“Social is the way our work gets discovered. Content that is truly exceptional, unique, and useful can earn tremendous awareness through social media, and that social amplification often leads to great links, which leads to great rankings.” ~ Rand Fishkin, CEO/Co-Founder, Moz.

Content marketing is a cornerstone of search engine optimisation (SEO). However, for it to have maximum effect, it needs to be truly exceptional, unique, and useful (Rand Fishkin); thus, leading to great rankings on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). On the other hand, poorly written content will have the exact opposite effect. Ergo, it makes sound business sense to ensure that if you write a guest post, it meets all of the requirements mentioned above.

high quality content guest posting

Content Marketing and Guest Posts

Before we look at some of the reasons why it is vital to publish high-quality content, let’s have a look at what the terms content marketing and guest blogging mean:

Content Marketing

The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as a “strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Research shows that most digital media marketers incorporate content marketing into their overall marketing strategy. The fact of the matter is that while traditional marketing still has a role to play, it is becoming less efficient as we continue to move toward a fully digital society.

Guest Posts

Simply stated, a guest post is an article that is written and published on another person’s blog. Experts such as Dima Midon believe that guest posting is one of the most important strategies for driving traffic to your website. It is an essential strategy that both brands and individuals must implement to build their online influence, and in today’s digital world, influence is powerful and, if used correctly, it plays a significant role in driving traffic as well as sales to your website.

Reasons for Investing in Quality Content

As described above, content marketing in the form of guest posts, contextual content, and social media posts are a vital part of an effective SEO strategy. Here are a couple of reasons why you should add content marketing to your digital marketing strategy:

Search Engine Authority

Google made changes in 2014/2015 to their search and ranking algorithms; ergo, these algorithms were modified to focus on the quality and authority of the content on all websites and blogs. In other words, if Google decides your site has more authoritative content than the other websites in its niche, your site will be ranked above the other sites on the SERP. At the same time, it is vital to note that this explanation is an oversimplification of how the Google algorithms rank websites, but this description suits its purpose.

Connects Consumer and Brand

Modern consumers want to communicate on an intimate level with the brands they are interested in purchasing. Therefore, guest posting and content writing play a substantial role in letting consumers know that you care about their emotional and physical wellbeing. For example, if you sell hiking and trekking jackets, you can write a guest post on how to care for your jacket. Your target audience will see you as an authority of hiking jackets; ergo, they will purchase their jackets from you.