If you're thinking about making your blog a 'guest post friendly' platform, there are a few things you should know first. In this post, we're going to take a look at the disadvantages of accepting guest posts on your blog. But don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom. We'll go over one some of the benefits too.
I’m sure by now you’ve heard of the many benefits of publishing guest content on your blog.
You haven't? Well, OK, let's quickly go through some of them.
Accepting guest posts is a great way to add variety and a whole new perspective to your blog when it comes down to content.
There's no other practical way to diversify your blog content than to invite bloggers and experts to come and share their knowledge and insights with your readers.
In addition to adding value to your blog, letting the right people come and write for you is a great way to free up some of your time so that you can perhaps focus your energy on other areas of your blog development and marketing.
For the individual doing guest blogging, there are many benefits to be gained. Guest posting is still very much an effective strategy for doing blog and content promotion.
Generally, guest posting should be part of every blogger's content marketing strategy.
I’m all for writing guest posts too. And, while I don't do as much of it as I used to, I still love writing a great piece of content from time to time to share on one of my favorite guest blogging sites.
For many bloggers, guest writing has been a huge part of their brand promotion strategy.
Through guest posting, bloggers have demonstrated their knowledge and expertise to a whole new audience, and of course, this has helped them drive new traffic and grow their own readership.
However, there are some folks STILL doing guest blogging completely the wrong way.
Be honest with yourself:
If you're still using guest blogging to primarily improve your SEO. It's probably not as effective as it used to be.
In addition, most blog owners are pretty savvy and cautious about what kind of content and the kind of external links they will allow in guest posts.
If you're not yet accepting guest posts on your blog but would like to start, I urge you to read the rest of this article.
I don't want to put you off from making your blog guest post friendly; I only want to give you some guidance and make you aware of some of the disadvantages of using this strategy to add more content to your blog.
As I mentioned earlier, guest posts are great for diversifying and bringing new ideas to your readers.
However, if you're not careful or don't set proper submission guidelines, for example, accepting guest posts can and probably will ruin your blog’s credibility quickly.
I know this because this was one of the mistakes I made many years ago with my first blog when I decided to accept guest posts.
Posting poor-quality guest content on your blog can turn away your loyal readers, and you really don't want that to happen.
Your blog’s credibility will always be at stake each time you publish, what YOU THINK might be, a quality piece of guest content.
So, with that said, let's look at some of the disadvantages of using guest content for your blog.
One of the main problems with accepting guest post submissions is that a lot of what you will receive, won't necessarily be what you expect. Especially when it comes to relevance and quality.
Magnet4Blogging is open for guest posts; you would never know it. That's because we rarely publish the guest post submissions we receive for consideration.
I'm not saying this because I'm a snobby guy or anything like that, lol. I'm saying it because the majority of what we receive is not always relevant. And if it is applicable, it's either poor in quality.
Even to this day, we get several dozen guest post submissions each week. Sadly, most of which we can't publish. So even if you do have a great set of guidelines like we do, you're still going to get spammy requests.
Some folks view a quality guest post in a totally different way, each to their own, I guess. When I think of a quality piece of content, I usually envision one on a relevant topic that has been carefully researched.
I imagine a post that has been well written and formatted. I imagine a piece of content that identifies a problem and aims to solve that problem for anyone reading it. I don't really care if it's a topic already written about before on our blog because it's nice to get a different perspective sometimes.
So, for me, a quality guest post speaks quality. It's not always about quantity either. Now, just think carefully and ask yourself how many guest posts like that do you think you’re going to receive regularly?
Not very many, right?
This is why you need to have a rock-solid guest blogging editorial guidelines page on your blog. A page stating clearly what it is you expect from your guest writers.
Check out this page for inspiration on creating your own, but please don't copy mine. Even if you do get requests about guest blogging, you can save time writing a detailed email each time simply by pointing folks in the direction of your guest blogging guidelines page.
The other disadvantage with accepting guest posts is that you’re almost always going to get folks who want to break the rules.
I've experienced this many times in the past, and guess what? I'm still experiencing it today.
The one rule they usually want to break is this one:
Can we please have a do-follow backlink to our client website? And yes, we know the website is completely irrelevant!
That really annoys me.
As Kulwant Nagi once wrote in a guest post published here some time ago: “There should be one rule for all guest bloggers, every single time…”. Rules are meant to be broken, so the saying goes, and some guest bloggers will want to do just that.
- Kulwant Nagi (BloggingCage.com)
You have to stand by your rules, if someone is persistent in wanting to not follow the rules, then you simply have to deny them the opportunity to guest post on your blog.
I know what you're thinking!
Guest post and what? What on earth is that?
Let me explain:
Some guest bloggers will submit a reasonably good guest post. They'll also agree with your submission guidelines and promise to fulfill their part in helping to promote the post once it is 'Live' for the world to see. But, for some strange reason, they seem to vanish without a trace.
When I say vanish, they don't respond to emails, they don't show up on your blog to respond to comments or be there to answer essential questions, etc.
After making initial contact with you and showing great interest in submitting their guest post, you just don’t hear from them ever again after you publish that guest post.
I call these kinds of guest bloggers 'guest blog and vanish' bloggers.
How to deal with bloggers that disappear and don't respond to comments or help to promote their guest post?
In situations like the one mentioned above, how I deal with such guest writers is to strip the links away from their guest author bio and content. How you deal with them is entirely up to you. You can remove the content or claim it as your own. Just some ideas for you to consider.
Again, going back to guest posts 'quality, some bloggers will try and sneak a piece of rehashed or spun out content for you to publish.
A rehashed or spun piece of content is simply a watered-down version of something that has already been produced and published elsewhere online.
"But, Fabrizio, surely that's called repurposing content, is it not?"
I guess, but I don't think it's the same as repurposing content.
A repurposed piece of content usually happens when a different medium is used. I.e., turning a blog post into a video or podcast episode.
All that said, rehashed content is not all that bad, it just means the guest post or topic is not unique for your blog. This can also mean that the post will be competing against other versions of it when it comes to SEO and traffic.
If you are worried about publishing rehashed, spun, or duplicated content on your blog from guest authors, use Copyscape.
Not to say that a 6-year old can't write good content! My eight-year-old daughter is amazing at writing short stories, so I know.
Here's the thing:
The quality of guest posts is one thing, but what do you do when you receive guest posts that look like they’ve been written by a child?
And by that I mean, a post with a ton of spelling errors, appalling grammar, typos of every kind and poor use of punctuation!
I'm sure you can find a few in this post or even on this blog. My point is that you don't want to spend too much time fixing guest posts.
It takes a lot of time to go through and make those posts good. The time that you don't have because you're busy trying to build your blog.
All of the issues I've mentioned above are massively time-consuming.
Accepting guest posts on your blog might be beneficial to your audience. It might help to give you some extra time back to work on other areas of your blog.
However...
If you've got to dedicate time to making sure everything works the way it should as far as guest blogging goes, then that's a waste of time, in my opinion.
So…
I want to ask you, if you are currently accepting guest posts on your blog right now, how much additional work are you having to do to ensure that all guest bloggers are playing by the rules?
Or, how much time are you spending reading, editing, approving, and rejecting guest posts, contacting guest authors, replying to comments and questions left for the guest writers, and so forth?
I imagine it takes a lot of your time, right?
Just some things to consider, whether you are thinking about or are already accepting guest posts on your blog. Whatever you decide, I want to wish you the best of luck.
Thanks for reading.
