I started to write this as part of the series, "Two Dozen Ways to Get Backlinks," but it's way more than that.

Guest blogging has a ton of benefits–the backlink may be the least significant.

If you're trying to break into a niche, guest blogging is one of the best ways to do so because, by guest blogging on a prominent ("authority") site, you gain authority and prominence yourself. It's as if it just rubs off on you.

Plus, you get direct traffic from targeted consumers: They visited a site that they may have been interested in from the beginning, but if they click on a link in your guest post, then they really are looking for more information about the topic you wrote about.

Don't underestimate this!

Or do so at your own peril.

You may derive more opt-ins, more comments, more visitors (i.e., more "uniques"), and most importantly, more of that aforementioned authority. That is, provided that your content is top-notch. It should be unique content, too; don't undermine your efforts by putting up questionable PLR content or stuff you wrote very poorly. Make your best.

You are reaching an audience that is different from your typical audience, too, so keep that in mind. I encourage you to read posts on the site you want to guest blog for so you'll get a flavor for the tone and writing style of the website owner — after all, that's what is readers are accustomed to.

It all boils down to the adage, "Give 'em what they want!"

For some killer tips and strategies for being an effective and sought-after guest blogger, check out Chris Garrett's Guest Posting guide.

As you can tell, I think guest blogging is a very useful and effective endeavor for getting your name in and amongst your peers. It's enormously effective and pretty easy to do. Most of us publishers are on the constant lookout for good content, which brings me to the same topic but from another perspective.

As a publisher, I'm always under the gun to produce awesome content. Hopefully, sometimes I succeed! But I like hearing from other writers, too. I like the diversity of perspective they bring to any topic. And while comments are awesome, I find that guest bloggers really shine when they have less limited room on which to post their ideas.

So for a publisher, getting guest writers is pretty awesome: I get fresh, quality content that I don't have to write. There's a side benefit, too: I find that I get an influx of traffic and subscribers when somebody guest posts on my site!

I'll say it again. When somebody writes as a guest for my site, I get more traffic and subscribers. Heck, I even get more comments.

Why is this so? Well, one reason is that the guest writer promotes the material! Right–I get free promotion of my site! I didn't have to write anything nor did I have to "sell" the article to anyone–the guest writer did that for me!

I love blogging as a guest but I really lust getting others to guest blog for me!

If you want to be a guest blogger here, please go to Guest Blog for all the details.