Guest Blogging: Following Up On My Blog Guest

At the beginning of February, I shared with you “My Blog Guest,” a blogging venture started by Ann Smarty who is well known in SEO circles. At that time I had yet to welcome my first guest blogger, but since then I’ve published four articles across three sites and am about to approve or publish two more.

I won’t go into all the details about this terrific site; please read my earlier article and visit My Blog Guest to learn more. But what I will share with you today are some observations on how to work with guest bloggers, offering tips to help make this practice work well for your blogs.

Make A Plan – If you own one or more blogs, you may benefit from having a guest writer contribute unique material. Although I don’t need outside contributors I have found that some of my guest bloggers are regular readers anyway, so why not reward their loyalty by encouraging a guest post? Still, you may need to plan what type of articles you want to appear on your site—I enjoy contributions in areas where my expertise isn’t particularly strong.

Post Your Request – Though there are other guest blogging sites out there, I only belong to Ann’s site. So, I can’t speak about how the others work. With My Blog Guest you register with that site, create a profile and then put your request on the forum. You can also answer requests for guest bloggers to contribute your work elsewhere.

Do Your Homework – Once you post your request (be as detailed as possible) expect to receive several replies, some of which will be posted right online while others will be sent to you via private message. A few people may discover your email address and send a proposal directly to you. I always ask for samples of previously published work, a topic proposal and a general outline before proceeding. I then put out the parameters for the article—typically 400 to 750 words—and then wait until I receive a draft before taking the next step.

Carefully Review Contributions – I don’t want duplicate content so I check with Copyscape to make sure what is sent to me is unique. I also ask people not to use the article elsewhere after the fact as I want to keep what is published on my blogs unique. If someone wants to do a heavy rewrite and use it elsewhere that’s fine with me. I also will edit articles if something isn’t clear, but I usually don’t uphold AP Stylebook standards because we’re talking about blogs, not newspaper sites. Still, if something needs to be clarified or made more concise, I may rework it myself slightly.

Be Link Generous – I limit links to just two per article and I usually require those links to appear in the “author’s resource box” at the end of the article. But, if links are relevant to the article, then they are included. Moreover, I utilize StumbleUpon and Twitter to make sure that the articles get noticed and I’ll push it through other SEO channels if warranted.

Ultimately, I believe that guest articles are mutually beneficial to contributor and to blog owners alike, so I do what it takes to help everyone out.

Am I sold on guest blogging? You bet! Though I haven’t contributed to other blogs since last year, I expect when things slow down for me after tax season that I’ll make my own contributions here and there.

Guest blogging rocks and Ann Smarty’s site helps bring people together; a winning combination you may want to explore further.

Introducing Jet Venue, The Business Aviation Community

Well, I finally did it–I launched a new website.

Since I rolled out my very first website in 2002, I have typically created at least one, sometimes two or three new sites annually. But last year was different–I pulled everything back and maintained what I had. Yes, the sour economy meant that I needed to take a pause and pause I did.

Scaling Mountains

So why create a new website? Metaphorically speaking, I enjoy climbing mountains and conquering new lands. Through the development of new websites I gain the inspiration to do what I love to do which is to write.

My new website is called Jet Venue, but the domain isn’t new. I created it in September 2006 and operated it as a job board for business aviation professionals for a few months until I decided to go with a competing site. For the past three years the domain sat dormant as I pursued other interests, but my interest in aviation never died.

Perfect Timing?

The timing for starting this site probably couldn’t be any worse–business aviation is struggling mightily, the jobs just aren’t there and a lot of people are pursuing other lines of work. Then again, Jet Venue’s timing may be perfect: things cannot get worse, therefore this budding community may be on the leading edge of a widespread recovery.

I sure hope so–a lot of people have had a terrible time of it these past few years.

Jet Venue is of significance in that I have used WordPress as the content management system for the site. WordPress as you probably know is customizable and this site also includes a forum thanks to a nifty plug-in which enables that feature.  My previous shot at running a similar community was much more complicated than this arrangement so I’m relieved with its ease of use.

Jet Venue is a business aviation community and has been designed to appeal to corporate flight attendants, cockpit crew and maintenance crewmembers.  I may eventually expand the site to encompass other areas of interest, but for now I’m planning to maintain the site with this core group of people.

One thing I’ve already learned in the two short days since it was launched is that I know who my friends are. Several people have been spreading the word with no encouragement from me.  That makes my job so much easier and also helps me to focus on other things, namely building a better community.

Feel free to stop by and check Jet Venue out!