We Loved You, 2013, Welcome, 2014, at #MyBlogGuest

2013 year was an exciting and busy time for us at #myblogguest. We were trying to keep up with all the blogging and marketing changes and trends.

We were working on new features to give our members more content marketing opportunities and diversify free content we are offering to our publishers.

Let’s recall what has been done so far!

Major 2013 Updates at #MyBlogGuest

January 2013: MyBlogGuest Google Plus Community is officially introduced. Moderated by Don Sturgill, that’s the great place to network, educate yourself, ask for MBG support, etc. It has changed a lot since then with awesome initiatives like Mastermind guests, Friday-only promotions, etc.
March 2013: Blog ratings. As the preparation to introducing higher-quality standards, we gave our community power to rate blogs (sites with too many minus-ratings were being removed from the system). All ratings are moderated by mods to make sure there’s no form of abuse (personal revenge, etc). Each member can rate each blog once. Blog ratings are used to help with what can only be identified on manual review (dropped domains with high PR or, on the contrary, newer blog with already great community to back it up!)

I love the focus on quality at #myblogguest

— Deborah (@socialwebcafe) December 19, 2013

Yeah but we are as fast as Google 🙂 RT @cleveranchors: How are you guys evolving? It's been a rough year huh? #myblogguest

— Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) December 19, 2013

April 2013: Spring cleaning: As the reaction to Google talking more about guest blogging and even editing their official TOS saying “mass guest posting [targeting to manipulate rankings]” is bad, we announced that MyBlogGuest can no longer be used to promote “exact-match” anchor text. We had always been against them and the fact that we actually could rely on referencing Google for that was even relieving. While being quite modest with your own links, we encourage users to link generously to trusted sources and great blogs.
- Obviously, many of our users revolved and we tried to explain that they were fighting the wrong guys in the Open letter. Bottom line from that letter: We are actually not doing anything simply because we have no better use of our time / money. We have rules in place to let our community survive and flourish and thus to be able to provide better results to our members. That should be mutual.

Guest blogging is about building relationships not links!! It's embedded in my brain forever 🙂 @myblogguest #myblogguest

— David B. Faltz (@dfaltz) December 19, 2013

Shh…..our little secret 🙂 RT @Don_Sturgill: @dfaltz … and links. #myblogguest

— David B. Faltz (@dfaltz) December 19, 2013

June 2013: We introduce Elite gallery. This is another step in our fight for higher-quality content. Elite authors go through the special training that has proved to be helpful. It’s free to try!

June 2013: We have introduced Articles Requests, the publisher’s best resource of free quality content that gets edited before it goes to them. You can see how Articles Requests work.

Article Requests is the most powerful (and underused) tool anywhere for guest bloggers. #myblogguest

— Don Sturgill (@Don_Sturgill) December 19, 2013

Article Requests makes me want to get my writing shoes on! http://t.co/mgPbz67zjl #myblogguest

— Don Sturgill (@Don_Sturgill) December 19, 2013

@Don_Sturgill I agree. It can become even more incredible as it becomes the "go to" tool for writers & publishers. #myblogguest

— Deborah (@socialwebcafe) December 19, 2013

July 2013: We have improved our Direct Feature (the one that lets you send your guest articles directly to the connected blogs). The feature is now supported by our free WordPress plugin. Besides, publishers can now create checklist of requirements and every author will have to check each item before he/she is able to send the article.

July 2013: To continue encouraging higher-quality guest blogging, we introduced Google Authorship. The idea is, if you verify your authorship using Google Plus, you are now forced to be more careful with the content you are producing because you are basically digitally-signing it. It’s also a great way to find regular contributors for your blog.

Hot summer 2013: Elite gallery + Articles Requests + improved Direct Feature + Google Authorship #myblogguest

— Sana Knightly (@SanaKnightly) December 19, 2013

October 2013: We hit #Pubcon! We don’t usually go much outside, so that was a pretty big deal for us and, hopefully, the beginning of a great tradition!
October 2013: Promote your eBooks in Book gallery! In an effort to give our publishers more diversified content and our content marketers more promotional options, we introduced eBooks gallery! It has worked great for me so far! Here are some reviews we got for our free eBook using the gallery:

What do we plan for 2014

Moving to a new CMS and design: We’ll have to hold off with updates for some time before we are able to move to a newer content management system for updated look and functionality!

How exciting!!! Can't wait to hear more about moving to a new CMS! #myblogguest

— Shannon Hutcheson (@LdyLarke) December 19, 2013

Viral Content Buzz: We have quietly introduced PRO accounts there for serial content marketers! In 2014 we’ll work on making this project flourish!

Makes me sound wicked I like it! MT VCB introduced PRO accounts for serial content marketers! http://t.co/7gU68hh1Ll #myblogguest

— Shannon Hutcheson (@LdyLarke) December 19, 2013

Smart Photo Stock: We are looking to go into stock photography for bloggers on a more professional and aggressive level. There will be PRO membership and WordPress plugin introduced for this site as well!

@SanaKnightly It's a great name for a great service. Looking forward to diving in to see what's changed. #myblogguest

— Shannon Hutcheson (@LdyLarke) December 19, 2013

TwChat: We have almost perfected the look and functionality. In 2014 we’ll work more on marketing this project!
5 year anniversary meetup: We’ll celebrate our 5th anniversary in November 2014. We’ll make sure to plan something special for that day!