5 Things To Consider When Guest Blogging

What is the latest trend on the blogosphere? Of course, it is contest guest blogging! Many bloggers now either guest post on other people's blogs or are requesting others to guest post on theirs. The recent increased interest in guest blogging prompted me to write this post. I will not be going into the advantages or disadvantages of guest blogging here, because I am sure, if done appropriately, guest blogging will only benefit and never harm you. Instead, I will like to remind bloggers who are considering guest posting to take the following 5 things into consideration when deciding to guest post on someone else's blogs:

1) Editing by blog owner
As we all know, it is very important for guest blogger to project the right image on the first impression. The audience that you are trying to impress is not that of your own, you are performing magic on other people's land, and you will want to perform it right the first time around to attract some readers to your own blog. Therefore, before guest posting on other people's blog, make sure to confirm with blog owner that editing of the article submitted will be minimal. You certainly don't wish to have your article edited so much, that its original meaning and intents are distorted. If this happens, not only will you give the wrong image to the readers, you might even be associated with unpleasant names, and mind you, this reputation might haunt you forever! You might be denied a second chance to guest post at other blogs if you have a bad reputation.

2) Credit where it is due
Guest posting will usually benefit both the blog owner and guest poster. Keeping that in mind, guest posters should at least demand from the blog owners to credit them at the beginning or end of the article. You deserve that much! Some blog owners even pay guest bloggers to write on their blogs. Remember, ask for credit, include a link to your own blog if you have one (otherwise leave your email), and even promote your own feed in your guest post, just bargain and confirm with blog owners which of those are allowed. I would say that the minimum standard is a credit line with a link back to author's site.

3) Backlink
You may think that this item is similar to the second one above, but really, it is not! Blog owners may easily agree to give you credit to the guest post as well as a backlink to your own blog, but take care to ask whether the link will be NoFollow or DoFollow. Usually, NoFollow links are used in the comment section, but they are now also being used in some paid reviews. As for guest post, I believe the blog owner have nothing to lose by providing a DoFollow link, they most probably won't be penalized by search engine companies like Google because a guest post link is not a paid post! However, some blog owners are stubborn and will insist on their policies, so you better ask before you submit. If at all possible, always demand a DoFollow link because it will help you in the ranking of your site (be it Google pagerank, Alexa or even Technorati rank...).

4) Affiliate link
While most blog owners do not mind giving you a backlink in your guest post, they might not allow an affiliate link. What is an affiliate link? It is a link to promote a certain product, while at the same time earning you certain benefits like points or commissions. If you are guest posting for an internet marketing blog, it is probably only right to promote an internet-based product, and naturally many of those products have affiliate systems, and you have a lot to lose if you are not allowed to post your affiliate link there! This is because according to standard guest posting agreement, you are not allowed to publish the same post on anywhere else, not even your own blog, in that case, how else could you promote your affiliate products? So it is better to ask explicitly whether affiliate link is allowed, better be safe than to be sorry. In the worst case scenario, if you intend to publish your guest post at someone's blog regardless of whether an affiliate link is allowed, you have to at least make sure that the blog owner do not put in his affiliate link for the same product on your guest post (unlikely, but who knows? call me paranoia but there's a lot to gain from a good affiliate program).

5) Copyright and ownership of the guest post
This issue is rather complicated and I do not really have the expertise to tell you whether you have full ownership of your guest post which is published on another blog. However, I believe that there should be mutual understanding between blog owner and guest blogger that:

• Author of the post is responsible for his opinion in the post
• The same article should not be published by the author on anywhere else
• Blog owner is not supposed to alter or modify the post and resubmit it anywhere else

Usually we do not ask explicitly for the blog owner to adhere to these agreements but eventually if you article is copied, you might have to take certain actions like giving warning to those who copy it, asking them to remove the copied article, asking them to give credit to you as the original author and so on.

Well, there goes the 5 things which you have to be cautious about when you are guest blogging. Unfortunately there are indeed risks and certain shortcomings involved with guest blogging, but done carefully, the benefits will certainly outweigh the disadvantages, especially in the long run! Happy Guest Blogging :D

Do you have any other problems with guest blogging? What are other considerations you make when you guest blog? If you have any opinion about guest blogging at all, we want to hear about it, please leave your comment here. Thank you in advance :)

Socialize It →

Tweet

Subscribe Us by Email and Get Free Updates

Other Interesting Posts :