blogger
There is a famous saying, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin that goes, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”. Well, not always; not when you go as a guest blogger; not when you start publishing your articles on others’ blog as an expert and authority in your field. That brings us to the second step in the strategy – become a guest blogger.
Once you have started the article marketing revolution from home and had your onsite blog running successfully, it is time to make your voice heard. Let others get you as a guest. When you become a guest blogger in other niche blogs, you not only ensure your visibility but widen your network as well.
Our two cents to all the guest blogger aspirants out there
Now, if you expect other blogs to invite you as a coveted guest or welcome you with virtual red carpets, you are clearly in for disappointment. More often than not, you will have to keep submitting your articles in those blogs you wish to go as a guest; and keep on submitting until they approve you as one.
Secondly, do not let the practice of guest blogging adversely affect the quality of your writing.
For instance, imagine that you become a guest blogger in 15 different blogs and your posts are getting noticed. You are likely to feel pressurized to write more frequently, and you may feel tempted to recycle the content of one article in many different ways and publish them in different blogs as different articles with different titles.
Let me remind you, Google and other search engines hate recycled content. So if you are relying solely on your “content recycling abilities” to win this game, your strategies will not only fail, but also backfire in the long run. The rule of the game is quite simple: write good quality content; commit what you can do without compromising quality; never ever ever recycle content mindlessly, be it yours or someone else’s.
(I know you will be frowning at this because, well, we all read others’ articles, take both information and inspiration from them or use them as reference articles. Recycling content is not any of these. Let us give search engines the credit they deserve – they are more intelligent than you think they are. They can tell an “inspired article” and a “recycled article” apart as efficiently (or perhaps more?) as a human can. I will deal with this topic in detail in one of the coming days.)
How to find an authority blog?
Coming back to guest blogging, there is one question that daunts all those who dream of becoming a much-coveted guest blogger – how do you find an authority blog?
A few experts maintain the view that searching the internet with ‘your keyword +guest blogging’ will safely land you on blogs where you can try your luck. I would not take this route if I were you, as there is no way we can make sure that the blogs we land on are reputed ones. You can try searching through MOZ and Google directories to find trusted sites. The sites on these directories have already gone through editorial reviews, so they are trustworthy.
However, it is always better to watch your market and read about the trends that are taking place in your industry. This will help you identify pioneer blogs or bloggers that offer insights into your business. These pioneer blogs will not take any one and everyone as a guest blogger. All authority blogs are picky and choosy, so get ready to face rejection when looking for a guest authorship.
In content writing and SEO industry there are a few niche blogs –MOZ (formerly SEO MOZ), copyblogger, etc. The quality standards of these sites are pretty high. If you can’t write mind blowing and well-researched articles, I suggest you don’t waste your time trying for a guest authorship in any of these sites.
Go public
We began our journey from our own homes. Then we made ourselves guests. Well and good. But what is the point in writing exclusive tips and tricks, if nobody is benefitting from them?
Now you need to go public. Here, social media is one of the excellent platforms you can use to make your clear and authoritative voice heard.
Of course, vanity is not a virtue, but sometimes you have to take pride in what you do.
Create a page for your business on all important social media sites and start posting these articles. It is a noisy world, so being heard is going to be a tough task. Even if readers don’t share your posts, ‘like’ them like crazy, or comment left, right and centre, do not lose hope; it is not just the shares or likes or comments that counts. In fact, social media sites are getting elevated to the status of search engines.
If you want to know how to create posts that perform well on social media, read:
10 Mistakes to Avoid in Social Media Marketing
How To Write Better Posts On Your Facebook Page
Why Google+ is Important for Your Business?
Social media is the new search engine
Some of the recent trends indicate the newer and broader roles social media are likely to play in the times to come. A couple of weeks ago, Google has struck a deal with twitter to show their news feeds on searches and it is already featuring links shared on Google+ on search results. So what are you waiting for? Use your social media profiles and business pages to spread the word.
In fact you can use your social media sites such as twitter, Google+ and Facebook as a replacement for article directories. The chances of users finding your blogs from there and landing on your website are very high.
Thus, by embracing the above mentioned ways of brand building you can improve your ranking and visibility over time.
