I’ll give it to you straight, right from the beginning. If you are a blog owner, this post might rock your world. If I seem snarky, well…I am. I’m frustrated. I think I speak on behalf of a great many guest bloggers.
Blog owners, please listen carefully.
Yes, you do us guest bloggers a great service by posting our articles. You help us increase awareness for our blog/brand/company/product/insert-applicable-noun-here. You help us with our SEO efforts. You make us feel all warm and fuzzy when we see our name in print.
But we do you a great service too.
And too often you forget that.
Where would your blog be without us?
If you run a very successful blog – or even several slightly successful blogs – you probably don’t have a lot of time left to actually write content. So, you turn to guest bloggers to help you out. And we graciously rise to the challenge.
Additionally, there are several of you bloggers out there who can’t write a proper sentence to save your lives. I know, because I regularly read things like this…
And this…
I know all blog owners don’t have poor grammar, punctuation issues, and spelling problems. But the great majority of you do. Or you would if you wrote your own content on a regular basis.
A caveat.
We are approaching the heart of the matter.
Before I get to the nitty-gritty of this article, let me say this: I know you don’t all behave this way. However, the great mistreatment inflicted upon us by some has left a negative impression of you all.
And, I will admit some of my fellow guest bloggers are pretty worthless. There are plenty of people out there who think they are worthy of contributing to any blog they want. They are ignorant of simple grammar guidelines and sentence structure. They fail to mind traditional blog formatting. Etc., etc., etc. But again, we aren’t all like that. And you shouldn’t assume we are. Some of us have more sense than the rest.
We play nice. Why can’t you?
You post guidelines. You spell out your rules. You are very specific about what you do and don’t want. You have expectations about everything from word count to text size to image width to number of how-to tips.
We follow your rules. We give you what you want. And you treat us like dirt.
I am a freelance writer. I have written about everything under the sun. I have been published on blogs much more important than yours. I have read just about every “XX Tips for Writing a Successful Guest Post” article on the internet. I have read just about every “XX Mistakes Guest Bloggers Make,” article out there.
Now it is your turn.
6 Ways to Encourage Guest Blogging, Treat Your Writers the Way They Deserve to be Treated and Make Your Blog a Better Place to Be
1. Don’t Be Misleading
Don’t share guest posting guidelines if you don’t plan to accept guest posts.
2. Be Specific About What You Want
When mentioning writing topics, don’t say something general like “tips for small business owners,” unless you want to receive posts about every business topic under the sun. If you want something specific, ask for it.
We don’t like it when we waste our time writing about a topic that should, according to you, fit your audience’s needs and then find out you don’t actually want it.
3. Reply to Emails in a Timely Fashion!
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Imagine this scenario. You used the “contact me” page on a website to send an email to a local business. You want a to use their service. Could they help you? You wait to hear back from them. After a week, you send your request again. You wait and wait. Finally, a month later, they replies. You would be annoyed, right? You wanted to do business with them. They advertised they were capable of providing the services you requested. Why did it take so long for them to acknowledge you?! Geeze, the entire process could be over by the time they decides to enter the ball game. That is no way to do business.
Why can’t we feel annoyed when you do the same thing to us? This is supposedly your business. Your passion. We want to do business with you. How does it reflect on you and your services if you ignore us? You have no idea who we are. We could be your best future client – but not if you ignore us.
We know you are busy. Everyone is busy. If you want to be a serious blogger, then you have to accept the responsibility that comes with it. And one of those responsibilities is replying to emails!
I read so many how-to guest blogging articles that say things like: don’t constantly harass me about the status of your article. Here is a thought. We wouldn’t harass you if you acknowledged our existence! Have an auto reply that says, “Thank you for your submission. We have a lot of requests from guest bloggers. If we are interested in posting your article, we will get back to you within two weeks. If, after two weeks, you haven’t heard from us, feel free to post your article elsewhere.” Done. That is all it takes.
You don’t have to be automated if you don’t want to. You could be sincere. That’s even better! If you don’t want our article, tell us. “Thanks, but I’m not interested right now.” Seven words. That is all it would take to make our lives easier and our dislike of you to be averted.
4. Tell us When You Post our Article
You make a big hoopla in your posting guidelines about only accepting original, unique content. When we wrote the article for you, it was original. But then you ignored our submission. After so long, we gave up on you. But instead of letting all that hard work go to waste, we gave the rejected article to someone else. But low and behold, you didn’t reject the article. You posted it. But you never told us. You have so much information on your site (congratulations, by the way!), we couldn’t find our article. But guess what. You now no longer have original content. You have duplicate content.
Whose fault is that?
5. Let us Know When We Have Comments
Again, all these “how to be the best guest blogger in the world” articles point fingers at our errors. Blog owners hate it when we become MIA after a post. However, like you, we are busy. We can’t stop by every one of our guest posts every day and check to see if they have comments. If you want us to comment, tell us when we have a comment. Do that automated thing so we get an email.
Most of us are more than happy to comment on my guest posts. In fact, we usually enjoy the accolades.
6. Don’t Mess With Our Stuff
Just like we always hated it when our little sister came in and messed with our stuff, we dislike it when you disturb our hard work.
I’m not talking about editing. Edit away. It’s your blog. Our writing reflects on you. You want everything on your site to make you look good. Understandable.
But if you tell us we can add links to our article, don’t take them out. That’s our bread and butter. And our own little bit of fame and glory.
Alright. I’m done ranting. Go ahead. Proceed to tell me all the reasons I’m overstepping the guest blogging etiquette boundaries. Do your worst. I can handle it.
By Guest Author – Jessica Velasco, a content writer for Subtle Network Design & Marketing, helps Clearwater SEO clients market their business online. While she (usually) loves her job, Jessica sometimes gets frustrated with unfriendly blog owners.
