The concept of guest posting and editorial links is associated with SEO. Long story short, a guest post is, as the name says, an article you write for a blog in exchange for a link coming to your site. An editorial link:

• is one-way (that is, no reciprocal link exchange, no I link to you if you link back to me scheme);
• comes from a text block (as opposed to a link in a list, such as a blogroll)
• has a specific keyword in anchor (Click here to read more shouldn’t, therefore, be considered an editorial link).

Google is known to be able to make a difference between editorial and normal links and put more weight on the former. This makes sense, taking into account the search engines’ strive to analyze the importance of inbound links and penalize or even disregard paid ones. Editorial links are more natural and relevant than ones “forced” into a blogroll.

Guest posting shouldn’t, however, be focused on SEO and improving your rank on the search engines. A good editorial can be of much more help than the added value of a strong and relevant backlink.

• Visitors. A guest post on a popular blog can get you lots of visits from people who are interested in what you have to say. Think in terms of RSS or mailing list subscribers rather than going up one or two positions in SERPs.
• Personal branding. Not everyone can get to do guest posts on reputable blogs. Associating your name with the big players in your industry can show others that you know what you’re talking about and can boost your image in terms of trustworthiness.
• Networking. A guest post can help you get to know other people in your industry, share experience with them and, in general, aid towards building up your community.
• Increase awareness. A single guest post on a medium-sized blog (Alexa rating of, let’s say, 40,000 or lower) can boost the popularity of a new site. People love to tweet and share quality content on their social networks.

Guest posting shouldn’t be confused with article marketing. You can send in virtually anything to article directories, as they are known to accept even the sloppiest pieces of content. Article marketing is all about quantity over quality. An editorial, on the other hand, should be on par with the site’s standards and bring some actual added value to the owner’s community. Granted, there are low-quality blogs where you can send in content of questionable value, but they aren’t likely to bring you any of the above benefits.

If you have considered guest blogging but never submitted anything so far, this article might give you the push to get up and actually do something. Or, if you have been submitting regularly to blogs and haven’t reaped a lot of results, it could be high time you changed your strategies and started focusing on sites that actually deliver.