There are quite some instructions available for those who are looking to write a guest post, for example, the post must be unique, the content should be of good quality, the wannabe guest authors should get in touch with ideas, and get his/her outline approved before jotting down the article, the guest posts must have more than 500, 600 or even 700 words, and once the post gets published, the guest authors must follow up by responding to the comments, and so on.
Do I have an issue with any of these instructions? Not really.
Except for … so many guidelines for the guest authors, but what about the bloggers who get to publish these articles on their blogs? There must be some decorum that they should follow; after all, they are getting some free and unique content for their blogs?
And even though they have every right to dictate the guest authors, it’s only ethical to return the favor by being gracious instead of acting like a high and mighty editor-in-chief of some magazine. True that you are providing an opportunity to the guest authors to gain exposure and more importantly back links, but you are getting some excellent content in return. To be honest, when we put it all together, some of the best content in blog sphere is made up of guest posts.
Avoiding the following hiccups will make guest blogging a more delightful experience for authors who are looking to contribute and they will be coming back with more guest posts. There’s no reason why the wannabe guest bloggers should feel like a high school kid waiting for his result sheet, when they have sent a guest post and are waiting for an answer.
So here’s (with all due respect) a list of what you should Not do as a blog owner…
1. Not acknowledging the submission and responding:
If nothing, you can at least have an automated response that confirms the submission or receipt of the email while informing the contributor that you will be reviewing the article and getting back soon. At times, it happens that you send a post to some reputable blog and then you are made to wait for ages to get even the acknowledgement. At times, one has to send another email to ask if they have got the first one. Some might state excessive submissions and all that as the reason, but then there are some very popular blogs accepting guest posts where you will get the first response in a jiffy.
2. Not reviewing in a timely manner and letting the author’s know:
When someone writes and send an article for your blog, they at least deserve a quick approval or rejection so that they can try at another Blog. Nobody minds waiting for 3 – 4 weeks or more for their turn to get published but when you are made to wait for weeks even before you can get a nod of approval, it can become quite irritating. It doesn’t take much to scan through a post and decide if it is a good fit for your blog. The author will gladly wait for weeks after you’ve given them the nod of approval, but you shouldn’t make them wait for weeks and then tell them to take their post elsewhere.
Also, you must give them a date when you are planning to publish. Most bloggers do, but a couple of times, when I ask for an estimated date, I get a stern reply like “you will know when it goes live” … now, how congenial is that?
3. Editing to the extent of spoiling their individuality:
A guest post is meant to be an outsider’s opinion, and just because it’s going live on your blog, doesn’t mean it should be in tune with your own style, views, likes, or dislikes. A guest post is actually a welcome change in the overall tone of your Blog, that otherwise can get a little too dull. But some blog owners would do the editing to the extent that the original post loses its zest. You can’t obviously allow someone to use profane language or ignite a controversy, but there’s nothing wrong in allowing a unique opinion or dialect, especially when you’ve clearly mentioned that it is a guest post.
4. Not having a write for us page:
Having a detailed write for us page will save you and wannabe guest authors a lot of time, that otherwise will be wasted in sending and replying the basic queries like “do you accept guest posts”. Apart from mentioning that you do, you can use this page to note down basic requirements to let others know exactly what is accepted and what’s not. Also remember to link this page from your homepage so that the interested guest contributors (and the search engines) can easily find it.
5. Not giving any reason for the rejection:
At times, you might receive articles, which are good but still you won’t be able to use them for various reasons, maybe because you’ve already covered the topic in a recent post, or maybe because you aren’t accepting guest posts at the moment. It’s your blog and you can choose not to post any article for whatever reason, but it is only gracious if you can give a reason, and more importantly a little encouragement, especially if the post was good (you can thrash the spammers for all you want). Even worse is, when you accept a guest post and later refuse while giving a reason that doesn’t make any sense.
These are all problems that I have personally faced, but I am sure there must be many more issues that others guest bloggers have faced. Let’s give blog owners a taste of their own medicine ;), and share some “dos and don’ts” for those who are looking for guest authors.
Natasha is an Internet Marketing expert by profession, and currently, she’s working for sell my timeshare and cancel my timeshare.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by jonathan.youngblood
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Jon
I think that the most important consideration for a writer is to know that some publishers are at best thieves who want free content for their websites and give you nothing in return. I have come across some that remove links after publishing, hoping that I would not notice. Some sneak in nofollow links too and blame editors, SEOs, CMS' etc. for changing the links.
So my tip – always check your articles. Make it a monthly checkup to go through everything you have had published to ensure that everything is still in order.
Oh, the other thing is some publishers will dilute your links by adding 20 of their own plus advertising links, which vastly reduces the effectiveness of an article, both in terms of click throughs and SEO.
Ann Smarty
Thanks for the comment, Jon. Sadly, there are really publishers like you describe.
That was the reason why we have set up automatic check-ups of all published articles in MyBlogGuest. If the links are removed or nofollowed, the author gets an email alert.
awiserstart
I got a few more. Posting you want a guest blog but not even giving your email and asking to go get the email in a convoluted site with no clear email posted. Not giving good author byline specs, not notifying the author of the post URL so they can promote it as well. There is alot of help me, help me, but forget about me helping you out there.
I would love to see an article from on how to research the person who is offering the guest blogger and guidelines for accepting them. How do you know they will be good for you in terms of the benefits of posting in their site (expected referred traffic, eyeballs on the article, etc). Do you have a calculator to examine these possibilities? I have been thinking of coming up with one but I really need someone like you to advice what is for example the average traffic for a decent blog that will start helping you with some traffic referrals? What is a reasonable amount of links in your byline? Beyond the traffic to their blog how else can you measure influence (I am not a very firm believer in Klout, is there another measure?)?, etc.
Ann Smarty
It is really SO hard to predict. I've been burnt once when one of the most reputable bloggers suddenly starting to ask for money to keep the link in my byline.
You can't really do without jerks in any industry. And when it comes to the Internet-based business, it gets even worse, because you come across SO MANY people daily – many of them are, well, "weird"…
As for your questions:
What is the average traffic for a decent blog that will start helping you with some traffic referrals? –
– > Hard to say. I've been guest posting at some of the most powerful blogs in the niche (like Mashable, SEJ, Social Media Examiner etc). Sometimes the traffic is great. Sometimes I am getting just a few visits.
What is a reasonable amount of links in your byline? –
-> 2
Beyond the traffic to their blog how else can you measure influence?
-> Is there actually any way to?
Geoff Jackson
I don't really understand why there is a cap to only allow two external links per article – not all of us are soley thinking about search engines when producing content and I for one will sometimes link out to as many times as I feel necessary within an article if it provides additional resources, citations and usefulness to the reader.
If this is clearly mentioned in the notes within the article gallery then it's down to the publisher on whether they wish to publish content with more than two links – it's their blog, their disgression – it's not going to blow their blog up if they have more than two external links on a page. Looking at some of the largest, high traffic blogs on the web, often, they will link out numerous times within one piece (providing it's of substantial content).
I do agree there should not be an excessive amount of links in the author byline, this isn't what I'm referring to.
Richard
As mentioned above, I think it is important, as a guest blogger, to research who you are writing your guest blog articles for.
I have written a few and being burnt already – with blog owners removing my links, not publishing the article at all, and a few other problems.
I now only write for blogs that already have other guest blog articles which appear to be untampered with – i.e. still have a couple links back to the authors site, and don't have heaps (any) of the blog owners own links within the articles.
Cheers
Richard
Jon
Yeah, I now do quite a thorough analysis of a page, pretty much a mini SEO audit, usability test and quality check before picking a guest blog. Generally results are good though, just a couple of bad eggs out there.
awiserstart
Thank you Ann for your response. I was thinking of tools such as Hubspot grader, do you know of more services such as those? To accept smartly, one must know the true value of the blog. I have not been doing that I must admit, but now that I am getting more requests I think I may need to start doing it!
awiserstart
lol just noticed, no pun intended with the use of the word smartly!
Peter Bowerman
No offense, Ann, but this post is in need of some serious editing/proofreading… First line: "There are quite some instructions available for those who are looking to write a guest post…" ??
And that's the beginning of a run-on sentence that takes up just about the entire paragraph… And a lot of other speed-bumps after that.
I'm a professional copywriter by trade, and things like this just stick out like a neon sign. You no doubt have a TON on your plate, but stuff like this makes a difference… Just thought you should know!
PB
Aurelia
Nice article, and very useful for me…
thank you for sharing… waiting your next article
@AbundantJourney
One thing I do not understand is people who just plop their post and move on never to return. When I place a post on a site, I promote it, I respond to comments, I engage because, after all, isn't the whole purpose of guest posting to expand your reach and get to know more people who may in turn want to get to know you (become valuable followers to your own site).
@bradshorr
The comment about proofreading errors in this post brings up another subject. I need to get better at clarifying who is responsible for editing my guest posts. I'm writing thousands of words every week, mostly without the benefit of an editor. My assumption, a poor one, has been that the publisher of my post will do at least a bit of editing. When that doesn't happen, it irritates me to no end, because commenters will call you on every error, which right or wrong distracts from whatever the point is I'm trying to communicate.