Blog Advertising Vs Guest Posting

As we continue to look into various ways of making your blog famous, I want to take a look at two popular ways to increase your branding. I will be looking at Advertising on Blogs as well as Guest Blogging, putting them head to head in a few different categories to see which one comes out the winner.

Blog Advertising
This is where you purchase an image space or a link on a blog or website linking it back to your blog. For this comparison we will be using the standard 125×125 ad space that is featured on most blogs these days.

Guest Posting
This is where you write a post specifically for another blog. Usually you contact the blog owner first and pitch a post outline to them and if they accept , you then write the post and they post it on their blog – with a sentence or two about you and your blog either before or after the post body.

Now I have personally over the first half of July had both blog advertising running and guest articles posted so I will use the data I can get from these for my analysis. (I realise that results may vary from blog to blog)

There are two ways to judge the benefit of a marketing method. One is short term results. The other long term. To make it easier to understand I have made the short term goals the initial traffic I received as a direct result of the marketing method, and the long term goal is the impact it had on my branding. This second section will be based wholly on my personal opinion as it cannot be looked in things like visitors and numbers.

Short Term Benefits Analysis – Traffic Stats

• Blog Advertising
  I have banner ads on 4 blogs currently. However two of them did not make my referring sites section in AwStats with less then 8 visitors ( sorry Nathanial and EliteBlogger). I will however take a look at the stats from the other two blogs that I have a 125×125 ad spot on:
  • TechTreak.com
    So far this month I have had 13 unique visitors from this ad space.
  • ThomasSinfield.com
    From this ad spot I have derived 10 new unique visitors.
• Guest Posts
  I have had the opportunity to guest post on 4 successful blogs, however I did not receive enough traffic from my guest post at MixedMarketArts to complete our analysis. Here is the traffic details for my other three guest posts:
  • CarlOcab.com
    The traffic coming from the posts address is 8 unique visitors, however I did receive another 38 visitors from Carl’s homepage – which as the link to my blog from the post was visible on the index page, it is safe top assume that a portion of these visitors were a result of the post.
  • TylerCruz.com
    My guest post here brought me in a total of 12 visitors.
  • RetireAt21.com
    And this guest post added another 11 visitors.

I cannot honestly say that I am impressed with the stats either of these marketing methods have produced. However, we can safely agree that both have similar short term results.

Now lets take a look at the benefits in the long term – with branding.
Long Term Analysis – Branding

When I think branding, there are three things I look for.

• What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
• What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
• How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live

So lets take a look at each of these for both blog advertising and guest posting. Starting with the first.

• Blog Advertising
  • What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
    The thing I love about blog advertising is the image awareness that it creates. I honestly don’t care if I get 1 or 1000 visits from the blog I have a 125×125 ad spot on. My main goal is to get as many people to see my ad, which is well designed and highly congruent to my blog layout, because when they happen to stumble upon my blog later they will feel like they have been here and know about my blog.

    125×125 ads are fantastic for increasing exposure, but you need to makes sure that you have them professionally designed and they have the same feel as your blog does.

  • What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
    Sure having an ad spot on a credible blog may give your ad some weight, but think about all the BeachBum marketing ads that are on many of the high profile blogs. Your marketing has very little credibility as everyone knows that the only reason you image is on the blog is because you paid for it.

    Does this mean that they are worthless? Of course not. The results you receive from image branding still works.
    
    

  • How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live
    As long as you keep paying for it. This is one of the down sides of paid advertising. You have to keep paying if you want to keep getting the benefits.
• Guest Posts
  
  • What Are People Seeing To Help Them Remember My Blog
  • With every guest post you are able to have some sort of blurb and link back to your blog. HEre are some samples of mine:Guest Link On Tyler Cruz
    
    Guest Link On MixedMarketArts
    
    Guest Link On RetireAt21.com
    
    Guest Link On CarlOCab.com
    
    As you can see although guest post blurbs come in a range of ways, they usually have a small writeup on you and your blog as well as a link to your blog using the anchor text you require.

    This helps with SEO, and the branding of the name of your blog, but doesn’t really do anything for branding your blogs image.

  • What Is The Credibility Of The Marketing Effort
    This is where guest posts takes over blog advertising. Guest posts carry a great amount of credibility as they are seen as a personal recommendation from the blog owner. Visitors know that to get a guest post published it has to be approved by the blog owner – meaning that they approve (and even recommend) the blog post, and also to a smaller degree the guest blogger.

    I have seen a few bloggers gain a bucket load of credibility from regularly guest posting on major blogs – and this has seen the blog grow dramatically.
    

  • How Long Will The Marketing Stay Live
    Forever. Well maybe not. A blog owner may take it down – but why would they? The blog owner is getting great content and probably some nice search engine traffic, so the chanced of getting your post removed after a month is very minimal. This means that your post (and link) are going to be there for visitors months and even years into the future.

So Which Is Better?

Well based on the traffic stats both blog advertising and guest posting are head to head. So I guess in this regard it depends on whether you have time or money to spare. Writing a guest post would probably take you half and hour and buying a blog ad can cost anywhere from $1 (or even free) to $500 a month plus.

I cannot really judge the performance of the branding aspect at such an early stage but it is safe to say that both options have their advantages and disadvantages, so just choose the model that is right for you.

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