I get 3-5 guest post requests per day, and while they all sound very promising, I delete them without spending too much time, and I will explain below why.
Guest posting is a good way to promote your work on other websites and gain recognition, traffic, and exposure. Unfortunately, like other good things on the web, it is over-abused by spammers and ‘SEO consultants’ and used solely for link-building purposes.
I have a clear view of guest posting, and I had to learn the hard way that guest posting is not only for links; there are many more benefits to having your work published on other trusted websites.
To save you time and effort and to answer a comment from Prat in this post, I will explain below the basic concepts behind guest posting (advantages, disadvantages, criteria for guest blogging on your blog, and what to do before publishing a guest post) and also provide an answer as to whether you should accept guest posts on your blog or not.
What are the characteristics of a good guest post?
By a ‘good guest post,’ we mean content you can safely publish on your blog (if you choose to do so). Such a post should satisfy the criteria below:
- It is related to the content already published on the hosting website
- It is unique both in title, text, and meaning
- It is written by an expert in a particular field
- It is written specifically (and will only be published) on the particular website
- It includes detailed and accurate information
- It does not include keyword in-text links
- All links in the article carry the no-follow tag
Advantages of accepting guest posts on your blog
Are there any advantages for you as a publisher from hosting a guest post on your blog? Provided that the post meets ALL the above guidelines, by accepting guest posts, you can benefit from the following advantages:
- A different voice, opinion, or view about a subject - This is a good opportunity to present a different opinion about your niche or introduce something new to your readers that you cannot cover yourself.
- Free content for your blog - Although I don’t like this term, it's free content for your blog if it is a ‘good post’.
- More time to do other tasks - Publishing a guest post occasionally can free up some time to do other tasks, or why not for pleasure!
- More social media exposure - Normally, the guest author promotes his/her article on social media, and your website will essentially get promoted as well.
Disadvantages of accepting guest posts on your blog
On the other hand, accepting guest posts on your blog, it’s a great way to:
- Lose readers - If your visitors are coming to read content published by you because they consider you an expert, and instead, they continually get to see content published by others, this may drive them away.
- Get link penalties - If you don’t have very strict guest post guidelines and you get carried away by ‘offering links for free content,’ you will either get a penalty and lose your rankings or lose the ‘trust’ of your website in the eyes of Google, which is worse.
Set strict criteria for quality guest posting
In addition to the above characteristics of a ‘good guest post’ and to ensure that you will benefit from the advantages and not suffer from the disadvantages, you must set very strict criteria before accepting any guest post. For example, these are the criteria I am using:
- Don’t allow text links within the body of the article
- Don’t allow keyword-stuffed links in the author's bio
- Allow for only one link in the author's bio
- Guest posts should be over 1500 words
- Allow guest posts from authors who have strong social media profiles (at least Facebook and Twitter)
You may think that with all the above criteria, no one will be willing to contribute a post. Maybe this is true, but you don’t want to take any risks, so it's better to be strict and safe than lenient and risky.
What do you do before publishing a guest post?
Assuming all the above conditions are met, and you decide to accept a guest post, you need to do the following before publishing it:
- Check for uniqueness - Use a plagiarism detection tool (I use Copyscape Pro) to ensure the content is 100% unique. In addition, search the title on Google and read any similar articles to make sure that the meaning is also unique and not just the setup of the words. In other words, check that it is not a rephrase of some other article.
- Beautify the text, add images, etc. - Don’t forget your SEO. Before publishing any text, you need to add correct headings (H1 and H2), make small paragraphs, add relevant image(s) with ALT text, add a unique description, etc.
- Do some internal linking - Internal linking is good for SEO, so try adding links to your existing articles.
- Don’t call it a guest post – You don’t have to call it a guest post. There is no reason to do that. Even if you do, it is not the end of the World, but since you already have the author bio at the end of the post, you don’t need to add unnecessary information and confuse the search engines without any valid reason.
Should you accept guest posts on your blog?
Now that you know all the pros and cons and the prerequisites of a quality guest post, you can safely make your own decision without taking any unnecessary risks.
I do not even read guest post requests that are automated or based on some template because I know from advance that their purpose is to get a link back from my website and not offer any real value to my users.
The best way to approach someone and ask to publish your post is not by sending a pre-defined email but by building connections on social media and pitching your idea when the time is right. I know it is hard and time-consuming, but the benefits of traffic and recognition are far more important than a link in the author bio.
Finally, if you choose to accept guest posts on your blog, do not always do it. Make sure that guest posts are used to enrich your publishing strategy and not to overtake it. In other words, you still need to publish your own content, and between the publishing dates, you can also throw a guest article.
