Have you been guest posting?
I’m sure until about three months back you would have been spending a lot of your time in writing guest posts in order to get back links to your website. Guest posting has been one of the biggest sources of getting back links to blogs. There were a lot of websites which were inviting guest Posts and in return offering to give a do-follow back links. This way the blog owner was getting their articles written and the author was getting a good back link from an authority website.
But all of this changed when Google decided to penalize people who were guest posting to build backlinks because they considered it as gaming the system. They penalized a very good and valuable service at MyBlogGuest and it looked like guest posting is going down the drains. That was not to be..
We internet marketers have a knack of picking us up again and starting all over without losing heart in spite of so many adversities that the Google Gods throw at us. And that is what we did with Guest Posting as well.
The objective of guest posting changed. It was no more a strategy to build backlinks. Instead it became a strategy to get traffic. This is in addition to many other benefits that we derive out of it as a by-product.
So, what has been your Guest Posting Strategy?
My Woes with accepting Guest Posts
At dkspeaks, I had been accepting Guest Posts for a long time. But since the last 9-10 months, the number of guest posts being accepted went down, primarily because of the low quality of posts that I was receiving.
When I review the penalty that Google imposed on guest blogging, it looks like the right thing to do. Offlate the playground had become dirty and people were getting into it with the sole objective of getting a backlink. The quality, the guidelines etc. all went for a toss.
Just take a look at the stats below –
- No. of Guest Posts I received in 2014 – 312
- Posts that were accepted – 17
- Posts that were rejected because of being SPUN articles – 83
- Posts that had little to no value in the article – 119
- Posts that were not originals – 108
Now, imagine the efforts that I might have had to put into reviewing each of these articles. I am not too much into outsourcing, when it comes to this blog of mine. But I had to take the services of a couple of people to help me in reviewing these posts. While my initial thought was that they would accept most of the posts that went to them because they would not be bothered too much into the quality, I was surprised to see that they were the ones who found the duplicate articles and SPUN articles.
I normally spend about 15 minutes on an average reviewing an article that comes to me. Imagine the time I lost in reviewing these posts. I could have spent that time of writing a few posts or, even working on a product launch.
I am not surprised at the fact that a lot of bloggers these days, just plainly reject guest post pitches from people they don’t know.. thanks to all the crap that is out there in the guest posting world.
Guest Blogging Plans for 2015
So, with all of that pain that I had to go through in 2014, what should be my plan of action for 2015. I had initially thought of not accepting guest posts at all even if that meant, I had to write all of the content myself. But then I felt it would not be the right thing to do. Of all the posts that I had to reject in 2014, I also got some very nice posts from some very good authors.
Why shouldn’t they be given a chance?
That’s where I decided on putting together my plans for 2015.
I will be accepting guest posts for DKSPEAKS.COM, strictly following the guidelines that I have put up there. I also decided on adding a twist to the entire guest posting plan.
So here is what you can expect.
- Guest Posts will have to strictly be more than 600 words. Anything lesser will not be accepted.
- Posts have to be accompanied with at least one image that is legal to use.
- Only posts that are formatted the right way, using H2, H3 tags will be accepted.
- Generic articles like what is internet marketing, what is blogging etc. will not be accepted.
So that should cut down on some of the useless articles that I receive and it will make my life easier and at the same time give my readers something valuable to read and share.
In 2015, I will also be following a set schedule to publish guest posts.. Guest posts will be published only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This is if there is a queue.
The Guest Posting Incentive
This is another addition to my plans for 2015. There are so many good writers who write with only one objective in mind. It is to produce good content for a newer audience.
So it made perfect sense to incentivize those good writers.
Of all the guest posts that we receive, we will pick the best quality ones and select upto 2 posts per month who will then be paid anywhere between $10 – $25, depending upon the quality of the article, the value add and on the social signals that these articles receive. Social sharing and signals, though is not a compulsory criteria.
In case you wish to know more about our guest posting guidelines, you can read it at our write for us page..
Looking forward to see some nice articles coming in as guest posts..
