“Guest Blogging is dead for SEO” Google Head of Webspam Team

Guest Blogging is dead for SEO purposes really means something when it is said by Google’s own Matt Cutts. Guest Blogging for SEO content promotion purposes was always open to abuse as a traffic gaining tool and the lure of evergreen articles proved too much and then a Guest Blogging industry was spawned, quickly killing it for everyone.

The Guest Blogger became a distant hired gun in the same way that Advertorials carry little editorial authority or weight in magazines lacking true journalistic integrity. In his own Blog Matt says “Guest blogging is done; it got too spammy. I wouldn’t rely on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy”. There it’s been said now. However someone needs to tell these PPC Advertisers on Google as they are clearly still touting their services with ads targeting keywords for Guest Posting/Blogging from companies with names such as White Hat and HigherClick.com and ConvertWithContent.com.

This does not mean that an online article about your business written by a respected Guardian journalist will work against your SEO rankings, it is really aimed at the fake article writers.  We always advocate great content as the best way to influence your rankings in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) You can read Matts full blog article and www.mattcutts.com/blog here is a link to a good article from e-consultancy giving deeper insights.

Of course this should only put you off Guest Blogging, not Blogging itself.  Originally Evolution had a separate blog using the domain www.EdinburghDesignConsultancy.co.uk (we registered this along with EdinburghDesignAgency.co.uk) but only 9% of the blog traffic went to to visit our website via embedded text links and the blog menu. We did rank very well in Google under the search term Edinburgh Design Consultancy naturally but eventually decided that it was better to bring the Blog under our manie Evolution-Design.co.uk domain and while we may get less traffic to thse pages we do gain 100% of that traific on our main site benefitting us and our webstats.  For most* websites there is an indisputable case web link for Blogging (note most not all sites/services) i.e the ones that thrive on gaining traffic and new visits. We can retrofit Blogs to existing websites, so do consider that option before a re-build. And after your have your Blog we can also give you hints and tips on how to fill it and then how to promote is as there are millions of Blogs out there and your will need some help at the outset at least. First would be a Yoast SEO widget (on a WordPress site) allowing you to insert keyword and tags instantly to improve your Blogs search engine visibility. Next we would help you create a strategy to drive relevant traffic not just to your site via your Blog and social media is the most obvious, but under used way. So what are you waiting for, some stats perhaps?.

E-consultancy blog The Irresistible Business Case for Blogging post. If you don’t have time to read the article  then here are the headline stats:

1. SEO: websites with blogs have 434% more Google indexed pages and 97% more Google indexed links. (source: Ignite Spot)
2. B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not. (Hubspot)
3. Marketers who have prioritised blogging are 13 times more likely to enjoy positive ROI. (Hubspot)
4. Companies with 51-100 pages on their website generate 48% more traffic than those with 50 or fewer pages. (Hubspot)
   By Neale Gilhooley, Evolution Design (updated 1st July 2015)