Stand Out Blogger -

The following a guest post.
When people think of coupons, they think of Groupon which just had a great IPO. However, before there was Groupon, there were a lot of mini-discount sites that people went to on the Internet to try and save a percentage here or there on whatever they were buying.

Unfortunately, the coupon business is not an easy one.  And since there are so many websites that have the same types of coupons for companies such as Navteq and Island Surf, trying to get people to come to my site was, as you might put it, a complete annoyance. I almost gave up, but I found a way to increase the number of people coming to my website and, more importantly, I started to do well in the search engines.

The most basic understanding of how Google works is that links are the end all be all of rankings. While some would say this isn’t true—and in part, they are correct—links are still very, very important. They provide the “trust” that Google needs to know if your website is really worth all that much.

The problem with link building is that it can be very hit or miss. What some people say about link building doesn’t actually work. And, in part, some people will probably say that my ideas don’t work either. However, I have seen the use of guest blog posts to increase my revenue and truly believe that it is one of the best ways to increase revenue.

The primary reason that guest blogging is so useful is because you are getting a vote of confidence from a wide slew of bloggers because you are giving them content. In other words, because you are writing a high quality, unique article, the blogger is thanking you by throwing you a quick little “vote” with a backlink.

You might say, “But if that’s the case, Google will discount guest blog posts since anyone can do them and they’re not a true vote.”

That was the conventional wisdom; however, even months after the Panda update has come out and other updates previous to that, guest blog posts have still worked. And the reason they still work so much is because of the editorial nature of the beast.

When Google came out and said, “that’s it, paid links are bad,” people freaked out. In particular, people who owned directories were freaking out. What if I ran a directory and part of my business was getting people to pay to get into the directory? Now I was out of luck because I couldn’t run the directory.

Except, Google didn’t discount all of these directories. What they saw the payment scheme as was the “cost” to edit the link. So long as the links were niche related, Google saw that the payment wasn’t for the link, but for the editing process to be included in this high quality directory. Naturally, directories have died out, but the idea behind the “edited” link stands.

If the blogger is running a blog that is updated with high quality content and sometimes has a guest blog post, then obviously that blog owner is taking into consideration the guest blogger who submitted the article. If the owner thinks that the content is great and the guest blogger is good, then the article gets published.

So, you understand why guest blog posts are great, but how did I make it work for me?

I started to target specific pages on my blog that I thought would give me a nice boost. If I was ranking #5 for a keyword, I might do a few guest blog posts with a link back to that page. The idea was, by getting a few high quality, direct links, I might get from #5 to #2 or even #1. What I found was that I was beginning to rank higher and that, in turn, sent more traffic to my site.

Guest blogging, single handedly, saved my coupon business. When nothing else was working and Google was on the hunt for paid links, the only way I was able to do it was with guest blogging. And it worked. The site is making more money than it ever has before. But, coupons will never be an easy niche. And with the likes of Groupon, it’ll probably get even harder. I can take it, though. I’ll find something else.

And that, really, is the biggest lesson to take. When a business is dying, you can either let it die or adapt. I adapted and found guest blogging. It saved my business. What will you adapt and do to save your business?

Jay is an Internet marketer who owns a coupon website with discounts to products such as Island Surf and Navteq. Because of guest blog posting, he was able to increase people seeing his island surf promo code and navteq coupon codes.