Bloggers generally agree that guest blogging is one of the best ways of creating exposure for yourself and your blog. You get your name out to a great number of potential visitors, you brand yourself as an expert in your field, you increase your traffic / RSS subscribers and it gives you good quality inbound link for SEO purposes. You also get comments from a new audience, get new ideas from their feedback and build relationship with the other blogger.
Joel Drapper: Right now though, I am finding it hard enough thinking of post ideas for my own blog. Let alone posting for others.
This comment got me thinking on how to decide what to give away as a guest post and what to keep for your own blog. Some “how to” blogs recommend to not give away your best work as a guest post. But I think that decreases your chance of getting your article approved by a popular blog and even if it is approved it might not create a lot of buzz and attention as it is not a very good quality article. This will result in a lower number of clicks to your site.
What do you think? Do you give out your best work to be published as a guest post on another blog? Or are you saving the best for your own blog? How do you choose what to offer as a guest blog post and what to publish on your own blog?
I posted the following question on Twitter earlier today:
HowToMakeMyBlog: When guest blogging: do you give the best material or do you make something up and save the best for yourself?
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I think it is imperative to give away good content. Why do it if your going to give away crap?
If you put up a lousy post on your own blog, you might annoy some people. But your loyal readers will forgive you. Put out a lousy guest post and you get nothing. Worse yet, you might spoil future guest posting opportunities.
Guest posting is all about promoting and networking. Think of it as a job interview between you and potential readers. You want to put your best stuff out there so you can reel ‘em in with the first post.
Equally important is to have a quality post on your front page when your guest spot goes up. Not that it is easy to come up with two solid posts at once.
It depends on the blog.
I try to have two different groups of blog posts. The core content that my blog is about, and then content that is related to my niche. Its similar to when your blogging during the prelaunch of an ebook. You do posts that give them a taster of the topic, but save the really good stuff for your book. Both the ebook and blog have quality content, but they compliment each other. Its similar to blog posts. I like to provide the same quality of content as I would on my own blog.
Theres about 60 subscribers to my own blog currently. There are 70′000 on Problogger. I know which audience I want to influence the most.
I find it goes far beyond the initial traffic. I recently reviewed an ebook on Problogger. I’ve had both authors thank me for the thorough review, and even commend me for how I handled the comments regarding the price. This was an instant way to network with both of them and open up even more opportunities.
I also intend to eventually freelance. I’ll be listing the sites I’ve guest posted for on my ‘hire me’ page. I’d hate to link to sub par content as part of my resume.
So, my tip? If you want to guest post, treat it as if you were getting paid. If you don’t have enough time, or would prefer to save the content, then focus on twitter instead. Every opportunity I’ve gotten is through one of those two resources.
Ahhh, to give anything other than your best is bogus, plain and simple.
If it’s going to have my name attached to it, I’m giving it the attention that it deserves.
Anyone who does otherwise needs to be taken out back and given a good old fashioned horse whuppin’.
George
Depends on the blog. Regardless, I say give your best anytime you do anything on the Internet. It only makes sense especially if you are a “Guest”. Great copy thanks for sharing.
Why does it need to be one or the other? If I was to post some really good content to another’s blog, I would of course revisit the material some time later for my own. I might update the info. I might come at it from a different angle or use different examples, but why use an idea only once? Even better, why not simulcast or split post?
The only quandary comes when releasing breaking news. I think I prefer to deliver a “scoop” on my own blog…but if I could get it out to 100,000 people instead of just a few, I don’t think I would hesitate to put it on a popular blog.
The answer is very simple in my opinion you want to write a bad ass guest post. There are several reasons for this, the main one being obviously you want the post to be approved by the blog owner but the other reason is because you are also guest posting to get your name out to a new audience. You want them to be so impressed with your post that they want to know more and or are curious what other great posts you have written or even better yet are compelled to visit your site and subscribe because they want to know what you will write in the future. Also it is more likely that you will be invited back to write future guest posts if you deliver over the top.
Whenever you are trying to promote yourself to a new audience, you always give your very best. As someone above noted, it the material is particularly juicy, you can alwys revisit it at some later time point. Particularly if your blog is on a very focused subject.
On the topic of consistency, I’ve always wonered what the best frequency for posts is. As I enter my sixth month of blog life, I’ve discovered that many of the things I want to write are just too involved for rapid-fire posts. At the very minimum, they will require a few days to research, compose and edit. Thus, the number of posts per week has dropped. In the same time, though, I think the actual value of the posts has increased. I’ve found that my traffic and readership have both increased.
Have others had similar experiences?
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Oak-Tree.us/Blog
Some very good points in here, thanks for all the comments!
@Rob Oakes – As “Man Overboard” mentioned, I would include some shorter and easier-to-digest articles in between your well-researched case-study posts or I would split the well-researched posts in several 300-500 word articles and publish them separately in a series of articles.
Rob,
Excellent points and kudos for taking the time to put together well researched posts.
If you are looking to maintain consistency and at the same time continue to put out the solid material, you might consider a “quickie” in between the well researched articles. These can be easy to write yet meaningful and useful content. Something like a famous quote, a review/expansion of an article on another blog, or a quick tip relevant to your niche. Keep it short. Keep it useful.
These can be helpful to keep your audience regular and at the same time you don’t have to worry about insulting your readers with ‘junkfood.’ It will also buy you time allowing you to put the effort into the longer articles without letting your blog stagnate.
Hey Marko, this post and the debate is interesting. Some people tend to write guest posts as they are writing for article directories. When I guest blog on my niche, I feel that I’m blogging for the same audience of another place and I have only one shot to impress them. So I try to bring the best out of me. Few weeks ago I wrote an article on blog A and another webmaster connected with me to be a guest on his blog.
Now the blog is even bigger and with more audience, meaning more opportunity for me; I got the offer just because I gave my best!
@Tamal Anwar – Nice story, thanks for sharing!
Always give your best. Once you put it out there it will always be out there!
I have a number of people from related industries that are welcome to post on my blog; as they are related to the theme of what I do I think that it will be of value to my readers.
There are situations when I do not wish to be the “authority” being quoted so I have adopted a video interview that I embed into the post.
That becomes a source for keywords and tweets.
Thank you for your thoughts.
David Pylyp