Links into your website are a signal to Google that you have good content. While you can just continue to produce good content and hope that you’ll build up the number of links coming into your site over time, guest blogging can help accelerate that process. A good guest blogging opportunity is with a site that is within your target market and has the same audience that you’d like to have. An engaging post on a guest blog can go a long way to helping your link building efforts, but can also introduce you to more people who will hopefully become regular readers of your blog.
In the world of today’s SEO, it simply isn’t enough to throw some key phrases on your website’s pages, or start a blog to create a steady content stream. You need to build links. Traditional link building can include optimization of press releases for syndication, as well as solicitation of links from relevant external sites. But have you delved into the word of guest blogging?
In addition to great link building, guest blogging also affords you the opportunity to earn a great reputation as a thought leader, and offers exposure to your own blog, brand, and website, and much faster than it will take you to build the reputation of your own blog. It’s akin to publicity, but the kind you have to work hard to earn. — Effective Link Building Secrets: Guest Blogging by LEE RUSH SCHWARTZ