I’ve been seeing advice all over popular blogs about the benefits of guest blogging. Everyone seems to agree (and rightly so) that it’s a good strategy to get traffic, and more than that, name recognition.
But looking at the latest Problogger poll, the majority of Problogger readers haven’t written any guest posts. This is interesting to me, because that is the group of people I would most expect to be active guest bloggers—they know the benefits and have the motivation of growing a blog and going pro.
Some of the comments on that post hint at the reasons for not guest posting, and I’m curious to find out more specifics, so if you’re not guest posting, I’d love it if you’d take this quick poll.
Have any other thoughts on guest blogging? Leave a comment!
I completed the poll, the reason I’m not guest blogging is because I like to keep my best content on my own blog. I don’t control other people’s blogs, I don’t control how they’re designed or how they represent my personal brand, so it’s a huge risk for me to spend time to generate content for someone else’s site since 1) they own it, 2) they own the content on it, and 3) they are the only ones who make money from it. I was a contributor to Think Vitamin for awhile and my articles got hundreds of comments and tens of thousands of pageviews, but there was no direct benefit for me. Few of those people came to own blog, subscribed to my Twitter, etc., so the value was all centrally located at Think Vitamin’s site. I enjoyed writing over there, but I received no direct value from it.
Guest blogging is great if you’re new to blogging and trying to boost the recognition of your personal brand, but I’ve been blogging since 2003, been on Twitter since 2006, been going to conferences and getting my name out there, so now I’m most interested in building my personal brand in locations I control fully. Everyone’s situation is different, but I’ve found that most people who write on other people’s blogs are still trying to build their personal brand rather than maintain & grow it.
The possible reasons I listed is:
1. Don’t know who and how to contact someone.
2. Not sure what to write for them
I don’t mind writing my best in a guest post which will attract people to my site.
I am actually just starting a blog, and I’ve never even considered guest blogging until know. This might be something to look into down the road. Thanks for the post.
I got an invite via twitter to guestblog for the National Canine Cancer Foundation and jumped at the chance. I invited them to do the same for me – so far they haven’t used my post yet. My blog is brand new and so far I have not gotten many readers. (Before this WP blog I blogged for 2 years with Typepad – a few regular followers but mostly random) I’m trying to comment on other related blogs, but no action yet. Any suggestions appreciated!
I dont have more tıme so I don’t think I’d get much benefit ,ıthing its enough
I love to blog. But I don’t know where to start to find places to guest blog. My experience lies within digital advertising including, search, display affiliate and email. If you have any tips of how to notch up guest posts I would really appreciate it. Do you think blog owners would appreciate direct contact?