I love to read other blogs when I have time. Some of them are by individuals, and others comprise of a lot of guest bloggers. Normally, my definition for a site that the owner’s posts are a small percentage to that which they publish from other bloggers is a blog community.
One of my biggest peeves is seeing blog communities that dish out posts like some fast food restaurant. The quality is mediocre and most are working for other companies rather than posting on the behalf of their own reputation. I have even had a blogger sell a site I guest blogged at (the site did very well), and I asked for my article to be removed because I realized that flipping sites is all they did.
I have repeatedly blogged about guest blogging no-nos and addressed decided to put a little graphic meme together.
For the blog owner:
– Have some ethics for your site.
– Don’t use guest blogging as a crutch.
– Don’t be a curator of crap content just because someone submitted.
Do you accept guest posts? What are your rules and requirements for submitting?
Haha, nicely said Nile. I do except a lot of guest post on my blogging site, but I have a running list of stuff I want content about. Therefore, if someone approaches me for a guest post and as long as their site isn’t something bad and the content is great I will accept it. But, I always put my own twist on it. Run it through Copyscape, too.
I have wrote a lot about guest posting a lot and previously wrote a guest post on guesting on Erik Emanuelli’s blog.
I would like to read about your guest blogging no’s as im new to this business and i dont want to start of on the wrong foot. i have bee thinking about doing mostly guest posts because people out there really like to write and i will get free content. i will just have to remember to keep up a certain standard.
I totally agree Nile.I stopped accepting guest posts on my blog a while back because the content was so weak.
I do however accept guest post if I ask the blogger directly to submit one to me.
I prefer longer posts of 800 or more words.
I agree with you 100% most people start blogs with good intentions but then get lazy and give it over to guest bloggers that in the end do nothing for the blog and most times it veers so far from their original blog it ends up making no sense. Thanks for the post, it’s a great reminder of where we should be going.
Hi Nile,
Well since my blog is only about 3 months old I feel that I should be the only one writing posts, at least for now, because I’m trying to make my self known and if I would start publishing guest posts know I think the few readers I have so far would be very confused about the credibility of the information on my blog.
Wishing you a Happy New Year, Nile, take care.
~Philip
Well said Nile. I write almost all the posts for my blog. Guest posts is something I try not to do. I like to make my blog personable and if someone else is writing it, that’s not possible
Hi Niles, good on yah, for saying your piece! I don’t accept guest posters on my blog because I’m building my own brand, and I don’t believe that I can brand myself, if I have other people writing for me. I just remembered though – I did post a couple of guest articles at one of my blogs, but it was of high quality and I read it carefully first.
Wow, don’t hold back Niles 🙂 Seriously, I certainly agree with your point. Personally, being the control freak that I am, I’ve avoided guest posts on my blog. It’s more than that though because I receive plenty of requests to submit guest posts, but what is truly amazing to me is how rarely one of the proposed articles has anything whatsoever to do with the topics I cover in my blog! I can’t even consider working with someone who’s so lazy they won’t take the time to submit relevant content.
I completely agree and it is something I have had to deal with. I opened my blog up for guest posts, and some people that respond want to write crappy content for my blog that isn’t even relevant to it.
I think there has to be a standard set for each blog. If I want my blog to be a high quality blog, I have to make sure what I put on my blog represents that same quality.
Nile,
I love all your graphics! When I think of curating crap content I think of a cesspool! Not good for the blog or WordPress website.
So far I have been approached about 4X in the last two years that I have been blogging. I accepted 2 guest posts that were high quality and well written from bloggers with reputable sites. Got lots of positive comments and it was a positive experience.
I can see that posting guest Posts can be very tempting since writing your own blog post OR blog post with instructional videos (like most of mine) can take a lot of time and effort.
Hopefully, I will keep resisting the temptation to accept Guest blog posts.
That being said — Nile anytime you wanna guest post on my blog, the honor would be all mine!!!
Have a great New Year 2013!!!
~ Jupiter Jim
Great post you have shared here. Thank you. Happy New Year. Regards 🙂
Hi,great blog post. Info’s are very useful and saves me huge amount of time which I spend on something else instead of searching posts like this Thank you
I write all the posts for my blog and I avoid guest posts. Not that guest posts are something bad, it’s just that I want my blog to be written by me only.
I’ve been accepting guest posts lately and this is a good reminder to watch out for quality. Thanks Nile 🙂
Very good post, Nile! Even not careful, guest posts can definitely hurt your site.
Great post you have shared here. Thank you. Happy New Year. Regards
hello nile, visiting your blog after a long time, yes we should not write crap content, it affects our reputation,. we should write quality content which will be accepted by people as well as search engines
Content curation is common these days so we don’t curate crap contents. Always steal ideas but never steal content. Thanks for sharing this. This will be a good idea to use this techniques.
Hey nile,
Nice post and Thanks for sharing this post with us. Yes, quality content is the most important factor of blogging and we have to be sure that we don’t steal content.
When you have designing any thing for the blog then after this many things that you have insured and make some new things according to this situation. The main things is that you article content is very important from which you have easily explored many new things and attractive for the customers.
Thanks…
I recently got burnt by a guest blogger. Talking by email I could see this was a very astute and switched on person, and the article they provided was an excellent and very well written piece of work.
I put it up without hesitation, but within 6 hours I simply stopped getting traffic. Alarm bells ringing, I conducted a quick google search and found this same article was on many sites that except guest bloggers.
I deleted the post, and my traffic came back after around 24 hours. I can only guess this was the work of the infamous Penguin, and it was fast.
Dom
Hi Nile,
This is so important if you want guest posts. Quality and integrity to maintain your blog is #1. I tried this once and had to reject someone because I didn’t like the content.. so when you’re the “boss” you can do this .. LOL.