There are so many facets to small business online marketing that it can be difficult to decide where to focus your efforts. Guest blogging is one tactic that can provide significant value to your business, but it will take some time and effort on your part.

Of course, if you’re busy running a small business, it can be hard enough to find the time to create content for your own site, much less write posts for someone else’s blog. But as Lisa Barone points out in this Small Business Trends article, guest blogging is a powerful way to grow your business and introduce yourself to new customers. Barone lists several ways a well-developed guest blogging strategy can add value to your business:

Increase your exposure. Guest blogging can really ramp up your exposure, because it gives you the opportunity to participate in multiple conversations and become involved in various communities.

Build trust and engage with a wider community. When new readers are introduced to you on a site they already trust, they’re much more likely to be receptive to your message and interested in learning more about you.

Attract varying audiences. Try to think of various avenues that are indirectly related to your business and might share an audience. Or consider different types of readers who wouldn’t normally visit your own site, but might be interested in a specific segment of your business.

Establish your brand and area of expertise. Your ultimate goal should be to become the go-to source for your particular area of expertise. By consistently and authoritatively blogging across a wide variety of platforms you brand yourself as an expert on that topic.

Build relationships. When you guest blog for someone else, you’re not just helping yourself. You’re also making that person’s life a little easier by providing them with some valuable content they didn’t have to create. It’s always valuable to build and maintain positive relationships whenever you can.

Take advantage of SEO benefits. Even if it weren’t for all of the other advantages listed above, guest blogging would still be worthwhile just for the SEO and link-building benefits. You can link to your own site via keyword-rich anchor text. You can choose the best places to direct that traffic. You can vary your author bio to address the priorities of each specific audience. When you create a well-crafted post with helpful information, others will refer to it and link to it, resulting in a tremendous number of links back to your own site.

It’s obvious that guest blogging can be an effective marketing tool for small businesses. But what’s the best way to get started? This article provides some guidance for developing your guest blogging portfolio.

For starters, don’t assume that blogs won’t be interested in your guest posts. Most sites are always looking for quality content, and as noted above, you’re helping them out by providing it. However, to improve your chances of being accepted by the top sites in your field, you’ll want to first build up a strong portfolio of guest posts on several other blogs. By creating a “Portfolio” page on your site with links to all of your guest posts, you’ll have an easy way to show off your published work to that big-time site when the time comes.

Sharing your expertise and buidling trust through guest blogging can be a valuable component of a well-rounded marketing plan. Contact us to discover how we can help you create a comprehensive online marketing strategy that works for your small business.