There are so many benefits to guest blogging, but it’s really baffling why some guest bloggers do it exclusively for the links. While getting link love is still important when guest blogging, making it the obvious focus of your guest blog is a major turnoff, especially to search engines. Guest blogging for links, after all, is in violation of search engine guidelines, but what’s puzzling is that people do it just the same. They only realise the folly of their actions when Google penalizes them, and you certainly wouldn’t want that to happen to your site, do you?

So if you’re still intent on reaping the benefits of guest blogging, we suggest that you do it not to chase links, but for the reasons we will enumerate below. After all, these are what guest blogging should be for.

Gaining a new audience with guest posts

Making a guest post on another blogger’s site obviously introduces you to a whole new audience, but you have to make the post of good quality. That way, that new audience will remember your name and your post and eventually visit your website, courtesy of a little legit link love from the site you just guest blogged for.

Increasing your authority

The fact that someone else allowed you to write for his/her site means you were deemed worthy to write for others, that you know what you’re talking about. You will get that kind of reputation when people search your name and see that you’ve written lots of articles for blogs other than yours. And if you have guest blogged for well-known websites repeatedly, then the more people would perceive you as an authority on a particular field that you always write about. And you know what happens to guest bloggers perceived as an authority on a given field? Readers actually get inspired to link to their websites, especially when they want to invoke the name of an expert to stress something.

Building your network

Guest blogging is a means to increasing your network, as you can expect the publications and blogs you write for to share your bio and social links, especially when your guest posts add value to their audience. Be a great guest blogger, and these sites will promote the heck out of you, which will of course help you build your network.

Introducing your products and/or services to a new audience

This is content marketing at its most real. As long as the audience of the site you’re guest blogging for likes what they see in your guest blogs, people will seek your content and therefore your products and services, with or without any link love. Guest blog if you want to stimulate demand from new prospective customers.

Achieving brand recognition through guest blogging

It almost always follows that when you get exposure through guest blogging, brand recognition almost always follows suit. Even if only a fraction of a site’s audience actually reads your guest blog, that is still an additional number of people becoming aware of your brand name. If this happens over time over many posts, this figure becomes exponential, and you’ll achieve the brand recognition you’ve always wanted.

Helping someone out

Let’s say that you have convinced friends or even clients to start a blog, but they do not have the confidence to publish good quality content. To help him/her out, you can volunteer to do guest blogs for them until they successfully to establish a loyal audience. If you are already a reputable guest blogger, your help would certainly a much-appreciated one.

Getting inbound links through legitimate guest blogging means is good, but it’s not the end-all and be-all of guest blogging. Guest blogging still has many other purposes and benefits, and getting them would be just as great.