These two strategies: link building and guest posting are often used together by marketers as effective ways to grow your website’s profile and drive traffic to your site. However, they are very different approaches with their own pros and cons.
Link building is a key part of any website’s marketing strategy, but it can be tricky to know which types of links you should be focusing on. With so many different link opportunities available, choosing the right ones can be tricky.
Here’s what you need to know about link building vs. guest posting in order to choose the one that suits your site best.
Topics Covered
What is Link Building?
Link building refers to the process of acquiring links from another website to yours. The goal with link building is to build a link profile for your website that will help Google rank it higher in search results.
You can do this by gaining links on other sites or by creating sponsored content on your site and linking back to other sites in return. Link building is an excellent way to build a strong online presence, but it can be time-consuming and expensive.
What is Guest Posting?
Guest posting is a strategy that you can use to land high-quality links and drive traffic back to your site. Guest posts are published content pieces that are written by a guest blogger for another person’s website. These posts often contain links back to the author’s site or social media accounts.
As an example, if you have a blog about travel, you might reach out to another travel blogger with a bigger audience than yours and ask them if they would be willing to write an article on your blog.
In exchange, they would provide their own unique perspectives in the guest post while linking back to their own website or social media account. The benefits of guest posting include increased exposure and top-of-the-line links back to your site.
The downside? You have no control over the content being posted and you may not get the desired outcome in terms of traffic or link quality.
Link Building vs. Guest Post: Which Is Better for SEO?
Marketers often use link building and guest posting together to grow their site’s visibility and drive visitors. These two approaches, nevertheless, are distinct and have their own benefits and drawbacks. Here’s what you should know about link building versus guest posting in order to pick the one that best suits your website.
| Link Building | Guest Posting |
|---|---|
| Link building involves acquiring high-quality links from a variety of sites that are related to your business. | Guest posting strategy is similar to link building insofar as it involves getting your website onto another site by writing content for it |
| For example, if you’re a pet shop, then you might aim for links from blogs about pets or websites about animal care. | Unlike link building which seeks out friends of yours on other sites, guest posting looks for opportunities on bigger sites where there is a lot of traffic. |
| The goal is not just to acquire links but also to build relationships with those sites so that they will link back again in the future. | Guest blogging can also be a good tactic for establishing thought leadership in your industry. You can promote yourself as an expert by writing articles on other websites and cross-promoting with blogs that also target the same niche. |
| This can be done through commenting on posts, providing helpful information, or even asking for a link exchange. | If you have an established blog with some success behind it — say 100k monthly visits — then this method may be right for you because you will already have the reach necessary to drive significant traffic from other blog post efforts. |
| Cons: Articles spinning and keyword stuffing, which are considered spam and are not recommended, are ‘black hat’ methods. | Cons: you have no control over the content being posted, so you may not get the desired outcome in terms of traffic or link quality. |
Link Building Strategies
Link building can be done through a variety of methods, and you can do it without any budget. The most common strategy for link building is to create content that other blogs will want to link to. You can also build links by contacting bloggers who write about topics related to your website, or by reaching out to companies and asking them for a link exchange.
To boost your rankings in search engines, some marketers will use “white hat” methods like creating valuable content and working with other content creators. Others will use “black hat” methods like article spinning and keyword stuffing, which are considered spam and are not recommended. Regardless of the method you choose, all types of link building have their benefits and drawbacks.
Guest Posting Strategies
Guest posting is a strategy where you write an article for another website and publish it on your own blog to generate traffic back to your site. This approach is most effective when you have a large following on social media, as the act of guest posting will drive traffic from those social media channels to your blog.
Guest blogging can also be a good tactic for establishing thought leadership in your industry. You can promote yourself as an expert by writing articles on other websites and cross-promoting with blogs that also target the same niche.
One downside of this technique is that guest posts often contain links back to the author’s content. If too many of these links appear, it can lead Google to view your site as spammy and demote you in SERPS (search engine results pages).
Key takeaway
The key takeaway here is that guest posting and link building are two different strategies with similar results. If you’re looking for a quick win and want to rank your website quickly, guest posting is the best option for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking to build high-quality links to your website, link building is the best option for you. Both of these strategies can be successful if they’re implemented correctly.
In the end, it’s hard to say which one is better because they both can be effective in different ways. It all depends on your goals and what you want to accomplish.
