Guest Posts: Should You Publish Them On Your Precious Website?

Short answer: Yes, if you're willing to manage it properly. Below I step you through how to I about it. Guest posts and content add-ons provided by other bloggers, merchants, etc. can be a great source of FREE content. Seriously Jon, are you actually suggesting that it's okay to publish guest posts on our precious sites? I am but you need to go about it the right way. Aren't guest posts the fodder reserved for sketchy SEO sites that are selling links? They are but it doesn't have to be. In fact, legit guest posting is alive and well. I've gone through periods where I published quite a bit of guest post submitted content. I still do it here and there. I've learned how to make this work. At the end of the day if you do it right you can get great content for free. Here's how to do it right. Screen for expertise and quality This is the main reason I accept guest posts these days. About once a week or a couple times per month I get pitched by some real experts. Often they own a company that sells stuff or services in my niche. An analogy would be a mechanic pitching submitting a guest post to an auto niche site. What auto website publisher wouldn't want to publish a free article from a mechanic (assuming it's good). I'd be happy to link out to a mechanic's website sourcing the expertise. I include their byline. It's a real win/win. This is the type of guest posting Google likes and is the reason Google hasn't totally clamped down on guest posting as a link building strategy. In a nutshell, if a guest submission isn't written by someone with clear expertise, I don't consider it. This filters out most of them. Provide clear guidelines If you reply to an expert's pitch for a guest post, provide clear guidelines. Set out: - Word count - Topics (more on this below under "Topic Agreement") - Style - You reserve the right to reject it if it's not up to snuff. ​ Any other content guidelines you have for your writers (or yourself). Be demanding. Be precise. In most cases they want the link more than you want the article. Topic agreement Often pitches include topic suggestions. If there's a good one, I go with that. If not, I reply and tell them what I want them to write about. I get this topic from my ever-ready handy list of keywords I have for all my sites. How many words should you request? As many as the topic requires. Some outfits whine and say they only have a budget for 750 words or some nonsense. If that's the case, it's some junior "SEO" hack running an outreach program. You don't want that content. If you're dealing with an expert or business owner who understands the niche, they won't balk at writing 1,800+ words on a topic that they know well. Should you publish only guest posts? That's up to you. If you get enough of them that are excellent, I see no reason it can't work out just fine. I've always focused on outsourcing and writing it myself viewing guest posts as supplementary. The main reason I don't do more it is managing guest posts in volume is a lot of management. Don't be afraid to ask for revisions or reject guest posts Be demanding. Be exacting. I'll repeat it... they want the link more than you want the article. If the article is not to your standard, ask for a revision. If it's junk and you know they will never deliver something worth publishing, tell them so. I have. I will again. Content add ons Another option is to ask for content add-ons such as these providers doing FAQs for you or another section to beef up existing content. I've done this as well. This often has wide appeal because they don't have to provide as many words and they get a link in an existing published page. What if they just want to be added to a round up or listicle? Suppose you have an article listing out "My 10 favorite automobile blogs" and a blogger asks to be added, should you add them? If they have a worthy blog, I reply "Yes, of course and thanks for bringing your site to our attention. Kindly provide me a 200 word write up about your site and what's special about it. Please do this in the third person." Yes, it's an easy link for them but it makes your article better. Some bloggers charge a lot of money for these placements, especially merchants for a top placement. I would actually sell that but I'd insist the link be nofollow and that a "Sponsored" notice be placed there. Should you contact experts inviting them to submit articles? I do. Actually I do this quite a bit for one niche site and it works great. Early on the acceptance rate was low but now that the site is a success, I get mostly "yes" responses. This can be a really great way to get a lot of expertise published on your site for free. I do it mostly for the images but it also comes with write-ups. You don't have to ask them to provide a full article. Instead, ask for a quote or a brief opinion. Cobble enough of these together from experts and you have a great article... but as you can see this takes quite a bit of managing and coordinating. Should you accept money for guest post placements? I can't answer this. I don't know. I don't. I never have. Maybe I'm naive. I know lots of publishers require some "admin fee" such as $20 to hundreds of dollars. I haven't gone there and have no plans to go there. It's probably impossible for Google to find out but the fact I use Gmail means Google is privy to these communications. I couldn't be bothered to set up some non-Gmail email. All I know is Google loathes paid links, probably because they're nearly impossible to detect and it's still a widespread practice. Let me be clear that I do not have a moral issue paying for links. For me it's a business decision to not accept payment for guest posts. I would have no qualms starting some site and attempting to rank for some valuable keyword by hammering it with paid links if I thought it would work. Jon Fatstacksblog.com ​ PAID ADS: Please note that this newsletter contains a PAID AD in it. It's a sponsored ad. It is marked with PAID AD above and END PAID AD at the bottom. It is NOT an endorsement by me or Fat Stacks. The advertiser paid to advertise in the spot. Get my bundle of blogging courses: => [Click here for EVERYTHING I know and do growing niche sites to $50K/mo.]() (the FAT STACKS Bundle) =>[My favorite blogging tools and software](​ ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS: Do you want to advertise in this "high engagement" email newsletter? [See the Media Kit here](). 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