Who said guest blogging was worthless?

[Note from Ryan: This is a guest post about the success of guest posting;-)]

…or why guest bloggers are good for your site.

By Yan Fortin (Kiltak)
[GAS] Technology News

Last week, when Ryan from Performacing.com offered to have some of his bloggers guest post on 20 blogs, I jumped on the opportunity and added my name to the hat. Considering the number of readers Performancing.com has, I can’t really understand why only around 50 people or so subscribed to the contest, particularly since it was a great occasion to get some amazing content from new voices that have never been heard on participants’ sites.

I had the incredible chance to have David Peralty guest blog on [GAS]. David wrote an interesting piece titled “Cheap Wireless For Your Xbox 360.” After publishing it, I started spamming promoting the article to some of the most well-known DIY/gaming sites around, and boy was I surprised by the result.

Barely an hour after I started promoting the post, hits started trickling in: Lifehacker, xboxscene.com, stumbleupon, maxconsole.net, which resulted in the post being featured on del.icio.us/popular and many, many other sites (about 150 different referrers).

Here are some basic stats:

I wouldn’t be surprised if these numbers double in the next 48 hours since another big referrer has added itself to the list since I took that screenshot.

David, the author, was as surprised as I by the results, particularly since he thought that the subject he wrote about was common knowledge. We can look at this experience as a lesson: Never the thought of a subject as something widely known prevent you from writing new content about it.

When writing articles for their blog, most people only do the first part of the publishing process: they create content, and let it sit on their site for their readers to admire, hoping that someone, somewhere will pick it up and point back to it. The second lesson to be learned from this experience: Oftentimes, if you don’t get the word out, no one will notice you.

Writing a press release to get the word out.

I can’t stress enough how important this is. If you’ve published a piece that you are particularly proud of, compose a brief message letting potential sources know how your content may interest them. Don’t tell them to link back to you! Just provide the facts.

When you’re done, head over to Technorati and search for blogs that fall under the category of your post. In this case, I searched for xbox, xbox 360, games, gaming, and technology. I then compiled a list of the most popular sites that may be interested in David’s piece, and sent them my press release. Overall, I contacted around 20 sites, and five of them got back to me letting me know they would link back to us.

And what about the advantage gained by guest blogging?

If you decide to guest blog on other sites, you’ll reach a new audience, which means potential new readers for you. Depending on the size of the blog where you write, this may mean dozens or even hundreds of people flowing over to your site. It can also increase your reputation and build your profile as a blogging professional, which could result in paying gigs.

To wrap up, I’d like to thank David for guest blogging over at [GAS]. He did a fantastic job, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we got the best results out of the 20 blogs that hosted the performancing guest bloggers.