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.

Guest Bloggers Now Have An Ally

How many of you write guest articles for other blogs or websites? I must admit I have written only two guest posts in the past year. I’ve been so busy working on my own projects that I have not put much effort into soliciting other blogs to offer my contributions.

But that may soon change.

Thanks to a new site launched in November 2009—My Blog Guest—I may be doing some more guest writing. The more immediate plan, however, is that I will begin to allow people to  contribute to four of my blogs, opening up this site, Auto Trends, and a pair of customer owned blogs.

Ann Smarty started My Blog Guest, someone whose name should be familiar to people who run with the SEO crowd. I am not sure how long I’ve been following Ann, but I remember finding links to her articles on Sphinn–the internet marketing site–which launched in 2007.

Last week I found a wonderful guest article Ann wrote and contributed to Daily Writing Tips where she explained how people can find guest writing opportunities. Though that article was immensely helpful and encouraged me to tweak some of the information on my blogs to attract guest bloggers, the best part is that Ann founded My Blog Guest as a way to bring like-minded people together.

My Blog Guest serves to connect people who would like to write guest posts as well as help bloggers find these people. By joining the site you can search for bloggers by tag or category or go to the forum and find direct solicitations. One forum is dedicated to help you find guest bloggers, another one allows you to post your information, while there are three other sections set up for introducing yourself to the community, asking for help, and general chat.

So why guest post? For several reasons including getting your name out there and gaining one or two backlinks to your site. Sure, the latter can be exploited therefore make sure that you and your guest have everything understood clearly before proceeding. If you are looking for a guest blogger you will want someone who writes well, contributes unique work, and can add value to your site.

That last requirement is why I haven’t used too many guest bloggers on my customer’s two blogs as the quality of most posts did not measure up. Naturally, that is one reason why you will want to see samples of the blogger’s work first.

My Blog Guest is all about unpaid opportunities, so if you are looking for paid freelance work, then you will need to look elsewhere.