Is guest blogging really dead as Matt Cutts suggests?

Matt Cutts recently mentioned on his blog suggesting that guest blogging (the practice of providing a blog post to a site with the ultimate aim of getting a link back to your website) was dead.

In his post he actually says

“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”

Is he 100% right in what he says? Well yes he is.

Managing the number of company blogs that I have in my time you do get a lot of emails from people you've never heard of offering to write a post for your blog and in return all they want is a dofollow link back to their website – this in itself is against Google Webmaster Guidelines.

The point from Matt is that it’s becoming increasingly popular for spam bloggers to request some space on blog to help spread the news about their product/service and get that valuable link back to their site.

They claim that they’ll provide you with 100% original fresh content – where the likelihood is that they will write one blog post and spin it in numerous ways so that in reality very little changes for each different blog.

The point is IF you undertake this sort of strategy to get post in other peoples blogs then you are now doomed to failure.

Google are going after these spam bloggers that are trying to game their system by getting links whilst adding little or no value to blogs. They are after the spam bloggers that automate their blogging or just spin weak content.

Blogging for business is about adding value to your audience; guest blogging is still a valid part of the online marketing mix, but it should never be the whole story.

Guest blogging as an audience building strategy is still incredibly useful and does work. Provide genuine blog posts to one or two blogs that match your audience requirements exactly; write with the intention of adding value to the blog owner’s readers and not with the intention of getting a link back to your site.

If you do want a link back to your site then ensure that the link is directed to a page that provides additional highly relevant content to the reader.

Internet marketing is a people business - you need to speak and communicate to people through what you say and the information you provide.

Think about building relationships with bloggers and your audience.  

Adding true value with guest post – this will NEVER died.

Guest blogging with the right intention will work.

Matt Cutts is not wrong, listen to what he’s saying and add value to your guest blogs, don’t just access other peoples audience to get backlinks.

BTW, if anyone wants to guest blog here, just ask ... I might just say yes!