The Power of Guest Posts – It could be an alternative to starting your own blog.

[caption id="attachment_1028" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Shashi Bellamkonda, Director of Social Media, AKA “Social Media Swami,” at Network Solutions"][/caption] In January, I had the honor of delivering the keynote at the WWPR’s Annual Meeting and Board Induction Lunch. In my keynote presentation was a PR 2.0 checklist where the 5^th point there was “Launch a Personal/Corporate Blog”. A few weeks ago, I was co-presenting with Robin Ferrier the communications manager at the Johns Hopkins Montgomery County Campus at the Rockville Women’s Business Center and something that Robin made me think about this point. Robin’s advice was to find places to do guest posts is often times a good strategy even before you start your blog. Robin herself is a regular contributor to WomenGrowBusiness.com a community blog of women entrepreneurs hosted by Network Solutions (the company I work for). Here are some thoughts why you should consider guest blogging as part of your PR 2.0 check list:

1. Low barrier to entry: A guest post reduces the barrier to start blogging as the platform is already available and your post will have a ready audience versus building it up when you start your own blog.
2. SEO: The blog you are posting to may be ranking higher than your own blog so a link from there would be valuable SEO juice.
3. Niche: You can guest post on topics that you don’t usually blog about and create your own niche.
4. Exposure through syndication: The blog you are guest posting to may be syndicated in other channels so you may get an extended exposure.
5. Fame by association: If the blog has other rockstar bloggers you may find it rewarding to be associated with them as co-authors or guest posters.
6. Leads: While this is not the direct reason for you to blog, your thought leadership and quality of content may help drive more people to check out your author profile and lead to enquiries for your business.

Ann Smarty wrote a post on “How to Get a Guest Blog Post Opportunity”, which is  helpful for checking out guest opportunities. Members of WWPR should consider posting to this blog. Want to write for WomenGrowBusiness.com? See these guest blogging instructions. Closer home, I met Lauren Lawson-Zilai, media relations manager/national spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International, at a dinner and we discussed guest posting the Goodwill story on the Network Solutions Blog. The goodwill story – “BEST USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: Goodwill Industries” has found many ways to attract donations through social media - was very fascinating and caught the attention of Gene Marks who linked to it from his New York Times weekly online column. It was a win-win situation for everyone. If you do a guest post, don’t forget to promote the post. A well read blog post could lead to an invitation to do a follow-up post. Have you done a guest post? What do you think? What are some places you know of where this community could post? Editor’s Note : Shashi Bellamkonda is Director of Social Media, AKA “Social Media Swami,” at Network Solutions. Visit Shashi Bellamkonda’s blog. Shashi is a regular contributor to the Washington Business Journal, SmallBizTrends.com, TechCocktail and other tech blogs. The views in this article are the author’s and not necessarily reflect the views of Network Solutionsor or its clients.