Google discourages guest blog postings for SEO purposes

New York, NY -- (ReleaseWire) -- 03/19/2014 --Guest blogging for SEO recently got a big disapproval from Matthew Cutts, Google’s Webspam team head. Guest blogging, more often than not, becomes an avenue for building back links, yielding poorly written outputs, since branding, audience or relevancy were not obviously considered. Cutts hopes to discourage using the practice, and even quoted an email he received in which the sender wanted to buy links from him. He pointed out that it was a “clear violation of Google’s quality guidelines.”

In the previous years, guest blogging was seen as an honor for the ones writing the post, especially if it will be posted on a well-known website. It was a technique used by many websites, so as to introduce the readers to writers or topics that they might enjoy. It is also a strategy implemented by some websites to make sure there is a blog post, even if they have little time to do it themselves.

Cutts emphasized, “there are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.).” He made it clear that guest blogging is still highly encouraged for other purposes, other than for SEO. In the past years, Google has actively updated its search engine to penalize low-quality content, spammy link building, and other black SEO tactics.

Despite the news from Cutts, guest blogging can still work best as a tool for establishing credibility, authority, and thought leadership. Here are some pointers for guest blogging according to SEO experts.

1. Brand building

Thought leadership enhances content creation by focusing on quality insights, good writing, and forming a long-term perspective on key issues. Harvard Business Review reported that it starts with the brand which is considered as a “personal promise to the market and to the world.” Build a brand focused around unique strengths and contributions to become irreplaceable.

2. Present valuable content

Create content which will pique the target audience’s interests. Instead of writing for search engine optimization, try to write what will mater most to the readers.

3. Be cautious in accepting guest blog writing posts

Cutts mentioned it is important to only accept guest blog posts from writers with good reputation or those whom are personally known. The authors must be recognized subject matter experts who have credibility on the topic to be posted, and also have a strong following. This will certainly yield greater blog visibility and reach.

4. Don’t label guest blog posts

Elisa Gabbert, a content marketing manager, said that “if a content is valuable to your readers, it shouldn’t really matter where it came from.” A guest blog post should not be labeled as one since, “Google can’t algorithmically differentiate between guest blogs and other kinds of articles,” she further stated.

5. Quality counts

Focus on quality, regardless of whether accepting a guest blog post or writing one. Google does not penalize unique, authoritative and valuable content. If the content is strong enough to catch the readers’ attention, then it will earn links from other websites and will definitely boost its search engine ranking.

About SEO Wholesalers
SEO Wholesalers is a leading online marketing outsourcing company that offers full white label SEO solution at a low cost price. The company builds high quality backlinks, delivers white label ranking and backlink reports, on site SEO optimization and other online marketing services for agencies and clients. It also offers a reseller program which offers legal contract templates, referral agreements, strategies designed to grow business, proposal templates and the famous SEOWholesalers methodology.