Yesterday, we published a blog post about Guest Blogging as an effective way of earning popularity by Pratik Dholakiya, and I share it on our Facebook page, you can find it on this link. Today, I found a comment by Jim Syyap saying he don’t do guest blogging.
Jim added a link to a blog post explains 5 reasons why he don’t do guest blogging, and why he actually don’t bother!
Jim, I read your post and I wanted to comment on it, but I didn’t because I felt to write a lot, the comment won’t really hold what I want to say, so I wrote this post! I knew your reasons, and I am sorry to say that I don’t agree with you at all, none of your 5 reasons seems to be valid to me, and here is why…
[box type=”note”]This post express my own personal opinion, it explains my point of view, so don’t take it personal, even the title is not meant to attack anyone, really![/box]
1- My voice has to blend in with theirs
This is not really the way it is, I don’t see how someone will force you to blend in your own voice to theirs when guest blogging.
As a Guest Host, I am seeking a new blood, I need someone who can write what I can not write about and think in a different way that I never thought of! This means You as a guest blogger are absolutely free to write with your own voice, your ideas, your words.
I remember once that a few blog readers thought I am open for everyone to guest posting with no firewall, and as a result they saw a lot of crap has been published on the blog, probably they didn’t realize that the idea here was giving a space to everyone to present their own voice, or actually to find their own voice!
I see you agree with this when you said:
One reason why people will choose to follow your blog is to see the world from a different perspective.
This is actually an important reason why you should guest blog! And, that’s why I think there is a conflict between your reason and opinion.
2- SEO experts claim that guest blogging will benefit my blog
SEO experts claim that guest blogging will benefit my blog because of spill-over traffic.
They don’t claim it, this is a fact my friend!
However, I think the main point of guest blogging is not really about traffic, it’s more about engagement!
But this dosn’t mean guest blogging won’t bring you traffic, in fact I know a lot of bloggers who were unknown before they start to guest blog and get their best content published on other blogs. And, please pay attention to this, you won’t get a lot of traffic by publishing a couple of guest posts, you will need to do a lot of guest posting to achieve this goal.
So let me tell you this, If you want to be a popular blogger, there is no easier way than dedicate one month of your work for guest blogging, writing 20 or 30 quality blog posts then submit them to popular blogs, and watch your dream come true!
But, before you do that, make sure that you actually have something worth on your blog, you don’t want you blog visitor to forget about you for ever from the first visit, you actually want them to love you, and keep visiting back, and turn them into a regular readers!
Are you aware of article marketing? (please watch the video) There are some issues in article marketing, that’s why SEOs thoughts about replacement, which is guess blogging! I am sure that every Guest Host know about this… There are thousands of dollars paid every month for SEOs, marketers, and link builders who convince bloggers to get their posts published in a try to promote their clients.
While dealing with guest bloggers, I personally reject many of those who pretend to be bloggers! I prefer to help out bloggers who actually promoting their own blogs or businesses.
When was the last time you clicked on a guest blogger’s bio after reading their article?
Ok, I can answer that with another question, what makes someone check your bio?
You see, I do a lot of work here on the blog trying to enhance the way guest bloggers are presented. But, this responsibility is a share between me and the author! Authors has to first of all write a good post, and secondly… Engage!
I mean how you expect that someone will check an author Bio if the post is full of crap!
Without good content and engagement, how come you expect someone to look into your Bio and check who you are?!
And, guess what?
There are a lot of other guest posting hidden benefits that you probably haven’t notice!
Most of these are here on FamousBloggers.net, so not every blog really cares for this, and that’s why they don’t succeed on attracting more bloggers to write for them, but I do!
- You are allowed to add a few links into the post buddy as long as it’s relevant to the topic and not forced in the content, these are good for SEO!
- The other thing is you got your Bio where you can have more links, even use your best keywords!
- For every comment you add on the blog, you can get two other backlinks to your blog and recent posts of yours.
- There is the author archive page which has a list of your posts, and also extra backlinks straight to your blog.
- Also, there is a Great Pens widget on sidebar which gives another backlink to every author here!
- Your post will be shared 10s of times on social media sites and networks.
- It will be submitted to social bookmarking sites.
- You will have a chance to get even more shares and links to your blog, and we will even recommend you to our readers for a very long time!
So, if the visitos missed your post links, they won’t miss your Bio links, engagement in the comments, or the Great Pens widget links!
You know? All these can lead to traffic with time, especially if posts are ranked high in search engines, which is the case for many of the posts on FamousBloggers.net
3- Blogging for someone else, adding value to their brands
Blogging for someone else, you are adding to their brand value with very little return to yours.
“I wrote for so-and-so” other writers will claim. They think that by writing for a famous brand, that popularity will somehow rub off on theirs.
It doesn’t work that way. It is still someone else’s brand they are promoting. I would rather be patient planting seeds on my own garden, thank you.
This sounds old way of thinking, I mean why you spend time on social media adding stuff and commenting here and there?
What could be better, a valuable comment on a Facebook post, or blog post?
I know this looks off topic, but it’s not!
To prove my point, let’s think about it, when you add a valuable comment on social media, it will disappear with time, it will be so hard to find. But, a comment on a blog post is more appreciated by the blog owner, that’s why it will be there all the time for people to read it and even interact with it. The same thing goes to guest blogging, I mean why we limit the way we think about things, it’s so clear that guest blogging can drive traffic in the long term, you know why?
Simply because when you choose a blog to guest blog for, you want to make sure that blog has more authority than yours, which means your ability to rank your blog post is higher than if you publish it on your own blog, or then you shouldn’t be interesting on doing it on the first place!
Ok, let’s think in a different way… The other side’s opinion!
Actually, I don’t think that any guest blogger can add a big value to an already established blog with huge authority!
I think that I should charge guest authors for the value they get by publishing their posts on my blog!
4- You don’t need to Write for Others if you have a well established Brand!
Once you get what building a brand is all about, you will NEVER write for someone else for the rest of your life.
Allow me to tell you about Danny Iny, he did what I am talking about above (I actually learn from him), and I have no doubt that Danny was having more authority and popularity than me, even before publishing his book, the Engagement from Scratch.
So, why Danny guest blog?
Danny did a fantastic engagement with other bloggers to actually write the book, then he did its marketing via guest blogging, he did 10s of blog posts for other blogs, that’s how he succeeded (in my opinion)!
Here are other people’s that I see doing same thing, and I see they are super successful:
- Leo Widrich , co-founder of BufferApp.com
- Tammy Kahn Fennell , co-founder of MarketMeSuite.com
- Gregory Ciotti , founder of SparringMind.com
P.S. See how those people get extra promotion and mentions?! That’s what you will get when you write for other blogs!
5- If I am good enough to write for someone else, why should I?
If I am good enough to write for someone else, why should I?
I think you should know the answer by now!
Finally,
Just like you! I share my opinion, and I know that anyone can live without guest blogging, but the only issue is that you will be missing a lot of good things!
I admit it, I am guilty not to guest blog on other blogs more often, I hope this post will remind me, I also hope this will change at least 10% of what You think of guest posting, or then…
You go plant your seeds, while I enjoy my plate that is full of fruits!