Guest Post vs Blog Post – Understanding the Differences and Uses
Many people do not clearly understand the difference between guest posting and blog posting. While both types involve publishing useful information to the target readers, they are quite different from each other. Let’s see how….
- A blog post is a piece of content created and published on a personal or company blog.
- A guest post is a piece of content written by an individual or a company and published on someone else’s blog.
Let’s understand the distinctions between blog and guest posts in terms of :-
- Ownership & control
- Audience and Reach
- Backlinks and SEO
- Purpose and Goals
Ownership and Control
Even though the content and links are yours the blog is owned by someone else. The blogger could make any changes to your posts. While the guest post usually includes an author byline or bio section where you can promote yourself or your brand, the overall control still lies with the blog owner.
Generally, they do honor the agreement to keep the posts live, but you will not have complete control over your content. The best solution is to diversify and use multiple blogs for creating backlinks. You will need to be consistent with your content marketing efforts and keep posting guest posts regularly.
In terms of ownership, you still retain the authorship and intellectual property rights to your guest post. However, the blog owner typically has the right to publish and distribute the content on their platform. Sometimes they allow guest posts to stay published for a certain period, after which the post will be taken down. Some bloggers follow that practice to keep their blogs up to date by removing old and redundant information.
From what we have talked so far, it is evident that both, guest blogging and blog posting are important as they supplement each other.
Blogging on your website will help in encouraging engagements with your potential and existing customers. They will also start perceiving your brand as one of the best in the niche. Blogging will also help in attracting traffic from search engines.
On the other hand, guest blogging helps in driving targeted traffic from High DA blogs and websites that are closely relevant to your business. It also helps in improving the search engine rankings of your pages. Since you do not have complete control over guest posts, it is advisable to make guest posting a regular practice in your business.
Audience and Reach
When it comes to reaching a wider audience and expanding your online presence, both blog posts and guest posts can be effective strategies. You will need to have a blogging strategy that incorporates both types, by giving a little more priority to guest posting as it allows you to get the backlinks from high DA blogs.
When you publish posts on your blog, you can expect active patriation from your existing subscribers and customers. Unless you promote your blog posts on social media and other platforms, you might not be able to reach out to new audiences. However, you should encourage engagements with existing customers because it could lead to repeat businesses and word-of-mouth recommendations.
The key to your blogging success will be the quality of content that goes into it. Your pages can start ranking high on search results if the posts are well-written and truly useful to your target audiences.
On the other hand, you can attract traffic from websites that already have high traffic by incorporating guest posting in your blogging strategy. When you post links and content on high DA blogs, you will quickly get the attention of new target readers from those websites. Here you don’t have to worry about building a reputation from scratch because those blogs are already well-established and are getting a steady flow of visitors.
You can ensure a good reach for your posts if you post them on high DA blogs, provided that the theme of those blogs is related or relevant to your business niche in one way or the other. You can expect more readership of guest posts when compared to the ones that you publish on your blog.
Besides websites, you could even post links to your social media profile. With high-quality backlinks on authority blogs, you will see a gradual improvement in the search rankings of landing pages. What it means is that you will get more traffic directly from search engine results.
Backlinks and SEO
When you publish blogs on your website, you can internally link the posts to your sales pages. There are no scopes of getting the backlinks. Nevertheless, backlinks are an important part of any SEO strategy, and you can get them through guest posting and other content marketing methods.
For guest posting, you can get ‘contextual backlinks’, or from the ‘Author’s Bio’ section.
- Contextual links are the backlinks that are hyperlinked to the keywords used on the blog body. It increases your chances of getting clicks before the readers complete the reading of your post.
- The Author’s Bio is a section at the bottom of the posts where the author can write a description along with the links. Here you get an opportunity to write a few promotional lines about your business. You will get the clicks if the readers are impressed with your post, or if they find the post to be useful.
Guest posting will help your business maximize the potential of reaching out to a wider range of potential customers. Again, we would like to emphasize the importance of content quality and niche-relevancy of the blogs for success. High-quality and authoritative external backlinks from reputable sources are crucial for SEO.
Guest posting makes it possible for you to build high-quality external backlinks. By writing valuable content for other websites in your niche or industry, you can showcase your expertise and generate interest in your website. The author bio link provides a valuable backlink that drives referral traffic to your site and signals to search engines that your website is connected to authoritative sources.
When selecting websites for guest posting, it’s important to consider their domain authority, relevance to your niche, and their SEO practices. Your backlinks will be more effective if you choose credible blogs.
Never post your link and content on poor-quality blogs, as it will prove to be detrimental to your business reputation in the long run. People will perceive your brand to be low quality. Choose quality over quality when it comes to guest posting.
Purpose and Goals
The primary purpose of guest posts is to build relationships and expand one’s influence within a particular industry or niche. By contributing to other established blogs, guest bloggers can tap into existing audiences and gain exposure to potential followers, readers, or customers. The aim is to attract potential buyers to the sales pages, but the path to do so is through providing good information that is truly useful to them.
Blogging on your own website also has its advantages. It encourages engagement with your existing customers and subscribers. It works towards building long-term business relationships, encouraging repeat business, getting word-of-mouth recommendations, and growing loyal customers. Also, you get the freedom to edit them or remove them as and when you please.
Which is more beneficial In SEO POV – blog posts or guest blogs?
Both guest posting and blog posting can be beneficial from an SEO point of view, but they serve different purposes and have distinct advantages.
Guest Posting
Guest posting involves creating and publishing content on another website as a guest author. Here are the benefits of guest posting for SEO:
- Backlink-building opportunities that can improve your website’s authority and search engine rankings.
- Gain wide exposure and traffic to your website via contributions to established websites in your niche.
- Guest posting on reputable websites helps establish your expertise and authority in your industry, enhancing your brand’s credibility.
- Guest posting allows you to build relationships with other website owners and influencers in your niche, which can lead to future collaboration opportunities.
Blog Posting
Blog posting refers to creating and publishing content on your own blog. Here are the benefits of blog posting for SEO:
- With your own blog, you have complete control over the content, structure, and optimization.
- Blog posting provides ample opportunities for internal linking, which can help search engines discover and index your content more effectively.
- Regularly publishing high-quality blog posts keeps your website updated with fresh content, which search engines tend to favor.
- Engaging blog posts can attract user comments and social shares, increasing your website’s visibility and potential for backlinks.
Both approaches can complement each other and contribute to your overall SEO strategy.
Conclusion
While both guest posts and blog posts are essential elements of online content creation, they serve distinct purposes and fulfill different objectives. Guest posts allow individuals to expand their reach, establish authority, and forge connections within their industry, while blog posts foster community engagement, brand loyalty, and thought leadership. Recognizing the unique roles of each can enable content creators to leverage their strengths effectively and maximize their impact in the digital landscape.
