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This is a guest post from Amin Motin. Amin Motin is a British internet marketer with a passion for educating. Learn more at Sublime Products

All blogs need traffic to survive. A blog with no visitors is a sterile and unloved place. Add visitors who care about what you say and suddenly your blog has become a little social media site of its own.

It’s possible to steal traffic from other blogs who are your competitors. You can take a slice of their traffic and build your own blog into the bargain. Not only is it perfectly legal to do so, but I can guarantee you that in some cases other bloggers will come asking you to take some of their traffic.

What I’m talking about is giving away your best content to another blogger. It doesn’t have to be a direct competitor, but it can be. So, why would you give away your best content to someone else? What makes it beneficial to you?

Before I answer that question directly, let me ask you a little question.

Do you ever visit fast food places? Have you noticed, especially in shopping malls, how the fast food outlets are normally all pretty close together? Wouldn’t it be better for them if only one hamburger place was allowed there?

No. And they wouldn’t always want that anyway, even if it were possible.

The reason is that every food outlet in a shopping mall food court will generate some traffic. But one that traffic is at the food court they will see all the other places to eat. Some of those visitors will consider the other outlets and the effect is of ‘recycling’ the visitors. It’s almost as if the food court had many times more visitors.

Something similar applies in the blogging world. You probably already know that it’s beneficial to make quality comments on blog posts. It allows you to showcase a little of what you know and how you write to the blog’s visitors. A percentage of them will come by your blog for a little look.

Now making quality, related comments to the posts is a good thing, but there is something even more powerful. Hans has already posted about this at http://www.catchtheposts.com/5-golden-rules-to-maximize-your-guest-blogging-benefits/ . If you haven’t already viewed that post you should take the time to do so. If you follow the information outlined and take some action, you’ll be surprised at the benefits you can receive.

On the 27th June 2008 I read that very blog post myself. Frankly, a lot of the information is not new, but it’s presented in a clear and accessible way. One of the major points that Hans make is that you have nothing to lose by trying. Be audacious! After all, if you write a guest blog post and it gets accepted you’ve just done three things:

• Added valuable content to a fellow blogger’s site
• Created a new relationship
• Stolen his traffic.

Two of those things directly benefit you.

Plus it’s something that is easier to do than you might realize. For example - oh, you were wondering about the ’stolen his traffic’ line? Allow me to explain.

If you take the time to create a guest post that is high quality, you will definitely get some visitors clicking through to see your site. They’ll be looking for additional content that you may have. They may also want to know a little bit more about who you are. But that traffic came from the original blog. It’s traffic you would probably never have seen without the guest blog post. In effect, you have ’stolen’ traffic from the original blog. The thing is what you’ve really done is multiply it. So it’s a win-win for you and the host blog.

Can you do the same with comments? Well, yes, you can, but the amount of traffic you’ll get from a few comments is nothing like the traffic you’ll get from a guest blog post.
I know, because since I read Hans post about guest blogging I decided to do just that. You might notice that this is a guest post on Hans blog! It’s not my first guest post, either.

As someone who makes his living online I’m always interested in what other internet marketers are doing, so I read their blogs. There’s one blog I read frequently. It’s usually entertaining and always informative. After reading Hans points I thought I’d approach the owner and see what he thought. He has a special section on his blog inviting people to guest post for him! I’d never noticed. And nobody else has, either, because he hasn’t had a guest blog done before me.

Since then he’s published two guest posts for me and I can tell you that I’m seeing hundreds of new visitors as a direct result of those guest posts.

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. That’s what I meant earlier by saying it’s easier than you might realize. Even though we’re competitors, the quality content I provided for Frank and the share of his traffic that I got created a win-win for us both.

I’d encourage you to try the same. Look for blogs that are related to your own niche. Create your best article, or post, and offer it to them to use for free, in exchange for a link or two. You know what the worst that can happen is? You get turned down and you still have a great blog post that you can use on your own blog. One word of caution: if you’re going to do this, make sure you create some content that you would love to have on your own blog. Make it your best post. Make it something you almost can’t part with, because it’s so good. Don’t ever offer a host blog anything other than your best work.

Here’s the payoff: if you’re successful with your guest post you then have a track record to refer other host blogs to. So you can create more guest posts and build your guest post resume. And each one of those posts will be out there, working for you for years to come. I still get traffic from blog comments I made 2 years ago. I wish I’d actually done guest posting then, because the traffic that comes calling is so much higher.

Don’t waste any time. Find a blog that looks likely to take quality guest posts and get writing. Here’s a hint for you: this blog takes guest submissions. What are you waiting for?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Traffic Generation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.