Should you Accept Guest Posts?
May 16, 2009 by Allison Boyer
Filed under Jobs
If you’re a blogger, you may have already received a few guest post requests. Since guest posts are a great way to get your name out there to a specific audience, I highly recommend a few well-placed guests posts every year, especially if you’re new to blogging or online writing in general. It’s a much better way to fill your portfolio than to do cheap work or *gasp* work for free.
But with so many writers willing to do guest posts, it can be a little troublesome to decide whether or not to accept them. I have a few thoughts on this topic, and you may not agree…but I feel like I should share anyway.
If you’re a big-name blogger who ONLY posts guest posts, shame on you. I feel like my experience is cheapened when a blog I love starts being written, essentially, by other people. And yes, you’re sending traffic to that guest author’s blog, but unless you’re paying them, it’s almost as bad a asking people to work for you for free. Exposure or not, you’re making a lot of money off other people’s writing, and you aren’t sharing that money with them. At all. Again, exposure is great, but I’d rather have the cash, personally.
As a reader, when I visit your blog, I do so because I’m interested in what YOU have to say. If you don’t have time to blog, sell it, delete it, or, at the very least, change the scope. If you’re big enough in the blogging world to be able to fill your blog with guest posts, make it clear on your sidebar or on your site’s “about me” page that this is no longer your blog – it is a network of great articles or a community blog, in a sense. When I come to your site, I want to know what I’m getting. Most of all, I don’t want your face and name without your writing.
That’s not to say that I don’t think you shoudl accept guest posts at all. Some people have really good ideas, but don’t have a popular forum to voice them. If a guest post is super relevant to your readers, I think you should publish it. Along the same lines, I’m a fan of trading guest posts. I actually have a group of friends who I can contact if I’m going on vacation. They’ll guest post for me while I’m gone to keep my blog up and running, and I return the favor when they are out of town.
So yes, I do think that you should consider guest posts. I just don’t think they should overrun your blog. You should be able to delete every single guest post from your blog and still have a comprehensive website for your niche. Guest posts should be “bonuses” and accepting them doesn’t mean that you can/should post less yourself.
Image via Flickr.
I agree that blogs that only have guest posts can start to lose their “voice.” I am one of those writers who enjoys writing for other blogs, but I do not have a blog of my own. I could not imagine writing on any one subject for long – or managing to sustain an audience for the variety of subjects which I am interested in. By writing for others, I can get my name out while sharing my passions for French, poetry (and French poetry), taxes (yes, really), aquariums, knitting, pottery, absinthe, translation, and Irish (but not translation of Irish – yet).