What Drives More Sales: Blog Content or Guest Posting?

Published by Frank Jones on Tuesday, January 28, 2014 in Content Marketing.

Both guest posting and blogging can be effective methods of driving revenue.

The best way to answer this question is to dive into the purpose of blog content and guest blogging. Each of these tools fulfills a particular need and deciding which is best can be difficult. The issue is more about using the right tool for your needs, so let's explore how blog content and guest posting can be used to drive sales.

See also: How to Outsource Content & Maintain Your Brand's Voice

Blog Content

The content on your blog is designed to engage with your customers and move people through the sales funnel. When your blog content is converting users into customers, sales are up and everything is working as it should. The best thing to do with a blog that is driving sales is to push more traffic to the site.

Having qualified leads is much more valuable than high traffic volume. Driving unqualified leads to your blog only results in high bounce rates as people quickly discover that your site does not have what they're looking for. By the same token, driving qualified leads to a blog that does not convert will only result in low conversion rates. This is where targeted ads and other paid services can help. However, guest posting can be a good solution to this problem as well.

See also: How to Start Guest Blogging the Right Way (And Measure Its Results)

Guest Blogging

When you publish a guest post you expose your company and your brand to a new audience. When done correctly, this can drive qualified leads to your site for conversion and sales.

While your blog is all about serving the needs of your audience as they move toward a purchasing decision, guest posts are about expanding your audience.

Rather than leading directly to sales, they increase the number of qualified leads in your sales funnel. The most successful guest blogging posts are published on websites with an audience that overlaps yours. Ideally, these readers are within your target demographic, but have not heard about your products or services. While reading your guest post, they are likely to follow your link and read more on your blog. The actual sale occurs on your blog, but you have to sell them on their brand in the content of the guest post.

Driving Sales Through Content

Your blog is filled with content that drives sales while guest posts are designed to bring traffic to your blog. Since all the sales come from your blog, you could say that the blog drives more sales.

See also: How to Measure the ROI of Your Blog Content

However, if most of the traffic on your blog comes from guest posts, it could be argued that guest blogging drives more sales.

Rather than trying to figure out which is driving more sales, it's better to find a strategy that will take advantage of the strengths offered by each of these tools. Your blog is great for nurturing potential customers as they move through the sales funnel and your guest posts can keep that funnel full of qualified leads. Blog content and guest posting are complimentary, which means they both can be used to drive sales and be equally successful.