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Guest Blogging… for Dummies??

  • by Rachel
  • November 6th, 2008

Why would you want to publish someone else’s thoughts and words on your site? Why would you want to blog on another site? What advantages does this have? How do you approach another blogger about this? And once I do guest blog on another site, should I post the information to my site as well?

I recently have delved into the world of guest blogging. Just yesterday, I was approached by a fellow blogger to write a guest post for their blog. The above questions came rushing through my mind at lightning speed. I found that I had to do a little research in order to complete the task at hand… guest blogging.

First off, when I was asked to write a guest post, I immediately visited the site to do a little bit of research. In my opinion, an informed blogger is a good blogger. I wanted to know what the site was about, what kind of content they would be looking for, and who makes up their readership base. Once I had these bases covered, I decided that I could confidently accept the offer. But, not only did I accept, I asked the person to reciprocate with a post of their own for AverageGal.

There are many benefits to guest blogging. By guest blogging, you are able to reach a more diverse audience and capture readers that may not have visited your site otherwise. This is added exposure that you desperately need when starting out or trying to grow your readership. In turn, having guest bloggers on your site give you the chance to showcase others’ work and expand your readers’ knowledge. Also, having a guest blog gives you a breather from writing. It’s a great way to break up your work week.

As I mentioned in my article, “Love Google, Hate Google… Who Cares, Copy Them!”, I stated that you should make several contacts prior to approaching another person to ask for something. This concept also applies to asking another blogger to guest blog on your site. It’s best to establish a relationship to make sure your interests and intentions coincide.

Lastly, once you have the final guest post all written up, make sure that you do NOT post the exact same post on your site. This is bad for SEO. Having the same article on several (or 2) sites hurts your search engine optimization. You could however, write up a little summary of your article and direct your readers to the other blog. I’m sure that the the other blog owner would appreciate that as well!

As you can see, guest blogging certainly isn’t for dummies! It’s a smart move and can be beneficial in so many ways! You can check out my recent guest post on Tumblemoose Productions.

Any other questions or suggestions regarding guest blogging? Have you asked someone to guest blog yet? Have you ever been a guest blogger?

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16 Comments »

Comment by Webdesi3

Hi Rachel!
Your request for me to write a guest post has started an influx of request on my Blog! Thank you, and I haven’t you, I plan on getting to work on it this weekend.Do you have any ideas that you’d like me to write about, or will I just go with it? :)

 
Comment by Rachel

@Webdesi3:
I trust that you’ll come up with something good :) Whatever you’d like to share that would be beneficial to the readers. Thanks again!

 
Comment by Tumblemoose

Hi Rachel. True words for sure.

I’m glad to see that Webdesi3 will be guest posting here. She is a frequent commenter at Tumblemoose and she always has insightful, real comments to add to the discussion. I look forward to her post.

Cheers

George

 
Comment by Lindsay

Congrats on your guest blog post for Tumblemoose!

I’ve done a couple guest blog posts for my writing blog and have gotten some traffic from the experience. Also, you can never have too many links pointing to your site. ;)

It can also be beneficial to allow guest bloggers on your site, too, since it means you can get out of writing content for that day, hah.

 
Comment by FixThePig

I think that guest blogging is both fun and a great marketing tool. I’m always open to guest blogging and love to write for others blogs as well. Thanks for the great tips AverageGal!

 
Comment by savage

i create my blog for dummy, i like blog

 
Comment by Webdesi3

@Tumblemoose:
Thanks George! I have to get cracking on this post so, don’t want to dissapoint:)

 
Comment by Jeremy Day

Hi Rachel,

I found you through Tumblemoose. I see you are off to a roaring start. Congrats on jumping into fulltime blogging. If you get serious about it and treat it like a business you will go far.
Also wanted you to know that I setup a guest posting system for anyone interested in writing a guest post on my site. I would love it if you wrote a guest post on my site. Let me know if you are interested.
And if there is anything else you need help with let me know. ;-)

Cheers,
Jeremy

 
Comment by BloggerNewbie

Hi Rachel

Having a guest blogger and being a guest blogger sounds like fun in both scenarios. I’m going over to Tumblemoose to check you out ! And I’ll definitely be back to check out Webdesigner! Great ideas!

 
Comment by Maria

This is great info on guest blogging, thanks for explaining the ins and outs. Fun stuff!

 
Comment by Rachel
 
Comment by Rachel

@Jeremy Day:
Thanks! Setting up a guest post system is a GREAT idea! I’m sure that you get a lot of requests from others who want to post on your site! I’d love to write a guest post for you! Let me know what you’d like it to be about :)

 
Comment by SmallBizBee

Guest blogging is a great way to expose your readers to new ideas and viewpoints. Sometimes guest bloggers write the same content you would, but what is nice is that it is from a different “voice” and as a result adds some variety to your blog.

Keep up the good work here!
Matt
http://smallbizbee.com

 
Comment by Mr. I

Well, I have not been guest blogger. I will try to write some posts to promote my blog though!

 
Comment by Debo Hobo

I am suppose to be completing a guest post for someone else’s blog, but I can’t think of a thing to write about. UGH!!!

 

Good post, and great tips on guest posting, I too recently wrote a couple of guest posts and it was great a nerve racking at the same time.

 
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