The concept of Guest Blogging needs a Makeover

Marketers have always kept pace with the changing demographics. Though it has not been an easy exercise yet top marketing experts have proved to be successful in chasing the customers and their preferences. Marketing has always been a close watch; a perfect shadow of acknowledging customer’s behavioral change in their buying process.

With the introduction of print media, advertisements got creative, with the introduction of television; advertising took a big leap, and now with the introduction of digital and internet media communication industry has revolutionized. Gone are the days when people used to ask each other’s opinions before they bought anything, today they search it on Google. Websites comparing products and services are increasingly witnessing the number of people visiting their page. The reason is obvious; online information is readily available and has created a feeling of trust so that people believe in what they read more than what they listen to.

The advent of Search Engine Optimization

With the advent of the internet, several technologies took inception. With websites being added to the cart, it became very important for the marketers to make their presence felt in the ocean of the internet. When marketers realized that customers are now in the practice of first finding information over the internet and then make a decision; they face the challenge of making a web page that was attractive enough to make customers visit and learn about the company and its products.

Another challenge was how to make a web page that is different from others? How to make the web page appear in the top listing of a search engine? The problem made the engineers work hard and analyze the solutions from different perspectives. The outcome was SEO. Search engine Optimization a technique that optimizes the web page was a bit hit. The moment anyone typed the kind of information one needed the websites that were optimized on the basis of keywords were listed on the first page that gave leverage to the companies as they were the preferred ones to be read first.

Guest Blogging

The technique became so popular that blogging and guest blogging got introduced to maximize the results of SEO. People have different tastes and preferences. Everyone spends time over the internet for a specific purpose. It gets difficult for marketers to tap customers from one domain. Moreover, it is not sure that the prospective customer will be searching for the information including the keywords that have been optimized. So guest blogging was introduced. Guests were invited to write down about their personal experiences and opinions on various issues and these opinions were then linked to the web page through SEO. In order to reach a wider customer base, an attempt was made to attract customers from different domains by making them read what they are interested in and divert the traffic through guest blogging.

Why Guest Blogging Failed

Guest blogging got successful only for a short period of time. Soon it was realized that guest blogging is not a permanent solution for SEO. Blogging is an open forum, where anyone can write anything. Inviting people from different fields to discuss a product for SEO started proving a drain as people used to mention all the irrelevant material that did not make any sense. Poor quality, lack of judgment, and naïve opinions only added to the woes of SEO experts. Guest bloggers mention their opinions. They elaborate and outline various incidents, experiences, and suggestions that either may be positive or negative. It really got difficult for the search engines to concentrate on positive blogging and reject or sideline the negative comments. When SEO experts started reading negative comments only then they realized the possibility of negative publicity due to guest blogging. This is one of the many reasons that Matt Cutts Says ‘Stop’ Guest Blogging for SEO.

The trend that got popular for SEO is now outdated, unhealthy, and should be immediately curtailed. Guest blogging for SEO should be stopped as it only leads to problems that are difficult to be cured later. Guest blogging links to the website make the website heavy to load and gives an image of being highly cosmetic. The sanctity of the guest blogger is not vouched for and the readers rarely believe what the blogger has mentioned in the article. Even genuine posts are discarded as they are thought to be paid up. Blog links to the web page earlier generated traffic, but today it has been found out that guest blog links at times are spam. So it gets important to refrain from using the guest blog for SEO.

Multiple guest blogging sites, high-quality blogs are not included in this context. It cannot be doubted that good quality guest blogs help leverage the web page to a good extent, but then it is not happening with every guest blog link. Best blog sites are limited and they post content, not for SEO. These blogs are read by hundreds of internet users but they are not meant for the purpose of digital optimization. These blogs render a different meaning and rarely include a comment or opinion on products that link them for SEO. So Matt Cutts’ view to stop guest blogging for SEO is a serious observation that should be followed by the marketers worldwide.

Conclusion

Branding is a very crucial exercise. Someone has rightly said that it takes years to build a successful brand. SEO has been quite successful in building and penetrating brand into the mindsets of the consumers. In its early days SEO help generates traffic to the website that ultimately leveraged the brand, but with the passage of time, with more and more new technologies and strategies taking shape the aura and glamor of SEO started blemishing. One of the strategies that backfired is the use of the guest blog for SEO. Experts agree that blog links are helpful but dependence on guest blogging for the generation of traffic is not right. The views and opinions of the guest cannot be controlled. Linking them to the website would be taking too big a risk. Matt Cutts is simply warning brand managers to stop using the guest blogging for SEO, to be risk conservative as their brand is too sensitive to be left open for any guest to blog about.