If you have your own blog, then you may have already considered the prospect of accepting guest posts and how it could benefit your site. You aren’t alone in this as many blog owners or managers now reach out to guest writers as a way to add new and exciting content to their site without having to write it all themselves. The internet is full of guest blog posts that generate a lot of views and traffic, so you can see why so many blog owners are going down this route.
However, despite the many other benefits of guest posting, such as regular content, opening your blog to a wider audience, and helping you to build relationships with others within the industry, accepting guest posts can also have its downsides if certain rules aren’t adhered to.
It can be very easy to start accepting all kinds of guest posts onto your site, and before you know it you have lost the content and vibe that made your blog popular in the first place. Therefore, we thought we would provide you with some of the basic rules that we suggest you stick to when accepting guest posts on your site. By following these rules, you and your blog can benefit hugely from guest posting.
The Content Meets Clear Post Guidelines
If you want to ensure that your blog or site isn’t changed too much by accepting guest posting, then it is important that you have a clear set of post guidelines that you can provide to any writers that contact you. This is important whether you are approached by a guest writer, or you approach them. You need to know the sort of content that you want, otherwise, your blog may transform into a site with a range of random posts that none of your visitors are interested in. Instead, guest posts should complement the content that already exists on your blog and they should be just as useful to your visitors as your own content is. Ideally, the reader won’t be able to tell the difference between your post and a guest post.
Having a set of guidelines ready will not only save you time when discussing potential guest posts with writers, but it will also help to increase the quality of posts provided, as it will give much-needed guidance. While you will be able to search for post guidelines online and have hundreds of results comes back, your post guidelines should be unique and specific to your blog.
Link Policy
Most blogs and websites have different rules when it comes to their link policy, and while some sites, such as Huffington Post, allow guest writers to keep as many links as they like in their content, other sites remove all links completely. Therefore, it is important that you know what your link policy is and that you stick to it. The best advice we can give you is to allow as many links that are relevant to your reader.
The standard links that will feature in a guest post include a bio link (which takes the reader directly to the author’s social feed or website), and then around four additional links that provide the reader with more information on the content featured. You may decide to have a maximum or a minimum number of links that can be featured, but most importantly, your link policy should be concerned with how useful the links are to your readers. If the link isn’t useful, then we would recommend you remove it.
Authors Must Have Great Content
While you won’t have any problem finding writers who want to create guest posts for your site, you may struggle to find authors that have a good track record of creating great and interesting content. If your blog has previously only featured content written by you then you will likely already have an idea of what makes good and relevant content, and this should guide you when choosing authors to create content for you. Be sure to do your research on an author before you accept content from them, by googling them and finding some of their previous work. This is important as you want to make sure their content is high quality and that they aren’t pushing out spam and useless content across other sites.
Detailed and Unique Content
Similar to setting clear content guidelines and only accepting work from great content writers, it is important that you are strict when it comes to detailed and unique guest posts for your site. You should absolutely NEVER accept posts if you think that it doesn’t provide your readers with useful and detailed information. If your blog can’t provide your readers with something useful, then what encourages them to return to your site again? Nothing! So, accepting vague, fluffy, and standardized content is a quick way to lose readers and damage your site.
You should also watch out for great content writers that feature on a few different blogs that spin the same content. Even the best content is going to damage your blog if it also features on several other blogs across the internet. Duplicate content is never acceptable, so be sure to use tools such as Copyscape, which reveals any duplicate or articles that are too similar.
Be Picky
Don’t feel bad about being picky about the content that you accept on your blog. While guest posting can benefit both your site and the guest post author, if the content isn’t right, then it could quickly ruin the blog that you have worked so hard to create. You should also be strict when it comes to your ‘picky’ criteria and be consistent with your rules on guest posting, otherwise, your blog will start to be inconsistent and no longer useful to the reader.
By following the rules and tips we have provided for you, you can make the most of the guest posting opportunities that are out there and use them to grow and develop your site!