This is a guest post by Nick Stamoulis. If you wish to guest post in this blog, check out the guest post guidelines.
There are many benefits to blogging. Operating a blog and writing posts on a consistent basis allows a blogger to share their thoughts in an informal outlet, establish themselves as an expert within a given industry, share and communicate with others in their niche, and improve their search engine optimization efforts. One blogging strategy is to allow guest submissions on your blog. While this might work well for some, it might not be the best idea for others.
Here are some pros and cons of accepting guest submissions:
PRO – Expand Audience
People that guest post typically have blogs of their own that they write for and guest post to expand their audience. This benefit works both ways. The blogger will typically include a link on their own blog or through other promotional channels, like social media, to their post on your blog. This will bring more visitors to your blog. If they like what they see, they may become loyal followers.
CON – Lack of Control
Before allowing guest submissions, the content was entirely up to you (or your team). If you at all questioned the content of a post, you could edit it and find another way to write it or you could scratch the idea altogether. You can (and should!) edit a guest submission for spelling or grammar errors, but you can’t change the ideas.
PRO – A Breather
Anyone that blogs knows that it’s a big time commitment. It takes time to come up with quality topic ideas, time to write, time to edit, and time to post. While some people blog for a living, most bloggers have other commitments as well. Guest posts need to be monitored and edited, but that process is much shorter than starting from scratch.
CON – Lazy Reputation
Too many guest posts can result in visitors thinking that the blog owner is too lazy to write themselves or is desperate for content. That’s why it’s a strategy that should be used sparingly.
PRO – Goodwill
If you’ve established a successful blog with a large number of loyal followers and you allow others to guest post, you are providing them with a great opportunity that they might not have had otherwise. You will be seen as a “good egg” in the community.
CON – Lack of Voice
Even if the content perfectly aligns with the brand that you have built and you agree with the concepts, it’s not actually your voice. This could diminish the value of your blog and brand.
Before allowing guest posts on your blog, it’s important to consider all of the pros and cons. Guest posting is more accepted and more common in some industries. If you decide that guest posting is for you, be sure to do it sparingly. Blog visitors should still know who the primary owner of the blog is. You don’t want to get lost in the shuffle or even overshadowed by guest bloggers.
About the Author:
Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing, a Boston search engine marketing company.
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Twitter: ditesco
Solid Nick. Everyone right now is guest posting like crazy and quality has started to be a serious issue among them. I believe that proper balance should be taken when allowing for guest posting, and you did point out the pros and cons very well. Thumbs up
DiTesco recently posted..Create User Friendly Category Pages
you get it pretty right. these things are unsaid and assumed by people but still needs to be told to everyone. publishing guest posts without proof reading them is a very dangerous thing.
Tushar Agarwal recently posted..Oh No! Not Another Blog Here
I think guest post is a great idea. In relation to the control issue, the blog owner has complete control over the content. If he doesn’t like the idea of the post, he can reject it. He will always have the choice to accept the preferred content.
The key point is to maintain the quality of the blog post by guest so that the readers will always get the value!
Cheers,
Ming Jong
Ming Jong Tey recently posted..What Does It Take To Climb Mount Kinabalu?
I don’t believe you lose control when it comes to guest posts. You can be very specific about what you will accept and if the submitted posts don’t meet that criteria you can reject outright. No one makes you publish them on your site. On one of my sites I get 2 or 3 guest posts a week and have published 3 of them in the past 2 years.
Also not sure I agree with you that people think you are lazy. Now if nothing except guest posts were showing up I think you’d have a valid point but some of the biggest blogs out there have 95% guest posts. Problogger and Copyblogger come to mine.
For the most part I agree with the rest of your statements.
B. Durant recently posted..Making a case to outsource your clinics medical billing services
Guest posting is a bit popular, but sometimes you spend more time reviewing it than what it may be worth. On top of that a lot of it is not even related to what your site is about. For some that is alright, for others not. Just like comments you will see some spam and sneaky stuff with guest posts. I personally don’t have a lot of time to do it myself, and not much more to review one for my site. I would consider it, but do not want to spend a lot of time reviewing spam.
Ray recently posted..Does Google favor WordPress websites
Excellent points Nick, Never thought about the bad side of guest posts. Thanks for sharing.
Naser recently posted..How to build Backlinks?
You can get rid of the first con by making a plan with the guest poster. You can’t just let him write whatever he wants, he needs to adapt to your article flow. If you talk it long enough you should be able to get to a place where’s you’re both satisfied with the idea he brings to the table.
Amit recently posted..Free Forklift Training and Certification – Is it Possible?
Guest posting is a great way of exchanging back links with another blog. However, there are always somethings which bloggers should look out for and you have put them clearly on your post. I think one should allow guest posting once in a while.
Caesar Parisi recently posted..The Bridges Real Estate is coming to Boca Raton / Delray Beach in 2012
I will agree to the pros in expanding your audience. Without your own voice and knowledge, you cannot do all those things. You need to let know of all the people online that you need to them recognize as a great writer!
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