As a marketer, I’ve seen my fair share of spammy guest blog posts and the truth is, spammy guest posts are easy for a search engine to sniff out and take action against.
I see my post today being very valuable to two audiences, those who produce guest posts as part of a link acquisition strategy, and those who publish guest posts on their website. The last thing you want to do as a publisher is get your domain torched for posting very generic, similar looking content. Let’s jump in.
Unique Look & Feel
The first characteristic is a simple one to understand and begin to execute, that is, making sure that every post you write or publish has its own unique look and feel to it. Writing 400 word posts, four paragraphs, with a left justified image, and three links in the author bio is not only boring, but completely unnatural and is super easy for the search engines to uncover. Spend an extra ten minutes and make them all look and feel different.
Image Usage
The second characteristic sort of plays into the first one, that is, using images in your posts. When using images with your content, make sure to switch it up in terms of placement. In one post, left justify, in the next, right justify. You can also use multiple images strategically placed throughout your content (don’t forget to optimize them). Just remember that no one wants to read a post that is just full of words, especially the search engines.
Internal & External Link Usage
The third characteristic is making sure you are leveraging the content to link in and out to other related content. Again, you don’t want all of your links to be in the author bio. Take some time to do some research to find some other blog posts on the site you are publishing on or other external sites in the same niche. Write and link like a real blogger, not a link builder.
Social Engagement
The fourth characteristic is working to get each placement in front of your audience to help entice the sharing of your content. You can clearly tell when a piece of content has been written just for links when there are a bunch of goose eggs across all of the share buttons on your post. Take an extra fifteen minutes and share the content yourself an ask a few of your social media buddies to do the same. You might also consider leveraging communities like Triberr or Dizzle to get the ball rolling.
Comments
The fifth and last characteristic kind of goes hand in hand with social engagement, that is, work to get at least a few comments on your content. If you are writing and publishing stellar content and you are producing some shares, you will probably pick up a comment or two, but if you aren’t simply ask others in you organization or in your contact list if they would be willing to drop a legitimate comment on your content. Comments add unique content to the page your content lives on as well as solidifies that it is a real blog post that is trying to create value.
So there you have it, five characteristics of non-spammy guest blog posts. Am I missing anything? If so, please share in the comments section below.
About The Author
Steve Jensen is an online marketing specialist at Vysibility.com. Vysibility is a full service digital marketing agency that specializes in offering digital marketing services, tools, and training. To learn more about them, please visit their website.