Capturing leads with content – how to guest post your way to more sales

As the world continues to experience a digital transformation, the online presence of a business is one of the core aspects that form the cornerstone of generating and capturing leads.

The continuous strive to enhance, and strengthen one’s digital footprint has resulted in the opening of several new channels, including social media marketing and search engine marketing, through which organizations can ‘market’ their products and services.

However, the onus on providing value to the consumers and the growing demand for engaging and relevant content has sparked life into a channel that was very recently considered obsolete: guest blogging.

Guest Blogging – from backlinks to gaining leads

The idea behind guest blogging is simple and innovative; find an authoritative site in your niche, present them with a relevant article for their blog and get a link back to your site.

Not only does it signal the search engine crawlers of its authority due to the backlinks, but it also enhances your exposure and earns you increased engagement.

However, once the market realized the vast SEO potential of backlinks, it was crowded with spam-filled content only created to fetch backlinks – completely ignoring the content quality. This was the reason why Matt Cutts declared ‘guest blogging is dead’ in 2014. The waves of this statement were felt across the digital arena.

Fortunately enough, guest blogging is alive and kicking. There are various benefits of guest blogging outside link building. Optimizing your guest post strategy can not only increase your engagement but also affect your conversion rate favourably.

How to guest post your way to more sales

When talking about guest blogging, people are quick to raise link metrics such as domain authority. While this data holds significance in signalling the possibility of the site ranking well in Google SERPs – it’s not very indicative about the website’s audience and how they react.

Here are a few pointers to help establish a guest blogging strategy that is bound to rake in leads:

Be prudent with your subject selection

Guest blogs are generally well received among the masses. 66% of the people view multi-author blogs as more credible than single-author blogs. Encouraging, right?

Well, the popularity of your blog is more dependent on the quality of your content than anything else. And the quality of your post starts long before you type in the introduction – it’s the preliminary homework that defines your quality.

Authoritative websites are always interested in publishing fresh content that is yet to reach the audience, and certainly, one that has not been intensively covered in the past.

Some of the most famous digital marketing blogging websites show no hesitation in returning generic, outdated guest blogging posts. Devoid of well-written guest blog pitches, such posts give away their lack of value. For instance, the Search Engine Journal routinely turns away 10-15 potential guest blog contributors for every one blog they accept.

While there will never remain a shortage of websites that will accept spun articles, I am assuming you’re only targeting authoritative websites that look for something that benefits their readers.

Carefully choose where you contribute

When you are meticulous about planning your content to drive conversion, it is natural that you would like to contribute to a blog that benefits you as well.

This is where a gap that exists in the market. There is no denying the importance of link metrics, but the primary reason behind guest blogging isn’t just engagement and visibility – it’s also to drive conversions.

There are many questions that need asking: What is their level of industry authority? How do their social media following numbers add up? How is their brand loyalty? How engaged are their consumers to their content? How have previous guest blogging efforts fared?

While this analysis may seem easy, there are various factors in play. For example, the type of content that resonates with the audience of your possible host website.

Picking the right host website can have a drastic impact on the results of your post. That means more shares, more links, and a greater potential for lead conversion.

Align your post with your lead qualifying factors

It is important for the content to be tilted towards lead capture in order to extract maximum leads possible from your guest post.

The basics of lead generation state that some leads are more qualified than others, which is why guest bloggers can mould the topic according to some set conditions that can help them capture leads.

Businesses can introduce subject matter that resonates with their services and put in conditions that can be targeted. For instance, most businesses don’t have considerable funds and price is a very sensitive condition to be targeted.

Filtration is an important aspect of lead capturing, and you can target your guest post towards your business niche by adding such qualifying factors.

The vital ingredient: valuable content that establishes authority

We operate in an economy where even the niches feature cutthroat competition. Consumers are faced with a plethora of service providers, and luckily, they are allying with those that are able to provide actionable, and valuable content.

Previously, guest blogging was used for backlinking, so only a link back to your website in the author bio sufficed. However, now the goal is to increase conversions and capture leads – and that requires establishing authority through the quality of your post.

By providing new and interesting information, and an in-depth, unique perspective, you are conveying your grasp on the subject to your potential clients. This will inevitably lead them to follow you back to your website, where your landing page will be optimized perfectly to convert them.

Give enough information to establish your grasp, but retain enough, so they know your experience makes you the best person for the task.

Conclusion

Guest blogging continues to prove to be effective and influential in generating leads for businesses. However, its success depends on the time and effort you are able to invest in the task.

While the impact of an enhanced platform, such as one afforded by authoritative blogs is undeniable, in the end, the performance of your post hinges on the quality and effort you are willing to pour in your guest post.

The content marketing space is home to continuous changes and evolving methods, and once businesses realize the consumer acquisition potential of guest blogging, they will be eager to optimize their strategy.

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